About The Book
Wernher von Braun was a man with star dust in his eyes, and blood on his hands. In his last thirty years he was an American citizen who built rockets for NASA, machines which landed men on the moon in 1969. But in his first thirty years he was a German citizen, who wore an SS uniform and built ballistic missiles for the military of Nazi Germany.
Depravity’s Rainbow uses this improbable life story as a way to explore the equally contradictory history of space exploration, and the way that militaristic and expansionist aims have often been dressed in a cloak of peaceful civilian science. Pre-war and post-war lives are juxtaposed in a narrative arc shaped like the parabola of a ballistic missile, and through this the problematic histories, moral ambiguities, and Faustian pacts of von Braun’s life, and of space exploration in general, are laid bare. Lewis Bush
Gallery 01
The remains of the primary V-2 test site at Peenemünde. On 20th June 1944 a V-2 built by slave labourers at Mittelwerke and launched from here became the first man made object to reach space.
In the final years of the war the V-2 development site is subjected to repeated bombing raids by the RAF and USAAF. Part of the aim of these raids is to kill members of the rocket development team, however the labour camp at Trassenheide is also hit, killing around 700 forced labourers.
Kummersdorf, Brandenburg Germany – Von Braun receives sponsorship from the German army to develop bigger rockets, moving to attest range south of Berlin. He continues to work on developing military rockets after the rise of the Nazis to power in 1933.
President John F. Kennedy meets von Braun at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center during a two day inspection tour. The following day President Kennedy delivers a speech to a crowd of 35,000 gathered at Rice Stadium in Houston, Texas, effectively launching the race to land men on the Moon.
About The Artist
Lewis Bush is a photographer, writer and researcher. Since 2012 his practice has explored issues ranging from the aggressive redevelopment of London, to the systemic inequalities of the art world. Recent works include Shadows of the State, which examines the democratic deficit of intelligence gathering, and Metropole, which uncovers the damaging effects of international property development.
He is currently a PhD candidate at the London School of Economics, department of Media and Communications where he is researching the implications of computer vision and machine intelligence on photojournalism.
Gallery 02
Mittlewerke, Nordhausen Germany – A surviving section of the underground factory where the V-2 was built. The complex was dynamited by the Red Army at the end of the war, and later re-opened as a memorial site.
A British police officer inspects the remains of a V-2 engine following a rocket attack on London.
Peenemünde, Usedom Germany – The Nazi government invest increasingly massive sums of money into rocket development, and von Braun and his team move to a new purpose built development facility at a remote location on Germany’s Baltic coast.
Saturn V rocket number SA-506 launches from Kennedy Space Center, Florida marking the start of the Apollo 11 lunar landing mission.
Specifics
Lewis Bush: Depravity’s Rainbow published by Disphotic Editions in 2023 // 20×25 cm // 250 pages // Hardback case binding // Edition of 800. Available here.
