This programme presents moving image works exploring the cosmos as both a site of unpredictable chaos and an orderly, complex, introspective system, from vast cosmic experiences to the ‘inner cosmos’ of human consciousness. In Particles in Space (1979), Len Lye animates the direct scratches he made on celluloid film into rhythmic lines and energetic staccatos. Featuring physicist and Dr Vikram Sarabhai, father of the Indian space programme, Vijay B. Chandra’s Space and India (1971) incorporates documentary footage from the early days of India’s space ambitions and postcolonial optimism.

Toshio Matsumoto’s The White Hole (1979) is a psychedelic and metaphysical journey through outer space. Accompanied by Joji Yuasa’s highly experimental score, the film evokes the iconic ‘Star Gate’ sequence from Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). Larissa Sansour’s A Space Exodus (2009) similarly gives a thematic nod to A Space Odyssey, retconning Neil Armstrong’s moon landing into ‘a small step for a Palestinian, a giant leap for mankind.’ In Yin-Ju Chen’s Extrastellar Evaluations III: Entropy: 25800 (2018), Lemurian aliens—resembling recognisable contemporary artists—create works that serve as transmission devices for monitoring human activity. This cryptic short blends cosmography, occultist myth, and alien intelligence to examine human anxiety and anthropogenic change. Finally, Takashi Makino and Manuel Knapp’s Axis of Aion (2019) portrays space as an intense journey through sound and atmosphere, layering rhythmic, dazzling imagery with moments of geometric clarity.