Join us on June 22 at 18:00 for an extraordinary movie screening experience!

The Eye of Silence explores alternative theories of the origin of life, consciousness, and art, commemorating the centenary of the planetarium. The work marshals high atmospheric video recordings of salt flats, volcanoes, and meteorite crater in order to visualize the Earth at the critical moments of its evolution. The narrative begins at the moment when life on the planet was seeded from a frozen meteorite based on a theory called panspermia. The video ends with 3D scans of prehistoric cave art projected onto the immersive screen, creating an architectural connection between our modern ways of imagining the cosmos in the planetarium with the ancient ways during rituals in caves. Accompanying the psychedelic visuals, temporality and timelessness entwined in a sonic fugue, combining both subterranean beats and cosmic noise—inviting the visitor to meditate on deep time, deep space, and deep listening. In dialogue with contemporary scientific research, the composition comprises original field recordings of solar rays (whistling within the earth’s ionosphere), hydrophone recordings of crackling Arctic ice and flowing cenotes (created by a meteorite impact), and ambisonic recordings from volcanic calderas. The Eye of Silence is reconfigured for the site-​specific performance at ETH’s Immersive Design Lab, expanding our spatial explorations within the technological cave. In this context, the 75-​speaker sound system in the acoustically controlled chamber of IDL creates a virtual sound field supported by the visual projection, making The Eye of Silence a hallucinatory vision of the cosmic and the chthonic colliding.

The screening is followed by a conversation and Q&A with Charles Stankievech and Ala Roushan. RSRV your spot now and send a mail to: