The Institute of the Cosmos (IOTC) is pleased to present Citizens of the Cosmos—a new film based on the manifesto of Biocosmism, written by Alexander Svyatogor in Moscow, in 1922.
Among the multitude of anarchist doctrines, one of the most unusual was the movement of Biocosmists. Initiated by Alexander Svyatogor in the 1920s, Biocosmists advocated a radical liberation from statehood, both on Earth as well as on other planets, the exploration of the possibility of life in the totality of the cosmos, and the urgent establishment of interplanetary communication. Biocosmists urged overcoming the localism of human life in favor of an expansion of the individual personality prior to the implementation of individual immortality. Biocosmists proposed to solve the problem of biological immortality by means of bodily metamorphoses and deviations: bestialism and anabiosis. This transformation aimed at preserving life and acquiring biological immortality, giving each person maximum freedom and maximum individual rights.
Shot on location in Tokyo and Kiev, in collaboration with a group of amateur actors, volunteers, and extras, Citizens of the Cosmos presents an imagined community voicing the historical desires of Biocosmism—immortality, resurrection of the dead, and interplanetarism—all set in everyday life in contemporary Japan. Using urban shrines, cemeteries, a crematorium, tatami rooms, a bamboo forest, an industrial gas plant, and city streets as an open air stage, the film gradually narrates the text of the Biocosmist manifesto while presenting a sequence of dream-like tableaus, featuring rejuvenation through blood transfusion, funerary processions and demonstrations, the Danse Macabre, the cremation bone picking ceremony, attempts to communicate with the dead using stethoscopes, and a theremin orchestra recital, among other scenes. Set to an original music score composed by Alva Noto, Citizens of the Cosmos is an experiment in defamiliarisation: a speculative test of the universality implicit in Biocosmism’s premise.
Watch the film here.
Citizens of the Cosmos (2019)
HD video, color, sound
30:19 minutes
Japanese with English subtitles
Directed by Anton Vidokle
Starring: Rie Sakai, Akiyoshi Nita, Takaaki Negi
Cinematography: Ayman Nahle
Editing: Adam Khalil, Meggie Schneider, Anton Vidokle
Original score: Alva Noto
Executive producer: ASAKUSA
Producers: Mariko Mikami, Koichiro Osaka, Lyuba Knorozok
Theremin: Masami Takeuchi
Choreography: Akiyoshi Nita
Also new at IOTC school: The God-Building Theory (2020)
The God-Building Theory is an educational video about the aesthetics of Russian Cosmism: a philosophy of technological immortality and resurrection that emerged in Russia at the end of the 19th century. Based on a conversation between the Mexican art historian Irmgard Emmelhainz and Anton Vidokle, and performed by the dancer and choreographer Akiyoshi Nita and the linguist Rie Sakai, the video is a 40-minute dance-lecture that offers a relaxing and refreshing break from everyday life. Recorded in a green screen studio in Tokyo this summer, the performance is set within the original footage shot for the film Citizens of the Cosmos (2019).
Watch the video here.
