Category Archives: Transhuman News

Sydney Chandler will lead a new Alien TV series for FX. (Invision/AP/Fox)

Seemingly not content with scaring us in the darkness of a cinema, one of the most chilling science fiction franchises is heading for the small screen in the upcoming Alien TV series.

Thats not to say that the Xenomorph that gooey horror icon which was first introduced in Ridley Scotts 1979 sci-fi masterpiece Alien isnt still going to be hiding in your local multiplex. A brand new Alien movie is also currently in the works under the directorial eye of 2013's Evil Dead filmmaker Fede lvarez.

Currently titled Alien: Romulus, itll star a host of newcomers led by Mare of East Town actress Cailee Spaeny and will be produced by franchise starter Scott.

Read more: Alien: Romulus: Release date, cast, plot of Fede lvarezs Alien movie

That's scheduled for release on 16 August, 2024 but while we wait for it to arrive, news has started to trickle in regarding the upcoming Alien TV series thats also in the works.

Read on to get up to speed on everything we know about it so far, including its plot, cast, release date and more.

We know that the upcoming Alien TV series is currently in production and when its finished, itll debut on FX, with a UK-based distributor yet to be confirmed, although FX shows such as The Bear generally air on Disney+ here.

Also unconfirmed is the shows official air date. However, as its production gets underway (after the SAG/WGA-AFTRA strike ends), we should hopefully get a clearer idea of when to expect this new franchise addition.

Led by Fargo showrunner Noah Hawley, the new Alien TV series will reportedly take place before the events of Sigourney Weavers encounters with Xenomorphs in the primary Alien franchise which began with Scotts Alien in '79 and lasted until Jean-Pierre Jeunets Alien: Ressurection in 1997.

We also know that the show will stay local, becoming the first Alien story to take place right here on Earth albeit 70 years into the future.

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Speaking to Esquire, Hawley spilled a few more details about what he has in store with his new Alien series by saying: Its set on Earth of the future. At this moment, I describe that as Edison versus Westinghouse versus Tesla.

"Someones going to monopolise electricity. We just dont know which one it is.

"In the movies, we have this Weyland-Yutani Corporation, which is clearly also developing artificial intelligence, he added, referencing the company that frequently represents the big human baddie in most Alien movies. But what if there are other companies trying to look at immortality in a different way?

With cyborg enhancements or transhuman downloads? Which of those technologies is going to win? Its ultimately a classic science fiction question: does humanity deserve to survive?

FX chairman John Landgraf echoed these statements whilst also hitting home that the series wont cross paths with Lt. Ripley. Alien takes place before Ripley. Its the first story that takes place in the Alien franchise on Earth, he told Deadline.

So, it takes place on our planet. Right near the end of this century, were in so 70-odd years from now. Ripley wont be a part of it or any of the other characters of Alien other than the alien itself.

While remaining tight-lipped on any other juicy details, Landgraf did promise big surprises for long-time fans of the Alien franchise.

Back in May 2023, it was revealed that Sydney Chandler, star of Danny Boyles FX show Pistol, will lead the Alien TV series in an as-yet-unconfirmed role. Chandler has also appeared in Olivia Wildes Dont Worry Darling and will feature in AppleTV+s upcoming Sugar series starring Colin Farrell.

For a long while, Chandler was the only cast member confirmed to star in the show until Alex Lawther and Samuel Blenkin were announced in late July 2023.

Both have appeared in episodes of Black Mirror, with Lawther also making waves via his appearance in The End of the F***ing World and Blenkin appearing in the most recent slew of episodes of Charlie Brookers dystopian anthology series.

Read more: Alien 3: Ralph Brown shares chaotic experience on David Finchers troubled sequel

Unlike Chandler, both of these characters have names, with Lawther set to play a young soldier named CJ and Blenkin starring as a CEO named Boy Kavalier. How exactly each of them will fit into the wider story of the show remains to be seen.

The duo were joined by a handful of other cast member confirmations, including The Babadook star Essie Davis as a character named Dame Silvia and The White Tiger actor Adarsh Gourav appearing as Slightly.

The series is currently in production in Thailand, despite the ongoing SAG/WGA-AFTRA strike currently impacting shoots worldwide. To get around this, the show is reportedly capturing sequences that do not involve SAG actors.

Unfortunately not. With the show only recently entering production, it might be a while before we see any footage from FXs Alien TV series.

The Alien TV series is coming soon to FX.

Read the original here:
Alien TV series: Plot, cast, release date and everything we know - Yahoo Lifestyle UK

Above: The Ecstasy of Saint Francis of Assisi by Bartolom Esteban Murillo (16171682)

This series of articles is the product of one interest and one concern. My interest, as a student of philosophy, is to serve a wider Catholic audience by demystifying philosophical schools and isms that are relevant to modern Catholic history. Phenomenology, for instance, in the minds of many traditionally-minded Catholics, tends to conjure up suspicious associations with modernist trends. Nevertheless, phenomenology deserves to be understood, considering its influence on Dietrich von Hildebrand, William Marra and other of Traditionalisms founders.

My second motivation for writingmy concernis that Catholics are often tempted by a simplistic narrative that the Second Vatican Council was a totally unaccountable break from what preceded, as if Pope Johns legendary Un concilio! had been a purely spontaneous (and malign) inspiration. On the contrary, both the council, and the progressivism that profited from the councils ambiguity, were anticipated by years of ecclesial and intellectual controversy. (Consider, for example, that in 1933 Dom Martin Michler celebrated a versus populum dialogue Mass for students in Brazil.) My hope is to deepen the Traditionalist understanding of our own position by situating the council in its historical-philosophical context.

