Stealing one's own corpse (An alternative set of footholds for an ascent into the dark)

“The Conquest of space is part of the planetary hope of an economic system which, saturated with commodities, spectacles and power, ejaculates into space when it arrives at the end of the noose of its terrestrial contradictions.” This statement, by the Venezuelan thinker Eduardo Rothe (an ex-member of the International Situationist as well as an Hugo Chavez collaborator), opens Julieta Aranda’s ‘Stealing one’s own corpse (an alternative set of footholds for an ascent into the dark)’ Part 1 (2014).

On this video, a scripted conversation between six blurred-out characters is combined with footage found on the internet, high-end computer animation and documentation of the artist’s experience in a reduced-gravity aircraft, creating a narrative that observes the interconnection between neoliberal economies and their reliance on growth, environmental destruction, genetics, and space exploration. The result is a complex, expanded investigation of escapology, the practice of escaping. Presented as a basic animal drive, a human desire, an utopic possibility, an economic and political strategy, and a science, the act of escaping is analyzed in its historical and contemporary significances and considered under biopolitical and environmental optics.

This screening coincides with ‘The Dark‘, our exhibition comprising of four artists’ works that look out into space, back at Earth and consider science fiction, fact and artist projections. There is no need to book, you are welcome to come by for the screening for 7pm when the films will begin.