My Summer Lair Chapter #311: When Was The Last Time You Looked Up At All The Stars In Wonder?
In this My Summer Lair conversation with Michael Benson; we talk about 2001 and Tree of Life. We talk about William Shatner (who just turned 94 years old, yesterday!) and the Alien movies (well the first two).
Mostly, Michael and I discuss The Image Centre and his freshtastic exhibition Planetfall which is truly #PantsWorthy. I’ve visited the exhibition twice.
The Image Centre is one of my favourite art galleries in the city of Toronto. Located on the Ryerson University campus (renamed Toronto Metropolitan University), the programming they offer is often fresh and fantastic. And always free!
The Image Centre is a photography gallery. The best photography offers you a different perspective. The way a stand up comic has a slightly different way of looking at the world.
The IMC’s current exhibition is Michael’s Planetfall and you gotta see it to believe it.
The exhibition description reads in part: “American artist Michael Benson processes, reworks, and composites individual frames to produce highly detailed images of the planets and their orbiting moons. His photographs show these celestial bodies from unusual vantage points and render light and color with startling clarity. Benson’s appropriation and reinvention of images taken by robotic spacecraft offers an astonishing alternative to society’s visual clichés of outer space, restoring a sense of wonder to scenes beyond the reach of mankind.”
Yeah! All the telescopes and satellites we send out to space to record images of the planets, Michael then “processes, reworks, and composites individual frames” to produce stunning images of Saturn, Jupiter…Mars and Milky Way.
As you’ll hear Michael reveals: “It’s more than just curating photos. It is constructing these photos from raw image data. In some senses curation is part of it. I’ve compared it to giving myself the role of a photographer with endless contact sheets.”
One of the reasons I enjoy science-fiction is speculation: you can dream up new methods when you unleash a bold imagination. It’s hope.
And bonus fun? What stirs the imagination and cements the experience is Planetfall images are scored by Brian Eno. Indeed, as you walk through the exhibition.
Brian Eno writes about The Ambient Soundscape: “The discoveries of the space age have revealed instead a chaotic, unstable and vibrant reality, constantly changing. This music tried to reflect that new understanding.”
I wish I had a tea…I savored the ambient music as much as I admired all the photos.
Meet Michael Benson who has written a number of books including Space Odyssey: Stanley Kubrick, Arthur C. Clarke, and the Making of a Masterpiece. I highly recommend this biography of that cinematic masterpiece.
And speaking of cinematic masterpieces, Michael worked with Terrence Malick on Tree of Life to develop the cosmological sequences. Tree of Life is an astonishing movie; a phenomenal depiction of grace and the bleak nature of a persistent soul.
I was ecstatic I got to connect with somebody who worked on the film. I enjoyed putting the film on the record.
The Image Centre @ W • T • F
Host Sammy Younan
Recorded: Tuesday, February 11, 2025 at 12:00 pm (EST)
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