Up!

“This short play is an attempt to respond to the Cosmic Bulletin’s open call and to answer the questions posed in it”

“Instead of answers, however, only new questions arise; questions such as, What is a space program? What is its purpose? Who benefits from it? To what extent is Russian cosmism part and parcel of the Russian state’s imperialist ambitions? How can the former Russian colonies, united today in sisterly solidarity with Ukraine, have anything to do with it?”

“the problem of the intercosmic future morphed into an urgent present-day problem for us: how and under what conditions do artists cooperate with institutions nowadays?”

“Russian cosmism is a particularly acute conflict zone in this light, its disputed legacy claimed both by the pro-Putin Russian imperialist ideologues of the Izborsky Club and by the Russian and international artists, including those affiliated with the Institute of the Cosmos”

“The cosmos as an organization engaged in mobilizing, in “calling up,” seemed more interesting to us than the cosmos as an imaginary space, and the controversy over cosmism’s legacy more compelling than the legacy itself”

“This situation is staged in our play, which is not so much a play as it is a playful script for performances, discussions, readings, and DIY productions”

“Everything that happens before this final scene is, in theory, just a playful warm-up for the discussion that follows, whose meaning and content are left to the discretion of the people involved in each particular production”

“Joker: I probably should have started by saying that the cosmos is an organization”

“Spectators M and N: Please explain what you mean when you said that “the cosmos is an organization.” Do you work for it?”

“Joker: Yes. We mean that our universe is organized, like this meeting. Don’t you see? We are talking to you because someone arranged our meeting”

“But even before that, for us to have the opportunity to be born, to live, and to converse, someone had to take care of a lot of things in advance. The stars had to shine, the planets had to spin, nuclear and chemical reactions had to be maintained, life forms had to evolve, the seasons had to change, and blood had to pulse in veins”

“This entire huge machine has been running 24/7 for many billions of years. Of course, we have our ups and downs too, but, basically, the celestial chancellery has been coping with the job, don’t you think?”

“The cosmos is a project that unites worlds”