“Welcome to the age of cosmic radiation! In 2021 the Sun fell to its lowest point of activity since the birth of science. Its magnetic waves that once shielded the Earth dramatically weakened. During this solar lull powerful intergalactic cosmic rays penetrated our atmosphere. Originating from the explosive remnants of dead stars, these silent, invisible and highly charged particles were only noticed in their effect – in what they did to our bodies and to the technologies we thought we could rely upon”.
The installation of British artist Arnfield is a continuation of the research work that led to the production of The Phantom Menace (2019), a techno-driven stroboscopic climate fiction film. Written in conversation with various British Amazon warehouse workers, it was inspired by the proposed plans for the US government to install their fragile predictive supercomputers deep underground in order to protect them from hypothetical alien threats. Arnfield uses the scientific visualizations produced on these supercomputers – which are low-resolution for today’s standards – to speculate on the role of image labour in a subterranean future.
Cosmic Radiation inaugurates the season of screenings presented by Cripta747 and curated by Vincenzo Estremo: a cycle of short and medium length films to think about the future of work in highly technological contexts.