Interpreting history through philosophical trends can be a vanity project. It is tempting to want to play Hercule Poirot, re-assembling history as an inevitable causal chain of ideas and events. In truth, bad ideas require bad hands to yield bad fruit, and good ideas are never good enough to thwart sin. Nevertheless, while we acknowledge human moral agency, neither can we deny the instrumental role of ideas. Sinners require instruments; and philosophy, like language or technology, is a powerful instrument for good or ill.

My first discussions will focus on voluntarism, nominalism, and the 16th century Thomistic renaissance. These will involve two historic points of departure: the mid-to-late 13th century and the mid-to-late 16th.

St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Bonaventure both died in 1274. Duns Scotus was active in the latter half of that century, and William of Ockham, the protg of nominalism, was born in 1287. Typically conceived as the golden age of Catholic consensus, the 13th century actually witnessed considerable tensions in thought.

The 16th century, in turn, was a frenetic period of Catholic intellectual developments, of heresy and ecclesial politics. In key respects, it represented the practical applicationcultural, political and scientificof 13th century academic debates. Spains University of Salamanca led a Thomistic revival, beginning in 1524 under the Dominican Francisco de Vitoria. Scholars of the Salamanca School developed Aquinas natural law theory into political theories of international law, spurred by heated debates about Spains colonial empire. In 1517 Martin Luther published his 95 Theses, prompting Pope Paul III to convene the Council of Trent in 1545.

With this historical context in mind, lets turn to voluntarism, beginning in 1209, with the origin of a new religious order: the Franciscans.

St. Francis exhorted his brothers to love God with a full heart and a full soul, with full mind and full courage, with full understanding and full strength, with full effort and full affection, with full emotion, full desire and will.[1] St. Francis modeled a spirituality of affection, of action and preaching by action, emphasizing practical testimony over theoretical discourse. These spiritual emphases suggested an understanding of charity as passionate and aesthetic. As such, it shared characteristics with Plato and St. Augustine. Plato had characterized Beauty, and human love for the beautiful, as a source of spiritual ascent. St. Augustine specified that the object of Platos ascent is a personal God, a God Who is not only worthy of our love, but Who loves us personally and individually. Plato and Augustine capture a tension within the spiritual life, between asceticismfreeing oneself from appetitesand embracing the motivation of a passionate moral hunger that engages the whole person, body and soul. Our desire for God is appetitive, engaging the Will. Our hearts are restless until they rest in You. The Franciscans, especially when compared with their mendicant confreres, the Dominicans, seemed to emphasize our appetitive relation to God. In view of this, writes Fr. Clement ODonnell, we can understand a certain emphasis on will and its place in life, which is common to Franciscans.[2]

Around 1220 the Franciscans entered the prestigious University of Paris, and their spiritual concerns shaped academia. The practical emphasis on knowledge over desire, on active choice over passive comprehension, influenced philosophy. Gods Beauty, His personal Fatherhood, the objects of our longing and the saints pursuit, was distinguishable from God as the object of systematic study and logical proofs. This distinction accentuated an age-old tension within philosophy itself. On the one hand, philosophy seeks scientific understanding, because the structure and contents of the world are unchanging. Just as the natural sciences can assume that all trees possess a common structure, and that gravity will not vanish tomorrow, so philosophy can assume that objects possess fundamental, unvarying natures, and tries to uncover these. On the other hand, philosophy (unlike natural science) is a moralethical discourse, a practical process of self-examination for the purpose of living well. We act unpredictably, because we have freedom and may or may not embrace our God-given nature. Moreover, individuals differ in many legitimate ways, which makes it difficult to specify what actions are appropriate in all situations. Aristotle begins his Nicomachean Ethics by cautioning that ethics is an imprecise discipline, because it requires experience and prudence. (Ethics, he tells us, is not for young men!) St. Augustine was very concerned with this slippery dimension of philosophy. As ODonnell observes, for the Augustinian philosophy is not so much a theory of being, as it is a quest for the good[, or] a theory of interpretation and action.[3]

Since St. Augustine, philosophical psychology had developed a theory distinguishing between Reason and Will. Reason is the faculty of reaching into physical experience and grasping the structures of created things. These structures include the goodness that God first perceived in His own creation. Whether we love it or not, we can comprehend the goodness of created things. Will, on the other hand, is the faculty of desiring goodness; of choosing to pursue it and to conform our lives to it. This involves more than dispassionate judgment. It involves affections. Will is affective. Reason and Will, respectively, mirror philosophys two faces, scientific and affective. In the 1200s, philosophers like Philip the Chancellor, Alexander of Hales, St. Bonaventure and Duns Scotus (the last three, Franciscans) argued in favor of Will as more properly free than Reason. This implied that Will was in some sense more authentically human than Reason. Will, as the seat of freedom, was (they argued) the source of authentic charity, moral agency, and sanctity.

Lets consider this last point more in depth. Reason can function poorly, but it cannot create its own reality. It is always beholden to what truly exists. Reasons ideal achievement, then, is perfect mental conformity to the way things are. If somebody is unreasonable or wrongsay, in evaluating a crime scene or observing a natural phenomenonthen we treat this as a technical error. We correct him, and we assume (other things being equal) that he will embrace correction. Human Will is different. If someone fails to desire the good, we attempt to persuade him otherwise, but we grant him a certain privilege of error. Will is less obviously determined by reality. In other words, reality does not have the same claim to conformity from the Will as it does to conformity from Reason. Will appears more intimately connected with what distinguish us from the rest of physical creation: our freedom, autonomy, and independence.

