In this artist talk, Anton Vidokle addresses the idea of Russian Cosmism, derived from his recent film trilogy Immortality for All. The talk is followed by a conversation with writer and curator Hu Fang.

Today, the Russian philosophical theory known as Cosmism has been largely forgotten. Its utopian tenets – combining Western Enlightenment with Eastern philosophy, Russian Orthodox traditions with Marxism – inspired many key Soviet thinkers until they fell victim to Stalinist repression. In this three-part film project, Vidokle probes Cosmism’s influence on the twentieth century and suggests its relevance to the present day.

Combining essay, documentary and performance, Vidokle quotes from the writings of Cosmism’s founder Nikolai Fedorov and other philosophers and poets. His wandering camera searches for traces of Cosmist influence in the remains of Soviet-era art, architecture and engineering, moving from the steppes of Kazakhstan to the museums of Moscow. Music by John Cale and Éliane Radigue accompanies these haunting images, conjuring up the yearning for connectedness, social equality, material transformation and immortality at the heart of Cosmist thought.