Art without death: conversations on Russian Cosmism

“Rejuvenation and immortality are going to comprise the defining technological imaginary of our time.This will also constitute the ultimate political question: Will biotechnology lead to perpetual youth and longevity for the rich elite, or to an immortality for all? Everything is pointing to this.”
—Simeon Sorkin

According to the nineteenth-century teachings of Nikolai Fedorov-librarian, religious philosopher, and progenitor of Russian cosmism-our ethical obligation to use reason and knowledge to care for the sick extends to curing the dead of their terminal status. The dead must be brought back to life using means of advanced technology-resurrected not as souls in heaven, but in material form, in this world, with all their memories and knowledge. This book of interviews and conversations with today's most compelling living and resurrected artists and thinkers seeks to address the relevance of Russian cosmism and biocosmism in light of its influence on the Russian artistic and political vanguard as well as on today's art-historical apparatuses, weird materialisms, extinction narratives, and historical and temporal politics.