The Phantom Menace

Synopsis

Welcome to the age of cosmic radiation! In 2021 the Sun fell to its lowest point of activity since the birth of science. Its magnetic waves that once shield the Earth dramatically weakened. During this solar lull powerful intergalactic cosmic rays penetrated our atmosphere. Originating eons ago from the explosive remnants of dead stars these silent, invisible and highly charged particles were only noticed in their affect – in what they did to our bodies and to the technologies we thought we could rely upon.

Compiling stories from the recent past of interaction with cosmic radiation at ever descending altitudes, The Phantom Menace is a techno driven stroboscopic climate fiction film written in conversation with various Amazon warehouse workers. Initially inspired by the proposed plans for the U.S government to install their fragile predictive supercomputers deep underground in order to protect them from these upcoming ancient alien invaders, the film uses once costly low-resolution scientific visualizations produced on these supercomputers to speculate on the role of image labour in the subterranean near future. Planes crashing, computers malfunctioning and elections going haywire – these were just the prequel to the future.