IOCOSE, Free From History, courtesy of the artists
In A raft drifting through space, IOCOSE collect some of their most recent artworks that investigate the birth of the NewSpace movement. The exhibition will open on Thursday, 29th August at 7 p.m. at the Filodrammatica Gallery (Korzo 28/1, Rijeka), remaining on view until 19th September.
Gallery opening hours:
Monday – Friday 11 a.m. – 1 p.m. | 5 – 8 p.m.
Saturday 5 – 8 p.m.
– closed on Sundays and public holidays
NewSpace is an industrial sector and ideological movement, born in Silicon Valley, aimed at the exploration and colonization of extraterrestrial space. It includes well-known companies, such as Elon Musk’s SpaceX, and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, but also numerous start-ups and investment funds that are betting on the economic growth of the sector. The NewSpace movement makes enormous economic, technological and discursive investments in the private colonization of space, from low-Earth orbit to extraterrestrial planets.
Audio Guide for the exhibition, produced by Kulturpunkt.hr
It presents itself as capable of solving the problems that afflict humanity, and as promoters of a new multi-planetary life. But the solutions they propose are available to few, and difficult to achieve in our lifetimes. IOCOSE elaborate on the utopian promises of the NewSpace movement, and question what can be done with the traces left on Earth by its failures.
Exhibition opening. Photo: Borut Brozović / Drugo more (Flickr gallery)
PRESENTED WORKS:
Pointing at a New Planet
– 3D video animation, loop, 2020
IOCOSE, Pointing at a New Planet, courtesy of the artists
Pointing at a New Planet is a loop animation of Elon Musk’s hand flying over Mars. Musk is one of the most famous investors in NewSpace: the movement which originated in Silicon Valley and promotes the colonisation of extraterrestrial planets by private companies. The video is accompanied by a song and an animated text overlay, like a karaoke song. Composed and sung by Albertine Sarges, the lyrics are a mash-up of the most grandiose pronouncements and slogans uttered by Musk while promoting his company SpaceX.
IOCOSE have been researching the strategies adopted by key players in the NewSpace movement when they engage with the public during talks. One common feature is the tendency to gesticulate and point at invisible planets, inviting audiences to picture the (not yet visible) future of humankind. In these visions of the future, complexities and diversities are flattened, thus effectively reproducing current inequalities.
Free From History
– 3D video animation, loop, 2021
IOCOSE, Free From History, courtesy of the artists
Imagined as a sequel to Pointing at a New Planet, Free From History is a loop animation of a hand terraforming an extraterrestrial planet. It is set to a karaoke song based on material produced by investment companies that endorse the expansion of the Outer Space market. In the terraforming phase, the atmosphere and ecology of the new planet are made habitable for human life, and as part of the same process, the planet’s mineral and gas resources are extracted to generate value for the Earth’s economy.
On the new planet, the wildest desires and pleasure-seeking of the colonising hand can be fulfilled: it represents an entertainment park where capitalist speculation, no longer possible on Earth, can keep running rampant, never to be challenged.
The Hollow Chorus
– lacquered wood, plastic hubs, microphone, h 220 cm, ø 370 cm, 2021
IOCOSE, The Hollow Chorus, courtesy of the artists
The Hollow Chorus hints at the geodesic structures that appear in the 3D renderings produced and circulated by NewSpace companies, and used to promote imaginary future settlements on extraterrestrial planets. The geodesic dome is an architectural structure made popular in the 1950s by Richard Buckminster Fuller, who envisioned it as a symbol of the democratisation of architecture: an easily assembled, expandable unit, each node and connection of which bears the same weight. In the ‘60s, thanks in part to Fuller being hailed by many as a visionary and guru, the geodesic dome was appropriated by countercultural circles, while today it is often adopted by Silicon Valley.
IOCOSE’s The Hollow Chorus has a microphone hanging from the top of it, inviting the audience to sing along to the tunes of Pointing at a New Planet and Free From History. But the microphone is not accessible from the outside: just as the NewSpace movement invites us to join space trips that are both technically impossible and entirely unaffordable, the invitation to sing is both offered and denied at the same time.
IOCOSE
A RAFT DRIFTING THROUGH SPACE
☛ Galerija Filodrammatica, Korzo 28/1, Rijeka
29 August – 19 September, 2024
EXHIBITION OPENING:
Thursday, 29 August, at 7 p.m.
GALLERY OPENING HOURS:
Monday – Friday 11 a.m. – 1 p.m. | 5 – 8 p.m.
Saturday 5 – 8 p.m.
(closed on Sundays and public holidays; contact us to arrange another time of your visit)
The film Free from History (2021) was commissioned by Aksioma – Institute for Contemporary Art Ljubljana.
The score for the video Pointing at a New Planet and Free From History has been composed and sung by Albertine Sarges.
IOCOSE