Barbara Diener
“The stars will never be won by little minds; we must be as big as space itself.”
Robert A. Heinlein, Double Star, 1956
Robert Heinlein’s poetic quote could easily describe Wernher von Braun and Jack Parsons. The engineers - one German, one American - were obsessed with rocketry and blessed with the big thinking that ushered humans beyond Earth’s boundaries in the post-World War II era. But, their biographies are complicated: von Braun was a Nazi, and Parsons was cult member. While the former’s wartime affiliations were scrubbed from NASA’s illustrious institutional history in order to highlight his contributions to the American space race effort, the latter was written out the same history altogether.
Since 2018, Chicago-based photographer Barbara Diener has nurtured a similar passion for the two enigmatic rocket scientists. The Rocket’s Red Glare speculatively reunites the former telephone correspondents, mapping their lives and the selective retelling of significant historical events in which one was elevated, and the other minimized. Diener’s intensive, research-based work is also a personal reckoning with her German heritage and the ever-rippling psychological effect of the war’s humanitarian catastrophe.
Our interview, which started with a Zoom studio visit and continued via email, takes up the origin of this work and how the complicated narratives of two long-dead scientists shapes her photographic practice.
Born in 1982 in Germany, Barbara Diener received her Bachelor of Fine Art in Photography from the California College of the Arts and Masters in Fine Art in Photography from Columbia College Chicago.
Her work has been exhibited at both national and international venues including the Griffin Museum of Photography, Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, New Mexico Museum of Art, and Pingyao Photo Festival, China. Currently, she is the Collection Manager in the Department of Photography and Media at the Art Institute of Chicago and teaches photography at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Barbara Diener, Holding Missile, Peenemünde, 1940/2019
Interview by Roula Seikaly
Who are Wernher von Braun and Jack Parsons, and why are you interested in their personal and professional histories?
Wernher von Braun began working for the German army in 1932, which fell under National Socialist rule the following year. Accounts of when he joined the Nazi party vary, but he served as the technical director of the Army Rocket Center in Peenemünde, where he lead the development of the V2 rocket (Vengeance Weapon 2). After the war, von Braun was brought to the U.S. under the controversial Operation Paperclip, a government initiative to secure and extract German scientists, and went on to play a major role in the development of the Saturn V and putting the first man on the moon.
Jack Parsons was born and raised in Pasadena, CA, where he went on to spearhead the self-proclaimed “Suicide Squad”, a group of CalTech students, who shared Parsons love for rocketry. The project eventually morphed into the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), which conducted the first rocket tests in the Arroyo Seco and were soon after commissioned by the U.S. Army Air Corps to develop “jet-assisted take-off” rockets. In 1942 Parsons co-founded the rocket and missile manufacturer Aerojet but was bought out in 1944 and his affiliations with military and government projects were terminated. Parsons died tragically in 1952 from fatal injuries after a presumed accidental explosion in his home laboratory.
My interest in von Braun stems from my personal reckoning with history and my complicated German heritage surrounding World War II. I was born and raised in Germany to an American mother and a German father. The latter, who passed away in 2007, was a young boy during World War II. It was hard for him to talk about the war and therefore unclear to me how my family fit into that historical moment. As far as I know, my grandfather and uncle did not join the Nazi Party but both fought in the war for Germany. My uncle was 18 when he was wounded at the end of the war and died of his injuries.
While researching a previous project, Phantom Power, Jack Parsons became a figure of interest because of his ties to the occult. Parsons grew increasingly involved with the Los Angeles chapter of the Ordo Templi Orientis and he opened up his home, the Parsonage, to an eclectic cast of characters. I became completely obsessed with his character and started seeing connections between him and von Braun: a larger-than-life personality, the desire for space exploration, and that large parts of their biographies were omitted by government agencies to further a certain agenda. In addition, it turns out, they were actually in touch with each other when they were both teenagers in the 1920s, sharing notes about their homemade explosives and model rocket tests.
Barbara Diener, Rocket Test, Mojave Desert, 1942/2019
Barbara Diener, Magick Lies Over the Hill, 2018
The Rocket's Red Glare includes composite photographs. Can you describe how these images are produced, and why that process is central to this project?
My research process included spending a lot of time sifting through historical photographs in both the Wernher von Braun Archive in Huntsville, Alabama and the archive at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. Some photographs were just such incredible images that I instantly knew I wanted to use them in some way. Incorporating historical images into my project also helped me question photography’s role in depicting and disseminating the truth, and, in turn, passing along historical facts.
To create some of the works for The Rocket's Red Glare, I re-photographed and scanned photos and documents, as well as superimposed archival images found in both archives with my own photographs. With these pieces, I am merging time and place.
As you work on this project, do you have a better sense of who von Braun and Parsons were? Is it important that you demystify them and their legacies? If so, why?
