Stealing One’s Corpse

Julieta Aranda
2024-01-20

0
31 min

Stealing One’s Corpse (2023) is an alleged strike during the 1973-1974 Skylab 4 mission to the US space station. Splicing video recordings of the artist in zero gravity with material filmed with the stargazing indigenous Seri community in Mexico, the video installation responds to the astronauts’ reported desire to have “more time to contemplate the universe.” The artist’s zero-gravity flight rehearsals establish a relational matrix between the culture of cosmonauts, digital imaging of the Earth, astrophysics, ancient astronomy, and the future scenarios depicted in science-fiction novels. Stealing One’s Corpse expands our conception of earthbound time to imagine life beyond the gravitational pull of recurrent global crises.