871
by Francesca Cugno & Gaia Maggio
portfolio shortlisted call 'Urbanautica Institute Awards 2023', 2023
Category: Nature, Environment and Perspectives
The trope of invaders from space evokes a particular question about
directionality of travel: in which direction is there an invasion? From space to
Earth? From outside to inside? The opposite? Are the borders defended symmetrically? Is
it a hierarchical inside/outside opposition?
"871" traces the Time of a phallic adventure in which Man was the only one
protagonist of history. 871 is the identification number of Iride, a modest
switchboard operator who fights for Earth's survival and is narrating this story at the
end of the twentieth century, but it is also the identifying number of a galaxy, the
NCG 871, which she studies and observes from afar.
Through a cyberfeminist vision that lays bare the model of anthropos characteristic of the
Enlightenment project, this work promotes awareness of the expansionist past and opens
up a space of imaginative liberation that could prove useful for the turbulent present in
which we live. Thinking together between and with machines, human and non-human
animals, plants and minerals in the reality of cyberspace could be a path to
allow everyone to survive on this Earth.
[1] Some of the pictures are from the Heritage Lab archive.
also from Urbanautica Institute Awards 2023