“Vaster than Empires” by CROSSLUCID

What is the boundary line between what is alien and what is familiar, and from whose perspective? How can humans’ greater attentiveness to planetary intelligence shape how we care for our world, and those beyond? What are the perilous consequences of humans’ extractive practices of nature, both on-world and off? How do computational intelligences we build disclose that planetary intelligence in turn driving our exploration of extraterrestrial natures?

Delve into “Vaster Than Empires,“ an original work by new media artists CROSSLUCID that contemplates these profound questions. The artists assembled a bespoke, generative AI system to interpret themes in the writer Ursula K. Le Guin’s science fiction story “Vaster than Empires.” Theo Downes-Le Guin reads an excerpt that conveys the ruminative but tense mood of the short story, whose characters are often in conflict with one another as they confront a profoundly alien environment. Through a delicate balance of visuals and implied emotions, we invite the audience to traverse the thin boundaries of self and other. The work aims to challenge our preconceptions about what entities possess intelligence to deepen humans’ sense of connection to alien Others in the vastness of the universe.

“Vaster Than Empires“ was commissioned as an extension of the Vaster than Empires workshop hosted by Future Humans and Studio B at the Berggruen Institute.

Artistic Credits

CROSSLUCID is an artist collective (est. 2018) that engages in highly collaborative cross-disciplinary projects in co-evolution with technology.

Their work and research converges around the exploration of the self as a network; intimacy and the potential for pleasurable actualization through the digital sphere, and the re-imagination of our alliances with technology seen as part of a sympoietic biosphere and universal post-material consciousness. Through filmmaking, poetic Artificial Intelligence, multi-layered techniques of collage, assemblage and experience-led interventions they create scenarios and build experiential formats that instigate prototyping and rehearsing potential futures and progressing metamodern values.

Their work has been exhibited and showcased by Shanghai Architecture Biennale / MetaCity, Vellum LA, EPOCH.Gallery, The Osaka Museum of Fine Arts, Francisco Carolinum Linz, Expanded.Art, Art Encounters Biennial, MuseumsQuartier Wien, Zagreb Museum of Contemporary Art, arebyte London, Chronus Art Center Shanghai, AI Biennale Germany, NOWNESS, Google Arts & Culture, wrong biennial, and Art Basel Miami amongst others.

Theo Downes-Le Guin is literary executor for author Ursula K. Le Guin and heads the Ursula K. Le Guin Foundation. Through programs such as an annual prize for fiction, the Foundation continues Le Guin’s legacy of supporting writers and readers of science fiction, fantasy, literary fiction, and poetry. He also consults on adaptations of Le Guin’s work for screen and stage.

ARSWAIN is a composer who has worked with Emmy-nominated composer James S. Levine at Hans Zimmer’s Remote Control Productions in Santa Monica, California and holds numerous music credits.

Anna Tskhovrebov is an AV artist, audio software engineer, and XR infrastructure inventor drawn to the blurry boundaries between real and imagined.