Diana Thater's 'Science, Fiction' video installation explores dung beetle navigation and celestial imagery

Diana Thater's 2014 video installation 'Science, Fiction' presents a two-part exploration of celestial navigation and biological adaptation. The work incorporates research showing that Scarabaeus satyrus dung beetles use the Milky Way for orientation, a discovery made by South African biologists testing the insects in the Johannesburg Planetarium. Thater's installation features two nine-screen arrays titled 'The Starry Messenger' and 'Sidereus Nuncius', referencing Galileo's astronomical treatise, which display footage of the night sky from the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles. These projections capture the rotation of celestial bodies around the planetarium's stationary star projector, evoking science-fiction film aesthetics. A separate room-sized box emits yellow light while projecting close-up footage of dung beetles onto the ceiling, creating an inversion of expected spatial relationships. The installation's blue-quasi-black lighting attempts to replicate dusk conditions. The work engages with Light and Space artistic traditions from the 1960s while examining connections between astronomical phenomena and biological navigation systems. Published in March 2015, the installation raises questions about humanity's relationship to celestial observation and environmental illumination.