For example, following Colleen McCluskeys analysis, Philip the Chancellor (b. 1160) held that freedom is a function of the will primarily, and intellect only secondarily.[4] St. Bonaventure was concerned with finding theoretical justifications for the Bibles privileging charity over knowledge (cf. 1 Corinthians 13:2). Citing Jacques Maritain, ODonnell observes that contemplation can never supersede charity. Since the seat of this charity is the human will, it seems to follow, as St. Bonaventure concludes, that the will is the more noble faculty of man.[5]

Voluntarism is a kind of emphasis: an emphasis on the Will as the primary seat or source of human nobility. This involved, among other things, attempts to stake out the independence of Will from Reasonfor example, by accounting for freedom exclusively in terms of Will. Evoking St. Anselm, Philip emphasizes that Anselm defined freedom as a power for doing what one wants, and [not] a power for doing what one judges or reasons.[6] In the 1200s, this trend was accompanied by a shift in language. The problem of liberum arbitrium, free decision, became the problem of voluntas libera, or free will.[7] Another historical point is worth considering. In 1277 the bishop of Paris, tienne Tempier, condemned a number of philosophical positions, including that the Will is not free but obligated to obey the conclusions of Reason.[8] Citing Bonnie Kent, McCluskey suggests that the condemnation had a pendulum effect, implicitly endorsing any philosophical theories promoting the Wills freedom and independence. Importantly, this included the accusation that Aquinas conception of the will as responsive to the judgments of intellect [or Reason] commits him to a denial of [free will].[9]

The future of voluntarism was not predetermined by its core emphases. Many of the 13th century Catholic voluntarists, advocating the Wills superior dignity, its freedom and its autonomy, nevertheless retained the traditional framework of understanding Will and Reason as intimately interconnected. Though an appetite, Will relies on Reason to present it with objects, with its food. This position is a far cry from Martin Luthers voluntarism, which establishes an antagonism between Reason and Will. Thus, the lineage of voluntarism from the 13th to the 16th century involves key continuities but also key breaks.

Voluntarism is dangerous because it easily becomes bedfellows with the doctrine that man is essentially self-creating. This doctrine was characteristic of Renaissance humanismas Professor Thomas Stark has observed in his analyses of Giovanni Pico della Mirandolas famous Oration on the Dignity of Man.[10] Della Mirandola considers man a creature of indeterminate image,[11] unfettered by the laws that restrict other creatures. Eulogizing Adam, as the archetypal man, he writes:

[Y]ou, by contrast, impeded by no such restrictions, may, by your own free will, to whose custody We have assigned you, trace for yourself the lineaments of your own nature.[12]

This theory of human identity rejects Aristotles argument that our species is distinguished by the desire to know. If human beings were self-definingif we legislated our own structure, purpose, and valuesthen truth, goodness, and beauty would cease being objects of Reason. They would exist, not actually, as things to be known, but potentially, as things to be created from nothing. Reason, traditionally understood, is a process of conforming to the true and the good. If the true and the good were created by us, Reason would have no role left to play. It would have nothing to grasp, nothing with a fixed nature independent of our whim. Or rather, the only noble use of Reason in such a world would be technological: one of reshaping our physical environment to accommodate our own fancy. It is easy to see how, in such a post-humanist (or trans-humanist) world, only Will remains. Nevertheless, such a Will would not be what the medievals conceived, an appetite for the good. The post-humanist Will can only be understood as sheer, undirected, libertarian power; action for actions sake. Needless to say, Will in this sense is logically impossible. However much we abuse our nature, we can never extricate ourselves entirely from Gods created order. Under the influence of radical voluntarism, human beings see themselves only in the light of their powerlessness, and fall, inevitably, into despair.

Sources

Clement ODonnell, O.F.M. Conv., Voluntarism in Franciscan Philosophy, Franciscan Studies 2, December 1942: 397-410.

Colleen McCluskey, The Roots of Ethical Voluntarism, Vivarium 39, 2001: 185-208.

The Unconfirmed First Rule of St Francis (1209/10-1221).

Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Oration on the Dignity of Man, trans. by A. Robert Caponigri., intr. by Russell Kirk, (Chicago, Illinois: Henry Regnery Company, 1956).

Recommended Reading:

Carl E. Olson, Whats in a Name?

[1] The Unconfirmed First Rule of St Francis (1209/10-1221), 23.

[2] Clement ODonnell, O.F.M. Conv., Voluntarism in Franciscan Philosophy, Franciscan Studies 2, December 1942, 398.

[3] ibid. 397.

[4] Colleen McCluskey, The Roots of Ethical Voluntarism, Vivarium 39, 2001, 193.

[5] ODonnell 403.

[6] McCluskey 194.

[7] McCluskey 186.

[8] Cf. ibid. 189-190.

[9] ibid. 190.

[10] Dr. Stark repeated this point in a lecture for the 2023 summer conference hosted by The Roman Forum.

[11] Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Oration on the Dignity of Man, trans. by A. Robert Caponigri, intr. by Russell Kirk, (Chicago, Illinois: Henry Regnery Company, 1956), 6.

[12] ibid. 7.

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Traditional Perspectives on Philosophy - pt. 1: Voluntarism - OnePeterFive

In an over two-hour hearing, House Oversight Subcommittee on National Security members heard testimony regarding the truth of Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) visiting Earth. Tennessee Representative Tim Burchett said the hearing was the first of many to come.

Were done with the cover-ups, he said.

Not wanting to be left out, crypto enthusiasts are talking up UFO-themed and alien-themed meme coins to try and take advantage of the renewed hype around alien visitors. But the tenor of the meeting was decidedly serious.

Experts called to testify included executive director of Americans for Safe Aerospace Ryan Graves, who has spoken out about what is officially called an Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon or UAP.

When asked what makes him believe these UAPs were not American-made, Graves, a former Navy fighter pilot, pointed to their ability to withstand high winds.

"Some of the behaviors we saw in our working area, we would see these objects being at 0.0 Mach, that's zero airspeed," Graves said. "These objects stayed completely stationary in category four hurricane winds," he said, adding that the objects would then accelerate to supersonic speeds, noting the erratic flight path.

Joining Graves was retired Navy Commander David Fravor, who shot the infamous 2004 video of a UAP off the coast of California, and David Grusch, a former Pentagon task force member on Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon and self-described whistleblower who has accused the U.S. government of a UFO cover-up.

