Sirius Arts Centre in Cobh, County Cork, Ireland presents the exhibition Anton Vidokle and the Institute of the Cosmos. The exhibition features four films that look at Cosmism through themes of biopolitics, immortalism, interplanetarianism, revolution, nutrition, utopia, resurrection, and museology: Autotrofia (2020-23) and the trilogy This Is Cosmos (2014), The Communist Revolution Was Caused by the Sun (2015), and Immortality and Resurrection for All! (2017). It also features a specially designed Institute of the Cosmos gallery; part library, part archive, and part classroom, this includes a timeline of Cosmism and an extensive selection of historical and contemporary texts exploring Cosmism and related topics.
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The films mix voice-over narration, soundtracks (original scores and ambient sound), dialogue, quotes from essays by Fedorov and other thinkers, and intellectual and aesthetic references ranging from Constructivism to speculative interactions between natural phenomena and societal transformations. They were shot in Altai in Siberia, Almaty and Karagandy in Kazakhstan, Moscow, Tokyo, Kyiv, Oliveto-Lucano in Italy, and beyond, and employed local amateur actors and extras, including artists, farmers, taxi drivers, dancers, and security guards.
This Is Cosmos introduces the cosmos as not only outer space but also something involving invisible cosmic energies moving through the currents of terrestrial-aquatic ecologies, both within our bodies and as part of our everyday lives. The Communist Revolution Was Caused by the Sun analyzes philosophical and political semblances between Cosmism and Communism, as well as the Sun’s impact on history. Immortality and Resurrection for All! focuses on the museum as a site of resurrection, looking at collection and conservation as means to the material restoration of life. Autotrofia considers the willingness and capacity for humans to become autotrophic beings, no longer controlled by the heterotrophic desire to kill and eat other living organisms.
