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The Communist Revolution Was Caused By The Sun is the second film of Anton Vidokle’s trilogy on Russian cosmism, a metaphysical philosophy and cultural movement that emerged in the late 19th and early 20th centuries among Russian scientists, intellectuals, artists, and revolutionaries, which speculated on the possibilities of space travel; the use of electromagnetic energies to enhance health, healing, and vitality; and prolonged human lifespan, immortality, and even resurrection. This film focuses specifically on the poetic dimension of the theories of Soviet biophysicist, Alexander Chizhevsky (1897-1964), whose lifework involved the study of the effects of aero-ionization and cosmological fluctuations such as sunspots and solar flares on human health and behaviour.

Shot in Kazakhstan, the location of a vast network of Soviet labour camps as well as the heart of the Soviet (and then Russian) space programs, where Chizhevsky was imprisoned and later exiled, the film introduces Сhizhevsky’s research into heliobiology, the study of the effects and influences of the sun’s cyclical flares and lulls on terrestrial organisms. Through analyzing solar records and comparing them to major events in human history, Chizhevsky discerned that human sociology, psychology, politics, economics, and culture shifted and changed in relation to the rising and falling activity of the sun. This undulating wave of solar and human activity followed eleven-year cycles, which consisted of the following four periods: the first, corresponding with a phase of minimal solar activity, is characterized by feelings of peacefulness, passivity, tolerance, and creativity; second, as solar activity increases, humanity enters a time of uplifted social mood, during which the masses begin to organize and unify under new leaders and ideas; this phase is followed by a peak interval of solar activity which causes maximum excitability and elevated passions in humanity, resulting in revolutions, upheaval, and wars; and finally, as solar activity once again declines, humanity enters a period of a gradual decrease of excitability and the disintegration of social unity, until the masses become separatist, apathetic, and fall back into a depressed social mood.

Collaging scenes of life in rural Kazakhstan, abstracted views of the world from space, vignettes of human toil, and passages resembling educational science videos, alongside excerpts from Chizhevsky’s writing, historical accounts, religious ruminations, and poetic contemplations on the nature of life, death, and the invisible energies that affect us, The Communist Revolution Was Caused By The Sun evokes the ultimate, transhumanist focus of the futurological projects of Russian cosmism: the common cause of humankind in our struggle against the limitations of earthly life.

Through watching, we as viewers are implicated as well. Bookending the film with entrancing black-and-white scenes overdubbed with a voice coaxing us into a state of meditative relaxation, Vidokle employs elements of clinical hypnosis commonly used to help patients overcome addictions in a gesture toward breaking our human dependence on mortality—a through line of life and death which references the desire implicit in cosmism to rejuvenate, heal, and delay dying, and to assert the place of humans as immortal, cosmic beings.

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Anton Vidokle is an artist and editor of e-flux journal. He was born in Moscow and lives in New York and Berlin. Vidokle’s work has been exhibited internationally at Documenta 13 and the 56th Venice Biennale. Vidokle’s films have been presented at Bergen Assembly, Shanghai Biennale, the 65th and 66th Berlinale International Film Festival, Forum Expanded, Gwangju Biennale, Centre Pompidou, Tate Modern, Garage Museum, Istanbul Biennial, Haus der Kulturen der Welt and others.

1.11GB | 33m 36s | 1920×1080 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/CF60DF2D50FDC94/The.Communist.Revolution.Was.Caused.By.The.Sun.2015.1080p.WEB-DL.H.264b.mkv

Language(s):Russian
Subtitles:English (Hardcoded)

The post Anton Vidokle – The Communist Revolution Was Caused by the Sun (2015) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

This is Cosmos is the first film in a trilogy inspired by the ideas of Russian cosmism, which is a unique phenomenon that emerged in the late 19th century, bringing together religious, philosophical, scientific and aesthetic theories united by a common idea of cosmos as a universal order.

Drawing widely on poems, philosophical texts, scientific writings, academic papers, and historical studies from followers of Cosmism, Anton Vidokle has focused on the writings of philosopher Nikolai Fyodorov, the founder of the movement. In creating his theories of the “Common Cause,” Fyodorov advocated for the development of scientific methods for the radical extension of life and the resurrection of the dead, believing that death was a mistake, “because the energy of cosmos is indestructible, because true religion is a cult of ancestors, because true social equality is immortality for all.”