When asked what astonished him the most about the flight capabilities of the unknown objects, dubbed "Tic Tacs, Fravor said it was their performance.

"It's far beyond the material science that we currently possess," Fravor said, adding that he was unaware of any human-made vehicles with the same capabilities.

We were initially denied access to images, radar, and conversation with all members of the flight crew, Florida Representative Matt Gaetz tweeted about one of the alleged encounters.

Though Grusch said much of what knows of the event had to be held back due to being classified, he said the U.S. government's first recorded visit by "non-humans" occurred in the 1930s.

"Biologics came with these recoveries," Grusch said during the hearing, adding that the recovered biologics were not human. "That was the assestment of people with direct knowledge of the program."

But while skeptics and degens laugh, Graves said the unidentified flying objects posed a serious national security threat.

"If UAPs are foreign drones, its an urgent national security problem; if its something else, its a issue for science," he said. "In either case, unidentified objects are a concern for flight safety, and the American people deserve to know what is happening in our skies."

Read the original here:
Accusations of a Government Cover-Up Dominate Congressional UFO Hearing - Decrypt

Elon Musk has brought on Dan Hendrycks, the director of the nonprofit Center for AI Safety, as an advisor to his new startup, xAI. Hendrycks organization sponsored a Statement on AI Risk in May, signed by various AI experts, including CEOs of prominent AI research labs like OpenAI and DeepMind. The nonprofit receives most of its funding from Open Philanthropy, a nonprofit organization run by Dustin Moskovitz and Cari Tuna. The Effective Altruism (EA) movement, to which the organization belongs, focuses on using evidence and reason to benefit humanity. EA proponents believe that preventing catastrophic scenarios caused by AI systems is essential.

Musks appointment of Hendrycks signals that well-funded AI research labs, including OpenAI, DeepMind, Anthropic, and xAI, are bringing the ideas of existential risk (x-risk) associated with AI systems to the publics attention. Although some AI researchers argue that the focus on x-risk is unnecessary, Musks choice to involve Hendrycks highlights the importance of these concerns.

AI experts like Sara Hooker, head of Cohere for AI, have criticized the attention given to x-risk, considering it a fringe topic. Mark Riedl, a professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology, suggests that focusing on existential threats alone undermines the broader discussion surrounding AIs positive and negative impacts. And Kyunghyun Cho, a researcher and professor at NYU, expresses disappointment in the emphasis on existential risk, believing it distracts from the real issues AI poses today.

Other experts have expressed concerns about the AI research labs ties to the EA community and movements such as longtermism and transhumanism. They argue that Silicon Valleys involvement in these movements may stem from a savior complex and the desire to control the narrative around AGI and existential risk.

The tech quartet consisting of xAI, OpenAI, DeepMind, and Anthropic has varying positions on AGI and x-risk. xAI aims to engineer an AGI that can understand the universe. Elon Musk, who founded OpenAI and developed xAI, left OpenAI due to concerns about its approach to AGI safety. He believes that a smarter AGI, driven by curiosity and truth-seeking, is less likely to pose a threat to humanity.

Musk finds alignment with the EA philosophy, particularly the writings of EA originator William MacAskill. Hendrycks involvement emphasizes the influence of the EA movement on the AGI and x-risk landscape.

Overall, Musks appointment of Hendrycks underscores the growing attention given to existential risks associated with AI systems and highlights the significance of addressing these concerns for the future of AI development.

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Elon Musk Appoints Dan Hendrycks as Advisor to xAI Startup - Fagen wasanni

Cosmism intersects philosophy, technology, and the cosmos, evolving in part from the theories of 19th-century Russian futurist Nikolai Fedorov (18291903). Cosmism's ideas are vast, spanning biopolitics, space exploration, and utopianism.

Artist and curator Anton Vidokle will explore Cosmism and the cosmos as chief curator of the 14th Shanghai Biennale (9 November 202331 March 2024) at the Power Station of Art. The biennial's title, Cosmos Cinema, is broader, accommodating all kinds of creation inspired by the night skies, but Vidokle cites a particular encounter for sparking his fascination with space and its power to broaden our thinking and our ambitions.

Power Station of Art (PSA) on the bank of Huangpu River, Shanghai. Photo: PSA.

Vidokle was introduced to Cosmism in 2012 through conversations with Ilya Kabakov and Boris Groys, who incidentally co-curated the 9th Shanghai Biennale that same year. This led to an enduring research project into post-Soviet cosmist legacies, and in 2019, Vidokle co-founded with Arseny Zhilyaev the Institute of the Cosmos, an online publication and open archive dedicated to Cosmism.

In his own artistic practice, Vidokle works in film and has to date produced seven short films emerging from his research into cosmist figures including Fedorov, Vasily Chekrygin, and Valerian Muraviov. He has presented in major international exhibitions including documenta 13 (2012), Gwangju Biennale (2016), and the Yokohama Triennale (2020).

Anton Vidokle, This is Cosmos (2014) (still) From the series 'Immortality For All: A Film Trilogy on Russian Cosmism' (20142017). HD video, colour, sound. 96 min. Courtesy the artist.

Born in Moscow in 1965, Vidokle emigrated to the United States in 1981, where he studied at the School of Visual Arts in New York. In 1999 he founded e-flux, a platform for arts listings, publishing, and curation. In 2015, Vidokle co-edited the e-flux publishing project SUPERCOMMUNITY for the 56th Venice Biennale. Vidokle is currently based in Berlin and New York, where he directs the programme at e-flux space.

For his curatorial team for the Shanghai Biennale, Vidokle has enlisted e-flux associate director Hallie Ayres, associate curator of film and video Lukas Brasiskis, colleagues who share his research interests and are involved with the Institute of the Cosmos. They are joined by researcher and educator Zairong Xiang, who was co-curator of the 2021 Guangzhou Image Triennial, and publications editor Ben Eastham, who is editor-in-chief of e-flux Criticism.

