Centre

What is your first memory of space?

ANNABELLE FISET: We were with our family in the country, and there were tons of fireflies everywhere. In the middle of this blinking field, my father was explaining to me the twinkling of the stars—that they were like little suns that exploded, with a life and a death. So my interest in space—which wasn't so great at the time—really began with the stars.

Are we conditioned to go beyond our limits as a species?

PHOEBE GREENBERG: Our fascination with what lies beyond our borders is innate and existed even in the ancient world; we need only think of stars as navigational tools and the perspective that established that the Earth was round. I also approach this notion of demystifying our relationship to the cosmos through various myths by placing it in a context that we understand. In our self-discovery and our relationship to the cosmos, I think there is this reflection: Who am I in the face of the vastness of infinity? It is a duality that we are all confronted with and has left its mark on humanity's art and science.

MARIE BRASSARD: It seems to be part of us: the idea of trying to understand the meaning of our existence, where we come from, why, and what's beyond. The idea that we might be the only living species in the entire cosmos makes us dizzy. I call this quest "the call of the light." The Greeks believed that the light that allowed us to see the world around us came from within us. Then they realized that it came from far away. I think that the invention of the telescope was born from this awareness and desire to understand where the light came from. In a very basic sense, the search for light has also metaphorically inspired many philosophers, religious people, artists, and scientists. And it has served as the foundation for the creation of the work.

What do we learn about ourselves as human beings?

MARIE: One thing that has come out of the astronauts' testimonies is realizing the miracle of our existence. Space exploration has also made us aware of how fragile and insignificant we are in this universe and the priceless value of all living creatures. Finding solutions to preserve the planet is one of the aspects of space research that I love the most. How can we take care of the planet and keep it alive? We must absolutely take care of this rare gift of life, maintain it, and treat it with great respect.

PHOEBE: I think there's also a sense of ego loss. When astronauts leave the planet, they literally leave behind all the accumulated codes of their own identity that made up their personality. They find themselves in space almost as a neutral observer. All the science and imagination it took to bring these people to this perspective revealed the meaning of their own humanity. But as it relates to all of us, the notion of "Who am I?" gives way to "Who are we?"

MARIE: I also find that the fact that the astronauts are stripped of their identities and that the people on the ISS come from all over the world adds to the beauty of the journey. Because before being a national, political or other, it is first and foremost a human quest. When these astronauts, who are scientists with so much knowledge and experience, are all together in the small floating cell of the ISS, one really feels that they are simply humans—generous and with a lot of heart. Their testimonies [in THE INFINITE experience] sometimes talk about their dreams as children and how the starry sky fascinated them. These childhood dreams unite them.

What vision did you want to bring to the project as creative leads?

PHOEBE: We both come from a theatrical background. We wanted to think about the physical body and how it reacts to leaving the Earth. So we were inspired by some of the readings, especially the poetry that came out of the astronauts' testimonies. How can we bring that perspective to an audience? It was really important to us that the visitor feel a transformation and a sense of being beyond what they understand about our earthly world.

MARIE: When you think of virtual reality, you always think of it as happening in the mind, as if you don't have a body. We tried to make this experience very physical in various ways: people move, they have the real feeling of travelling in the ISS, walking in space, seeing the planet around them, and ultimately experiencing the overall picture. It's very physical and emotional. We wanted people to feel like they had an experience that changed them profoundly, philosophically, personally, and physically. One of our wishes was that when people come out of this experience, they would feel a little bit like the astronauts do when they look at the Earth and feel how precious nature and life are. If we can get people to come out of there and have that kind of epiphany, we will have achieved our goal.

PHOEBE: That's true. This type of presentation is often approached from the perspective of a scientific archive, with artefacts from space. But we really wanted to incorporate Felix and Paul's work in a poetic way. We looked at the territories of some contemporary artists and architects and chose to focus our attention on human evolution in relation to the call of the stars. We thought about the dynamics of the relationship between man and space to create a narrative line and highlight what Felix and Paul have achieved, giving us a sense of presence, a sense of being transported through their content. For example, we were interested in the realist artist Ryoji Ikeda for his thoughts on sound and data beyond human perception. His work really examines the universe's vastness and what it means to understand our presence on Earth on macro and micro scales. Not only is he an electronic composer and visual artist, but his creation is present throughout the exhibition. Through his data-driven algorithms, the soundtrack speaks a language similar to what we experience in the territory of space exploration.

MARIE: To add to that, yes, this trajectory makes us feel that there is first a departure, then a journey through art and through the cosmos, to finally slowly return to Earth, but feeling different.

Our journey into space has influenced our view of human nature and humanity's place in the universe. How has space exploration prompted us to think about our relationship with nature?

PHOEBE: I think the goal of these space programs is for humanity to evolve into a potentially interplanetary species. Our desire to introduce organic materials toward the exhibit's end is inspired in part by the scientific experiments on the ISS itself. They send organic tissue, whether human, animal, or plant, and try to understand how the lack of gravity influences that material. There is also this desire to see if we can recreate favourable conditions for humans to live outside Earth. So we wanted to pay tribute to all the thinking that goes into this desire to become an advanced interplanetary species. If we were to imagine a garden or a life created outside of this planet, it would not necessarily be subject to the rules of Earth. So we were looking for some kind of poetry behind the new ways of life in other worlds.

MARIE: We have given a name to each section of the experiment. The end of this one is called "The Origin." I like that we call it that because it ends, as Phoebe said, with a kind of organic imagery, like we're coming back to Earth, but also like we're coming into some other kind of future, somewhere else maybe. The meaning remains open. It evokes the origin of our existence and our human condition, and at the same time, a new beginning, the beginning of a life with a new form. Maybe some people will take our nature to other territories—everything is possible. And with that will perhaps come another natural environment and other human inventions that will lead to a different way of living. There are so many things that we do not know. The secrets of our existence are contained in the natural elements: in the water, in the air, in the plants that grow, in the animal that our cells already know. We are made of stardust. We are nature, and without it, we do not exist. Worried about the future of humans and our planet, we thought it was important to address this in the experiment.