raphaelgeist

I went to an event in Nottingham yesterday called the Futurological Congress. This was billed as a conference on 'the future under communism'; only slightly misleadingly, because it was actually about how the future was imagined from within the USSR. It was very interesting - six speakers addressing different elements of this and a performance piece from Anjalika Sagar and Kodwo Eshun. The most interesting paper was from Rolf Hellebust, on the Cosmist movement. This group of intellectuals were envisioning a post-religious kind of techno-mystical evolution. I noticed some clear similarities between their thinking and that of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, the excommunicated Catholic who believed that humanity were undergoing a cosmic evolution which would manifest the body of Christ in human society. Anyway, Stalin effectively crushed their movement in his commitment to socialist realism - only the Party was able to depict the future. His own project was commitedly rational and refused to indulge in such fantastic myth-making.

The event was linked to a new exhibition at the Nottingham Contemporary gallery, called Star City after the Soviets' secret space travel research centre. Here are some pics.




And finally, they installed a huge replica of Valentina Tereshkova, Russia's (and the world's) first female cosmonaut. Or at least, her space suit.




This was so big that you could actually go inside. How? Well...



The adults in the family that were infront of me muttered quietly that it seemed a bit rude. I had to agree! The intention was of Tereshkova as a sort of cosmic mother I think.

Nottingham's a nice city. There's a lot of culture there, and I was pleased to find a nice little punk bar. If everything goes according to plan I will be moving there to study in the not-too-distant future.