In this interview, Vidokle speaks to Sam Gaskin on the origins of his interest in Cosmism, its relation to cinema, and the importance of thinking beyond the planetary in the contemporary age.

MouSen+MSG, The Great Chain of Being - Planet Trilogy (2016). Experimental theatre space, videos, sound, objects, and bees. Exhibition view: Why Not Ask Again, Again?, 11th Shanghai Biennale, Power Station of Art (PSA), Shanghai (11 November 201612 March 2017). Courtesy PSA.

AVAbout a dozen years ago the philosopher and theorist Boris Groys told me a strange story about an unusual intellectual movement whose members tried to amend the constitution of the Soviet Union to include universal rights to rejuvenation, immortality, and interplanetary travel.

He also told me how, after the October Revolution in Russia, a special institute was set up to study the possibility of immortality, and artists at the time made models for orbiting cemeteries in which the bodies of the dead would be preserved in zero gravity until a technology to resurrect them could be developed. This sounded so much like the plot of a sci-fi film that I thought he had surely made it up. But a few months later, the artist Ilya Kabakov told me similar stories, which made me very curious.

Anton Vidokle, 'Immortality For All: A Film Trilogy on Russian Cosmism' (20142017) (still). HD video, colour, sound. 96 min. Courtesy the artist.

When I started looking, I came across the writings of Nikolai Fedorov, the founder of an intellectual tradition that later came to be known as Cosmism. His project centred around three tasks: technological immortality, the material resurrection of everyone who has ever lived, and travel through the cosmos.

Fedorov's thinking demanded a radical restructuring of society and its institutions to make such a project possible, as well as a total transformation or evolution of the human subject and our relations to each other. He insisted on a collaboration between science, philosophy, art, and social organisation as equal partners in what he called the "Common Task" of humanity. This common task was for Fedorov a true work of art, which he defined as the production and preservation of life. His thinking illustrates how reflections on humanity's place in the cosmos can prompt us to reconsider and reimagine the way that we live on earth.

Exhibition view: Group Exhibition, Art Without Death: Russian Cosmism, Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW), Berlin (1 September3 October 2017). Photo: Laura Fiorio/HKW.

In recent years we have become accustomed to exhibitions positioning human beings within the complex systems that shape our lives on earth. But there have been relatively few exhibitions that extend this understanding of humanity's implication in systems beyond the terrestrial sphereto consider how we are connected not only to life on this earth, but to the cosmos.

While there are not many contemporary artists who work with the ideas of Cosmism per se, there are many amazing artists making work about the cosmos and the close relationship between life on earth and outer space. There has not been a large-scale, international exhibition mapping such works historically or with respect to contemporary art, so it is exciting to have an opportunity to do this in Shanghai.

Han Zijian, Pointing at the Moon (2012). Installation. Exhibition view: Reactivation, 9th Shanghai Biennale, Power Station of Art (PSA), Shanghai (1 October 201231 March 2013). Courtesy PSA.

AVIt is worth reiterating that to reflect on the cosmos is not only to fixate on rockets or black holes or science fiction, but to engage with the myriad ways in which thinking about the cosmos continues to structure our terrestrial life: from medicine, where the human body can be construed as a kind of an inner cosmos as in certain traditional medicines, to economics, urban planning or agriculture, which are often organised according to complex cosmological designs. Take, for example, the biodynamic cultivation of plants, or the influence of Feng Shui on architecture and city planning.

We understand intuitively that our lives are connected to cosmic eventsjust think of the millions of people who every morning read horoscopes for advice on how to conduct the day ahead according to the movement of the planets.

Reproduction of Suzhou Star Chart (1193) by Huang Shang, etched in stone by Wang Zhiyuan (1247). Photo: Public Domain.

Esoteric and mystical thinking will be one facet of this exhibition, but the ecological dimension is also important. We might think of our relationship with the cosmos as being one way: the stars determine our fates; the debris from some distant explosion might one day arrive and extinguish much life on earth, as it has done before.

But in the past six decades of space exploration, we have released a multitude of living organisms and species into the solar system. We are changing the solar system, both intentionally and accidentally, and some works in the Biennale will draw parallels with the consequences of humanity's expansion on Earth.

One can say that cosmos is a kind of a proto-cinema, or that cinema has always existed in a sense: even before the technology of the moving image was invented.

The impact of the sun on life on Earth is the subject of several projects, as is the degree to which our perception of time is shaped by our planet's orbit around it. A number of works engage with the origin of religions, ancestor worship, and belief systems in contemplation of the cosmos. Another important subject is sky and star mapping, as an overlooked aspect of cartographies related to Indigenous cosmologies.

Death, resurrection, and the desire for eternal life are also an important part of this conversation, as well as the various futurismslike Afrofuturism, for instancethat reimagine life on earth by imagining new relations to the cosmos. We are interested in the presence and influence of cosmos on Earth.

The Comet Book (Comets and their General and Particular Meanings, According to Ptolome, Albumasar, Haly, Aliquind and other Astrologers) (1587). Northeastern France/Flanders. Photo: Kassel University Library, Public Domain.

As the exhibition title suggests, the show also relates to cinema, which serves as an analogue for our experience of the cosmos and one means of constructing our relationship to it. From very early in its history, cinema has attempted to represent travel in the cosmos and life on other planets.

At the same time, the medium of cinema itselfflickers of light in a dark space, out of which the mind constructs meaningis similar to how the cosmos appears to us when we look at the night sky. In this way one can say that cosmos is a kind of a proto-cinema, or that cinema has always existed in a sense: even before the technology of the moving image was invented.

Films direct the audience's attention, create room for imagination, and communicate new meanings to their viewers, who later project these ideas back onto the world.