This is Cosmos was filmed at locations in Moscow and Arkhangelsk regions, Altai, Kazakhstan and Crimea—regions and places that have played an important part in the history of the movement. As a non-linear history of ideas and practices related to cosmism, the film is an aesthetic exploration of the potential immanent in the utopian idea of a better world. In this way Vidokle recalls the tradition of the Russian avant-garde with their totality of thinking.

Underlining this connection, one section of A Progress Report is dedicated to works by artists of the Russian avant-garde: Kazimir Malevich and his pupils Nikolai Suetin, Ilya Chashnik, Konstantin Rozhdestvensky, Vladimir Sterligov, Ivan Kudriashov; Mikhail Matyushin’s followers Pavel Mansurov and the Ender siblings; as well as visionary architect Yakov Chernikhov. For them cosmos was no longer an abstract idea, but a very real foundation for a great experiment. They all believed in the universal power of their art and imagined a new world, challenging the laws of physics. In the context of cosmism, their utopian projects become a constructive force leading humanity toward new opportunities.
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Anton Vidokle is an artist and editor of e-flux journal. He was born in Moscow and lives in New York and Berlin. Vidokle’s work has been exhibited internationally at Documenta 13 and the 56th Venice Biennale. Vidokle’s films have been presented at Bergen Assembly, Shanghai Biennale, the 65th and 66th Berlinale International Film Festival, Forum Expanded, Gwangju Biennale, Centre Pompidou, Tate Modern, Garage Museum, Istanbul Biennial, Haus der Kulturen der Welt and others.

1.09GB | 28m 10s | 1920×1080 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/964601BE5CB7780/This_Is_Cosmos_2014_1080p_WEB-DL_H264.mkv
https://nitroflare.com/view/54E5D591A220C07/This_Is_Cosmos_2014_1080p_WEB-DL_H264.srt
https://nitroflare.com/view/70C5DEE55EA8A2E/This_Is_Cosmos_2014_1080p_WEB-DL_H264.ass

Language(s):Russian
Subtitles:English (hardcoded),Spanish

The post Anton Vidokle – This Is Cosmos (2014) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

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Today the Russian philosophy 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 his three-part film project, artist Anton Vidokle probes Cosmism’s influence on the twentieth century and suggests its relevance to the present day. In Part One he returns to the foundations of Cosmist thought (This Is Cosmos, 2014). Part Two explores the links between cosmology and politics (The Communist Revolution Was Caused By The Sun, 2015) and Part Three restages the museum as a site of resurrection, a central Cosmist idea (Immortality and Resurrection for All!, 2017).

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.

Immortality and Resurrection for All! (2017), the trilogy’s final chapter, is a meditation on a museum as the site of resurrection – a central idea for many Cosmist thinkers, scientists and avant-garde artists. Filmed at the State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow Zoological Museum, the Lenin Library and the Museum of Revolution, the film looks at museological and archival techniques of collection, restoration and conservation as a means of the material restoration of life, following an essay penned by Nikolai Fedorov on this subject in the 1880s. The film follows a cast comprised of present-day followers of Fedorov, several actors, artists and a Pharaoh Hound that playfully enact the resurrection of a mummy, a close examination of Malevich’s Black Square, Rodchenko’s spatial constructions, taxidermied animals, artifacts of the Russian Revolution, skeletons, and mannequins in tableau vivant-like scenes, in order to create a contemporary visualization for the poetry implicit in Fedorov’s writings.
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Anton Vidokle is an artist and editor of e-flux journal. He was born in Moscow and lives in New York and Berlin. Vidokle’s work has been exhibited internationally at Documenta 13 and the 56th Venice Biennale. Vidokle’s films have been presented at Bergen Assembly, Shanghai Biennale, the 65th and 66th Berlinale International Film Festival, Forum Expanded, Gwangju Biennale, Centre Pompidou, Tate Modern, Garage Museum, Istanbul Biennial, Haus der Kulturen der Welt and others.

969MB | 34 min 16 s | 1920×1080 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/0B43755E147C70F/Immortality.and.Resurrection.for.All.2017.1080p.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264-Busillis.mkv

Language(s):Russian
Subtitles:English (hardcoded)

The post Anton Vidokle – Immortality and Resurrection for All! (2017) first appeared on Cinema of the World.