I have learned a lot about their biographical facts but what continues to fascinate me about both men is that there are still many unknowns. I am not demystifying them but rather taking the viewer on a journey with me to discover bits and pieces of their accomplishments and questionable actions alike.
Barbara Diener, “Suicide Squad,” Arroyo Seco, Pasadena, CA, 1936/2019
Barbara Diener, Sandbags, Huntsville, AL, 1940/2019
You reference an interest in place, religion, spirituality, and the spectral in earlier projects. Are those elements present in The Rocket's Red Glare? If so, how do you signal that for viewing audiences?
Those elements certainly continue to be of interest to me, and religion and spirituality played a significant role in both Wernher von Braun’s and Jack Parsons’ lives. Wernher von Braun was a non-practicing Lutheran before being transplanted to Texas where he converted and became a devout Evangelical Christian. Jack Parsons became the leader of the Los Angeles chapter of Thelema, an occult movement founded by Aleister Crowley.
As the project currently stands, I am not overtly including religious elements but the titles for some of the more allegorical images are taken from an untitled poem that Parsons wrote. These titles, for example, Magick Lies Over the Hill and May I Twice be Damned, do reference Parsons involvement with the occult.
"The rocket's red glare" is a potent phrase culled from Francis Scott Key's The Star-Spangled Banner, one that evokes intense patriotism in many Americans. Did the hyper political partisanship that shaped the previous four years, and the present moment, affect your process or production?
When choosing the title for this project I was thinking about the time in which the Star-Spangled Banner was written—almost a century before von Braun and Parsons were born. In 1814, rockets were only smaller missiles, and envisioning space travel was still far from any reality. The rockets von Braun developed were used as missiles and spacecraft alike and Parsons’ contribution to jet propulsion was funded and utilized by the military during WWII, as well.
I would not say that our political moment necessarily affected my process or production directly but it crystalized and validated my intent for this project—questioning who writes history, how events are perceived at the moment in relation to how they’re remembered, and recognizing that facts can be skewed and the implicit dangers that accompany that realization.
To me, that “The rocket’s red glare” evokes patriotism signals von Braun’s assimilation into American culture and the fact that he received a second chance in the States and went on to be celebrated by the American people for decades.
Barbara Diener, Nazi May Day Celebration, 1938/2019
Barbara Diener, Endeavour, 2019
Has the Perseverance mission to Mars and a heightened cultural interest in NASA programs affected this series?
Yes, it certainly confirmed that even though I am looking at historical moments 50+ years in the past, this is still very much in the zeitgeist. It was very exciting to photograph Perseverance as it was being built at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. This was pre-pandemic but to me the bunny-suits and masks that the engineers wore eerily foreshadowed 2020. The fact that the rover was still completed and launched during the pandemic is a highly inspiring feat to me.
SpaceX has also celebrated incredible accomplishments this past year with their spacecraft Dragon being the first American vessel to transport astronauts to the International Space Station since 2011. They were just awarded the NASA contract to take astronauts back to the moon, which will be the first time since 1972.
For a while now I have been thinking about adding Elon Musk as a third prong to this project. He does not fit in exactly, the government is not trying to hide anything about him, but he certainly fits the bill of an eccentric, egocentric, genius, rocket-making, workaholic who is perceived as quite controversial.
While this reinvigorated interest in NASA and space exploration is positive and provides much-needed hope, just as was the case in 1969, I have to question the role of race and the lack of equity and inclusion in the space program. SpaceX’s Dragon launched, with two white male astronauts on board, five days after George Floyd was murdered last year. They just embarked on another trip to the ISS with four astronauts, two white men, one white woman, and one Japanese man, the week after Daunte White was killed and Derek Chauvin was found guilty of George Floyd's death.
The space race was contemporaneous with the civil rights movement and leaders of the latter rightfully questioned the use of funding towards space exploration when underserved, minority communities needed help. These concerns are just as valid today.
Barbara Diener, Fuel Test, Peenemünde, 1939/2019
If von Braun and Parsons represent two points on a psychological triangle, are you the third point? If so, how does that sit with you as a maker?
I am not sure if I would describe myself as the third point on that triangle. I prefer to view this psychological triangle from the outside, so maybe someone like Elon Musk would actually be a fitting third point. As a maker, I am bringing some awareness about these men to viewers that might have never heard of them, I am complicating their stories by drawing attention to some lesser-known aspects of their lives, eg. through the ephemera in the Wernher von Braun Archive, but I am also very comfortable employing my own interpretation of the subject matter through my composites and subjective decisions on what to include/exclude.
Barbara Diener, Shock and Vibration Symposium, 1949/2019
Barbara Diener, Saturn V, Huntsville, AL, 2019
Barbara Diener, Dome Over the 100inch Telescope, Mount Wilson Observatory, California, 2018