Cinema also has an important historical role in Shanghai because it was a very early site for the production and presentation of film. The first film screening took place in Shanghai as early as 1896, only a year after the invention of this medium. By 1908 the first movie theatre opened, and soon there were more than 60 cinemas, film production studios, publicationsan entire film industry. The legacy of this can still be felt.

As a filmmaker myself, it makes sense to adapt certain filmmaking techniquessuch as montage, narrative, scenographyto structure and organise the logic and display of the show. The modern apparatus of cinema is designed to create new realities. Films direct the audience's attention, create room for imagination, and communicate new meanings to their viewers, who later project these ideas back onto the world. We hope that this will produce an intellectually immersive, psychological space and experience for the audience.

Anton Vidokle, 'Immortality For All: A Film Trilogy on Russian Cosmism' (20142017). HD video, colour, sound. 96 min. Exhibition view: Space Oddity, UCCA Dune, Beidaihe (7 March20 June 2021). Courtesy UCCA Center for Contemporary Art.

Anton Vidokle, This is Cosmos (2014) (still) From the series 'Immortality For All: A Film Trilogy on Russian Cosmism' (20142017). HD video, colour, sound. 96 min. Courtesy the artist.

AVCosmism itself is very far removed from transhumanism or the billionaire follies that aim to exploit the natural resources of space for profit or establish colonies for a wealthy minority. It was a utopian movement predicated on the absolute equality of all human beings, including those who have died. It was from this commitment that all its proposals sprang.

Besides that, to attend to the cosmos is not to ignore the plight of the planet. We have learned in recent years that ignoring distant parts of the system is no way to protect those parts of it that we inhabit. For instance, to dismiss the destruction of a rainforest on another continent as irrelevant to the circumstance in which I live is both irresponsible and counterproductive. This might be one of the key proposals of the exhibitionthat we widen our perspectives if we are to better address the challenges facing our species, not narrow them.

To consider our place in the cosmos is not an alternative to thinking about issues such as climate change, income inequality, and so onit is a way of framing them.

This is not an either/or situation. As the works in the show will demonstrate, to consider our place in the cosmos is not an alternative to thinking about issues such as climate change, income inequality, and so onit is a way of framing them. From a cosmic, planetary perspective, these are challenges that we share, that extend across borders, and that must be addressed collectively.

In saying that, concerning significant topics for art and artistsand this is also a place from which I myself speakwe are not social workers tasked with fixing the world's problems, or journalists obliged to cover current events. That would be a very narrow, instrumental understanding of art and artists. But artists can provide new ways of seeing the world around us.

Pablo Vargas Lugo, Eclipses for Shanghai (2018). HD video of performance with sound. 15 min. Exhibition view: Proregress, 12th Shanghai Biennale, Power Station of Art (PSA), Shanghai (10 November 201810 March 2019). Courtesy PSA.

AVIt would be a tragedy if we could not conceive of the cosmos as anything other than the arena for government space programs or an opportunity for capitalist entrepreneurship. One might as well reduce the earth's oceans to shipping routes or its forests to the provision of timber. It is an astonishingly rich and varied physical and imaginative space, and human history has in large part been defined by the way that individuals in different cultures have looked to the shared space of the sky and imagined themselves into it, not apart from it.

We must be careful not to "estrange" ourselves from the cosmosto treat Earth and our species as somehow exceptional to the wider space that we inhabit.

This exhibition is by no means about the conquest of space or private and government space programmes. We are looking at works by artists who reflect on the myriad connections between life on Earth and the cosmos. These connections are sometimes direct; at other times they are more subtle, showing how different understandings of humanity's position in the cosmos have shaped different cultures and the everyday lives of individuals, throughout history. Artists have been doing this in one way or another since the beginning of societies, and continue to work with this subject today in all parts of the world.

Marjolijn Dijkman, Lunar Station (2015). Steel pendulum, sand, table, video, and found objects. Exhibition view: Why Not Ask Again, Again?, 11th Shanghai Biennale, Power Station of Art (PSA), Shanghai (11 November 201612 March 2017). Courtesy PSA.

AVThe obstruction of the night sky by pollution is not a phenomenon limited to China, as the inhabitant of any large metropolis will know. The question might illustrate some of the concerns that underpin the exhibition. To identify the issue with China risks downplaying the infinitely wider systems that create itthe shift by Western Europe and the U.S. of its industrial production; the changing weather patterns that pay no attention to national borders, as residents of New York recently kept inside by the smoke from wildfires in Canada can attest.

Leandro Katz, The Sky Fell Twice (2018). Photographic installation, 128 panels. 28.5 18.5 cm each. Exhibition view: Proregress, 12th Shanghai Biennale, Power Station of Art (PSA), Shanghai (10 November 201810 March 2019). Courtesy PSA.

But perhaps terms like astral-poverty or astral-estrangement do offer a useful way of reflecting on these broader issues. It has become very familiar in the art world to hear of the nature-culture divide and the hugely damaging consequences of separating ourselves, as human beings, from the natural world of which we are a part.

In a similar vein, we must be careful not to "estrange" ourselves from the cosmosto treat Earth and our species as somehow exceptional to the wider space that we inhabit. This exhibition encourages every individual, irrespective of local circumstances, to think of themselves as a part of that cosmos, not separate from it.

Of course, we hope that this exhibition will not stand alonethat it might encourage others to engage with these themes and to develop them in their own way, that it might offer a way of thinking about our present and future situation that can be applied in different contexts. Cosmism is an incredibly rich subject, and this exhibition hopes to open a door into it. [O]

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Anton Vidokle on the Cinema of the Stars - Ocula Magazine

Original illustration by Jade Armstrong

Most of us never considered the prosperity would ever end. Rei Saito

Modern life is so thin and shallow and fake. I look forward to when developers go bankrupt, Japan gets poorer and wild grasses take over. Hayao Miyazaki

It is a curious affair when we pass the date of an imagined future from a renowned work of science fiction. Usually, our current world is lagging far behind the scientific and technological forecasting of speculative worlds. Take Ridley Scotts Bladerunner (1985) and its film noir depiction of a sprawling Los Angeles in the year 2019. Huge advertisements are seen as flying cars zip around the gargantuan cityscape, modelled after the sketches of the futurist Italian architect Antonio SantElia. Scotts choice to draw from the Italian futurists as well as Fritz Langs depiction of a hyper-capitalist dystopia in Metropolis (1927) help to realize his techno-pessimist portrayal of the future.

