Exhibition opening. Photo: Tanja Kanazir / Drugo more (Flickr gallery)
The Future Light Cone (2022) is a multimedia installation by Athens-based artist Kyriaki Goni, centered on six large tapestries belonging to her Martian Landscapes series, accompanied by twelve drawings, a video and a tungsten cube.
By weaving complex cosmological stories of technology, exploration, and colonialism into aforementioned tapestries, the installation opens up a discussion of the topical issues of our present and future.
What kind of interplanetary future do we want? How does space exploration affect the present of planet Earth? What is longtermism and how did it become the starting point of this installation?
The exhibition will open in the Filodrammatica Gallery (Korzo 28/1, Rijeka) on Thursday, February 23 at 8 p.m., remaining on view until March 17, 2023. Admission is free.
Before the opening, on Thursday, February 23 at 7 p.m., Kyriaki Goni will give an artist talk in the large hall of Filodrammatica, in which she will talk more about the presented installation.
Gallery opening hours:
Monday – Friday: 11 a.m. – 1 p.m. | 4 – 8 p.m. •
Saturday: 4 – 8 p.m. •
The Future Light Cone, tapestry from the Martian Landscapes series
© Kyriaki Goni, 2022, courtesy of the artist
In this installation, Kyriaki Goni shares with us some important insights into the current state of space exploration. In the last few years, we have witnessed the rise of expansionist, colonial rhetoric around (private) space exploration. Starting from anthropocentric ideologies, Kyriaki tries to weave an alternative story about the relationship between the universe and people through language, situated and traditional knowledge, and contemporary insights from post-colonial studies.
This will be Kyriaki Goni’s second solo exhibition within our program (→ Counting Craters on the Moon).
The Future Light Cone was commissioned and produced by the 2nd Warsaw Biennale in 2022.
Artist talk. Photo: Tanja Kanazir / Drugo more (Flickr gallery)
1. The language. The public discourse about the exploration of space from 2016 onward with its epicenter in Silicon Valley, adapts a language that evokes narratives and imaginaries of colonialism. This language affects the present political and economical conditions on planet Earth. Could we think of a new anti-colonial language to talk about space exploration? What role could feminism play in that?
2. The world or the landscape. In both science and science fiction space exploration evolves around anthropocentric views of the worlds and the landscapes. Worlds that are being explored, conquered, terraformed, shaped or destroyed with the human agency, which is repeatedly and exclusively placed in the foreground. Other worlds may have agency with “whom we must learn to converse” (Haraway, 1991). Observing other worlds with care could work against the reproduction of colonialist logics of expansion. Are we able to discern knowledge systems that exist outside of human cosmologies?
3. The ideology of long termism. Embraced and supported by multimillionaire tech companies, long termism gives precedence to „space expansionism” emphasizing the necessity to “colonize our future light cone” in order to escape existential risks on earth. The term future light cone refers to the region of spacetime that is theoretically accessible to us. According to longtermists, our future light cone contains a huge quantity of exploitable resources that humanity must exploit for its own prosperity. How is this kind of thinking getting in line with emerging space economies, extractivism and political views?
WHAT IS A LIGHT CONE?
WHY TAPESTRY?
KYRIAKI GONI
THE FUTURE LIGHT CONE
☛ Filodrammatica Gallery, Korzo 28/1, Rijeka
23 February – 17 March, 2023
ARTIST TALK
Thursday, 23 February, at 7 p.m.
EXHIBITION OPENING:
Thursday, 23 February, at 8 p.m.
GALLERY WORKING HOURS:
MON-FRI from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. & from 4 to 8 p.m.
SAT 4 to 8 p.m.
(closed on Sundays and public holidays)
KYRIAKI GONI
