Photographer Barbara Diener's The Rocket's Red Glare Untangles a Convoluted History

As teenagers in the 1920s, a time when space travel was limited to science fiction novels, Wernher von Braun in Germany and Jack Parsons in Pasadena, CA shared an intercontinental rocket science correspondence. Talking for hours on the phone, they exchanged ideas, tips, and notes from experiments on everything from explosions to home-engineered rocket fuel tests. Into adulthood, they went on separate paths.

In 1932, Braun began working for the German Army just before the country fell under Nazi rule, and Parsons quickly severed ties. Parsons made significant contributions to the development of rocket fuel and was part of the famous rocket building Suicide Squad at CalTech, but was later written out of much of NASA's history because of his involvement with Aleister Crowley's occult religion. Meanwhile, the US government recruited Braun who later developed the Saturn V rocket for NASA

Barbara Diener’s The Rocket’s Red Glare combines found photographs and other archival materials from the period with her own photographs to create a meandering alternative narrative of the two scientists' work and relationship. Aerials of rocket testing sites volley with portraits of male and female actors Diener hired to stand in for Parsons, as well as (glasses required) 3D photographs of martian landscapes. Diener’s nonlinear mix of old and new creates a disjointed yet effective story of a period in history to which most viewers are likely unaware.

Intrigued and confused, I spoke with Diener to dig through her strange historical revision.

Jon Feinstein in conversation with Barbara Diener