Song for the Cosmos: Art and Science in the Age of Space Exploitation

On the windswept island of Unst, the UK's most northerly point, a spaceport is being built. On land and at sea, crofter-farmers and fishing workers learn of this new neighbour. The island, and its natural inhabitants, are unaware until the rocket's first hot-fire test blows up on the launchpad. For the past two years, two artists have been trying to understand what this means for the island, and for all of us. 

You are invited to a preview, work-in-progress screening of a new, ambitious artists moving image work, made on the site of the spaceport in collaboration with people who live there. Join artists Geo Barcan and Edwin Mingard, and space philosopher Sabine Winters, for the screening and an audience discussion of what this development, and others like it across the globe, mean for our shared future. 

What does it actually feel like when a spaceport is being built where you live? How are all of our lives changing, in the long shift from viewing ourselves from down here, to seeing ourselves from above, via a new world of global imaging and data? What technological discoveries will be made, and what are the costs? Will the sky above our heads look different, with 50,000 satellites spinning past?

Supported by Nederlands Film Fonds and Mondriaan Fonds.