While these projections are often comically divorced from our extant technological capabilities, they still help to sketch a sort of imagined trajectory of possibilityfeeding escapist urges. Its no surprise, then, that many science fiction films were made in the 1980s, a tumultuous decade that saw huge inflation and two recessions in just three years. However, one country seemed to survive this economic blow relatively well: Japan. This resilience would prove to be impermanent as the bubble economy burst at the end of the decade. One animated sci-fi film from this era stands as a tall monument to this turbulent period in Japans recent history; a film that had projected a future from the very apogee of Japans roaring 1980s, Akira (1988), set in 2019.

The Japanese miracle began at the end of the Second World War with US interests playing a heavy role in rebuilding the country following the atomic bombardment of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Americans took former Japanese colonial officers who were found guilty of war crimes and elevated them to top positions in the post-war government. Old imperial companies were restricted or retooled for other purposes. By the 1980s Japan was the darling of the West, built up from its paper and wood imperial past to become the industrial behemoth of Asia. Japanamericana is the term given to the aspects of American culture taken and elevated by Japanese production methods. This applies to a vast slew of Japanese-made goods like denim and vinyl records, both prized for their quality among their respective global consumer subcultures. Indeed, the material circumstances of Japans boomtimes have their cultural expressions as well.

The importation of American films led to Japanese audiences being exposed to American New Wave, or Hollywood Renaissance, cinema. Japanese directors would find a home in the genres preoccupation with youth culture, disillusionment in a changing society, and anti-heroes. In the post-war period, Japanese cinema was revitalized. The countrys economy soared thanks to cheap credit, real estate over-speculation, and loose monetary policies. Per capita GDP at the peak of the bubble was higher than in the US. For the movie business, this meant ever larger budgets. While many cite Akira as having a massive 1.1 billion yen budget as evidence of it being the most expensive anime movie of its time, the truth is that it was not as singular as some would believe. Akiras actual production cost was around 800 million yen, some 300 million over the initial budget. This cost was comparable to other animated films of the time like Hayao Miyazakis Kikis Delivery Service (1989) which was also made for around 800 million yen. The 1.1 billion yen figure accounts for Akiras exceptionally large marketing budget of 400 million yen.

The sheer scale of Akiras production was at once a watershed moment for the Japanese animation industry and a glaring sign of Japans inflated and fragile economy. By the late-1980s, the Japanese studio system had collapsed. According to cultural writer Inuhiko Yomata, In 1961, this system had six studios that could make 520 films, but 25 years later in 1986, only three studios produced a mere 24 films. Akiras production occurred in the wake of this sea change. A new production arrangement was necessary.

The Akira Committee was the name given to the group of companies that collaborated to make the film. It included the publishing company Kodansha, radio and television firm Manich Broadcasting System, toy maker and distributor Bandai, advertising agency Hakuhodo, film production company Toho, Laserdisc, and the massive Sumitomo Corporation. Sumitomo, in particular, is deserving of closer inspection as Japans oldest zaibatsu, or financial clique. Its history goes far back into the Edo period when it had a prominent role in building infrastructure for the Japanese imperial war machine around Osakas harbours. These companies alone could not have produced Akira at the scale necessary to give Katsuhiro Otomos 2,000-page manga the film adaptation it deserved.

Akira was made at the tail-end of a dying studio system, and at the apogee of Japans asset bubble, which began its slow burst in 1989. The scale of Akiras story makes it even more remarkable that such a film was able to see the light of day given the floundering of Japans economy at the close of the decade.

For the uninitiated, Akira is set during the leadup to the 2020 Neo-Tokyo Olympics in a city beset by anti-government protests and growing unrest as it attempts to recover from a nuclear explosion 31 years prior. The film follows Shtar Kaneda, the leader of a vigilante biker gang, and his crew as they encounter a corrupt government and Japanese military forcesall against the backdrop of a massive, futuristic city. When one of Kanedas fellow bikers, the outcast Tetsuo, acquires telekinetic abilities after being kidnapped and experimented on, Kaneda joins the anti-government resistance through Kei, an activist and saboteur. They must save Tetsuo, whose powers grow until his health (and even the megacity itself) is in danger.

Demonstrators in Akira. Image courtesy of Toho.

Akira is considered one of the seminal films of the cyberpunk genre. With that comes all the usual themes of techno-pessimism, corruption, and transhumanism.

Present within Akiras Neo-Tokyo is a wild mix of strikes, protests, and even acts of terrorism (funded and led by a member of parliament). The citys unrest shares many parallels with Japans protest movements of the 1960s and 1970s. Some of the demonstrators in Akira don helmets that are evocative of the garb of Japanese student movements like the Zengakuren, also known as the All-Japan Federation of Student Self-Government Associations. This movement, along with other revolutionary formations of the era like the Sanrizuka struggle, saw massive civilian participation in the tens of thousands. The Anpo protests of the 1960s mobilized hundreds of thousands in the streets. Many of these movements formed in opposition to Japans subordination to US military interests, corruption within the countrys universities, and the expansion of airports without consent from local farmers. Moreover, this raucous period in Japanese history was a crucible for many of the countrys young artists who participated in the struggles.

Zengakuren in Tokyo, September 30, 1971. Photo by Rian Dundon.

