SPECIAL EVENT – The Drowned World (Toronto Biennial of Art)

September 21 – December 1 between 11am – 4pm for this multimedia experience. Admission is FREE.

During the Biennial, the Cinesphere becomes a world within a world, merging film and sound art with scent and changing atmospheric conditions. From cosmological origin stories, to a future in which civilization is extinct, The Drowned World contrasts deep time with the decline of global ecologies. The project’s title refers to J.G. Ballard’s 1962 archaeopsychic cli-fi novel in which the ice caps have melted and submerged the world, forcing the migration of a dwindling and devolving human species into the Canadian Arctic.

Prehistoric sounds; the sonification of a dying star; the submarine beats of Detroit’s bubble metropolis; the sacrifice of a muskrat; the love of an octopus. Within this brave new world, the artificial boundaries of modernity’s civilizations have evaporated, and life in all its forms continues to shift.

The Drowned World is guest curated by Charles Stankievech.

Artists at the Cinesphere

J.G. Ballard | Julian Charrière | Revital Cohen & Tuur van Balen | Aryo Danusiri | Drexciya | Cyprien Gaillard

| Marguerite Humeau | Aki Inomata | Ville Kokkonen for Comme des Garçons | Clarice Lispector | Alvin Lucier | Jumana Manna | Dark Morph | Pauline Oliveros | Jean Painlevé | Brandon Poole | Afredo Ramos and Kashya Badach | Lisa Rave | Charles Stankievech | James Tenney | Nils-Aslak Valkeapää | Apichatpong Weerasethakul | Whatever | The World Soundscape Project

With the creative and generous contribution of Comme Des Garçons and MVS Proseminar, University of Toronto—John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design.