News2021.05.20 13:49

‘Extra-terrestrial planet of human bodies’ – Lithuania opens pavilion at Venice biennale

BNS 2021.05.20 13:49

Lithuania is opening its pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale on Thursday.

The pavilion features Planet of People, a project by artist Julijonas Urbonas, the founder of the Lithuanian Space Agency (LSA), a fictional organization that researches “space architecture and gravitational aesthetics”.

Planet of People is an artistic and scientific feasibility study into a hypothetical artificial planet made entirely of human bodies.

Urbonas' idea is to catapult humans to one of the Lagrange points in space where their bodies would eventually converge into a new celestial object, “a planet of people”.

Lietuvos erdvės agentūros virtuali spaudos konferencija

“The artist invites us to discuss the ethical, aesthetic and political problems of space,” the exhibition's organisers say in a press release.

At the centre of the Planet of People installation is a 3D scanner that scans visitors and “sends” them into space as animated simulations.

As more and more people participate in the experiment, their scanned bodies will begin to form “an extra-terrestrial planet”.

The LSA laboratory in Venice will run until November 21.

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