The shining city of Neo-Tokyo depicted in Akira is an allegory for Japans economic growing pains. While money flows into a relentlessly expanding megacity, the underlying problems of Japans revolutionary period could not be washed away by cheap cash and hasty development. One of Akiras antagonists, Mr. Nezu, professes a desire to clean the city for good: This city is already saturated, its become an overripe fruit thats begun to stink.

The grotesque consequences of this period of rapid industriousness is perhaps best encapsulated not by the city itself but by the way in which Tetsuos hunger for more telekinetic powers disfigures him into a mess of flesh and steel; his human form can no longer contain his ever-increasing desire for power. In one scene of classic Japanese body horror, Tetsuo cries out after losing control of his awesome powers: My body isnt doing what I tell it to, its acting on its own!

Media scholar and Tufts University professor of Japanese literature and culture, Susan J. Napier, offers additional insight into the character. His character evokes a less obvious but deeply significant side of Japanese national self-representation, that of the lonely outcast, she writes. Tetsuos fatal lust for power can be read as a metaphor for Japans ascension into the international community. Ultimately, Neo-Tokyo is once again destroyed as Tetsuo fails to contain his immense strength. Mirroring his hideous distension, Japanese stock prices and real estate speculation in the late-1980s also became dangerously inflated. Between 1956 and 1986, the price of land increased by as much as 5,000 percent, meaning the Imperial Palace in Tokyo was worth as much as the entire US state of California. The extremes of this bubble economy influenced the ambitiousness behind Akiras production, which took a toll on many workers who made the film a reality.

Indeed, even by todays standards, the scale of Akiras production is astonishing. Almost all of its 160,000 frames are hand drawn. Rather than the standard 35mm size film used to capture the animation, animators and producers opted for 70mm filmthree times the size. The larger film stock allowed for much more detail and richer definition, which in turn made animators work much longer on individual cells than usual. In 2021, an animators hidden complaint was discovered in one of the films scenes. The side of an electronic monitoring device shows a sign that reads: Why do we have to fill in this far? Knock it off! Enough!

An animator left a hidden message on the side of a console in Akira. Why do we have to fill in this far! Knock it off! Enough! it reads. Image courtesy of Toho.

Kuni Tomita, one of 60 key animators who worked on the film, detailed the stress she experienced in an interview with the Japan Times. They wanted me to work solely on Akira, but I told them I couldnt do that because you couldnt make money on Akira, she said. I couldnt survive!

Despite its massive budget, Akiras animators dealt with low pay and grueling working hours. According to the same interview, Keyframe animators are paid by shot or sequence, and the time involved in drawing the films incredibly detailed frames meant that Akira ultimately paid less than other projects. This parallels the increasing control production companies held over projects compared to the diminishing influence of unionized entertainment workers.

The animation industry, as well as workers in related digital industries, are underrepresented by unions, in part due to the same reason why Tomita still holds pride of place for her low-waged role in the production of Akira. It was a chance to work on a dream project, and it looked good on a rsum.

In 1989, the year after Akira was released, the Bank of Japan decided to raise interest rates, precipitating a massive crash in both stocks and property. Thirty-five years on, the film should be remembered for its cultural influence but also as a landmark product that was a result of decades of American-led development. Akiras story is one that extrapolated the whiplash-inducing growth of Japans industry following the Second World War while still retaining much of its corrupt, imperial tendencies.

Sonically, the films soundtrack is yet another representation of Japans economic and social turbulence. The collective asked to score the film, Geinoh Yamashirogumi, used a wide mix of techniques and instrumentation that can be considered a fusion of the past and the contemporary. They interpolate the spiritual theatre of Japanese noh, contemporary synthesizers, Indonesian gamelan percussion, European classical, and progressive rock. The result is almost alien, a score that borrows from such a variety of epochs and places that it produces something so incredibly singular in its effect on the viewer (and listener). The soundtrack could also be interpreted as a synthesis of a romanticized cultural past, invoked to but the brakes on a future hurtling toward oblivion. This is what the protagonists of Akiras Neo-Tokyo were fighting about, and the themes the films creators conjured and thought to be so vital. Vitally, after 35 years Akiras concerns and questions remain incredibly relevant.

In contrast, the genre most closely associated with Japans economic boom and nascent leisure class, city pop, paints an entirely different picture. Tropical motifs in the style of Miami Vice were heavy across the genre as Japans citizens enjoyed increased buying power and access to cheap equatorial vacations. This is recognizable in the aesthetics of Masayoshi Takanaka, an influential guitarist, composer, and producer in the city pop genre who has experienced a resurgenceand reappraisalin the last few years as the musics stars are slowly discovered here in the West by netizens online.

Covert art for All of Me by Masoyashi Takanaka. Image courtesy of Kitty Records.

Takanakas work features many depictions of the newfound leisure of Japans boom times: the beaches of Brazil, skydiving over the Seychelles, and even a guitar fashioned out of a surfboard. The genre has been enjoying an upsurge on Internet forums as old vinyl albums are rediscovered in dusty basements and boutique record stores. A vintage, colourful optimism seems to have been unearthed. Yet, the fate of the lost generation that grew up in the economic ice age following Japans economic downturn makes the cheery music all the more tragic.

Although he was strangely prophetic considering Japans successful bid to host the 2020 Games and the widespread protests against it, Otomo ultimately missed the mark with his depiction of 2019 in Akira. Though in reality, for better or for worse, no future is certain, and no path is set. No party, in every sense of the word, lasts forever.

Kalden Dhatsenpa is a Tibetan writer and photographer based in Tioti:ke, or Mooniyang, or Montral, and a member of the Canadian Dimension editorial board. He is a regular on the film and tv review video show The Breaks, and a former federal candidate for the NDP in LongueuilCharles-Lemoyne.

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The day the bubble burst: Akira and Japan's economic 'miracle' - Canadian Dimension