Titled Cosmos Cinema and curated by Anton Vidokle, Zairong Xiang, Hallie Ayres, Lukas Brasiskis, and Ben Eastham, the 14th Shanghai Biennale posits that film is not only a medium for storytelling but a cosmic phenomenon. If the night sky is a screen onto which the past is projected in “tracks of light,” as Alexander Kluge has proposed, then cinema is uniquely well-placed as an artistic medium to change our understanding of the universe and our place within it.
The Cosmos Cinema website is an online platform showcasing moving-image work by artists included in the 14th Shanghai Biennale. It is also a portal allowing for a broader engagement with the biennale’s themes over the nineteen weeks of its exhibition. The website’s primary purpose is to present a range of films and videos that reflect on diverse cosmologies and suggest the different ways in which humanity interacts with and understands the universe. Each week a new work is made available to view, accompanied by contextualizing information on the featured artist’s relation to the nine thematic sections into which the biennale is divided and the processes and concepts explored in their work.
The Cosmos Cinema website also functions as a meeting point between the educational film program staged at the Power Station of Art – which explores the history of cosmos in world cinema – and the contemporary moving image practices of the artists featured in the biennale. The website thus offers another space in which viewers can engage with the evolving dialogue between cinema and contemporary art.
Cosmos Cinema: 14th Shanghai Biennale
Nov 9 – Mar 31, 2024
Power Station of Art
Shanghai, China
