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Who Wants to Live Forever? is the name of a 1986 Queen song and the title of Kunsthall Trondheim’s current exhibition. The show considers the dawning (im)possibility of immortality, at a time when biotechnology seems to promise never-ending life for the few while bio- and microbiopolitics control life itself, both through bodies and through molecules, DNA, and code. Who Wants to Live Forever? explores desires of eternal life in the light of material changes caused by climate change, as well as the ethical and political implications.
As part of the digital program of the exhibition, Kunsthall Trondheim presents The God-Building Theory (2020), a new video by Anton Vidokle, as well as the ongoing collective research project The Institute of the Cosmos, online from October 31 to November 6.
The film and research presentation form part of a wider online program including podcasts with Oreet Ashery, Rune Blix Hagen, Elizabeth A. Povinelli, Kim TallBear, Jennifer Teets, Susanne M. Winterling, and others; and the event “Plankton and drill head,” in collaboration with the Goethe-Institut Oslo and the research collective Beauty of Oil (Alexander Klose, Benjamin Steininger). These online contributions complement newly commissioned works in the exhibition, including the site-specific installation by Adrian Piper, Everything #28, a neon sequence on the façade of the Kunsthall building reading “Everything Will Be Taken Away.”
About Anton Vidokle’s The God-Building Theory (2020)
Inspired by the tranquility of public television programs in Japan (NHK TV) and accompanied by the meditative music of Brian Eno, 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, which is the main subject of Anton Vidokle’s films.
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), which is currently on view at Kunsthall Trondheim.
The God-Building Theory was commissioned by Yokohama Triennale 2020.
About the ongoing collective research project The Institute of the Cosmos
The Institute of the Cosmos is a comprehensive historical resource on the intellectual movement called Russian Cosmism. Informed by the historical ideas of Russian Cosmism, the Institute is a space for a creative investigation of the materiality of the cosmos and its strange universalism, from the perspectives of philosophy, anthropology, history of science, and art. Russian Cosmism inspired much of the Soviet avant-garde, including artists such as Malevich, filmmakers such as Eisenstein, and many other influential artists, writers and filmmakers of the 20th century. Combining historical material translated to English, including writings by Mayakovsky, Malevich, Fedorov and others, as well as contemporary reflections by leading thinkers and artists such as Boris Groys, Hito Steyerl, Trevor Paglen, McKenzie Wark, and others, this site is a fascinating and an educational resource with essays, poetry, film, video lectures, 3d printable sculptures, and more.
The Institute of the Cosmos was developed in collaboration with Marina Simakova and Arseny Zhilyaev, and commissioned by the 2nd Riga International Biennial of Contemporary Art.
Including Anton Vidokle, the participating artists in Who Wants to Live Forever? are Oreet Ashery, Solveig Bergene, Gideonsson/Londré, Jessica Harvey, Moa Israelsson, Britta Marakatt-Labba, Mercedes Mühleisen, Adrian Piper, Tabita Rezaire and The Deep Field Project (Diann Bauer, Jol Thoms, Neal White). Who Wants to Live Forever? is curated by Stefanie Hessler, director Kunsthall Trondheim with Katrine Elise Pedersen, assistant curator.
