Science Fiction(s)

A crab-like creature hangs in the Hall of Columns, watching the humans below like a curious alien. Alimasag (the Filipino word for crab) is a sculpture by Leeroy New. It consists of fish traps arranged to look like the creatures that the baskets are designed to catch.

New has been passionate about science fiction since he was a child, and his experience as a production designer for theater and film allowed him to create his own brand of Filipino futurism.

His work is inspired by various myths, including Tambanokano, a giant crab from Eastern Mindanao that controls the waves and tides, and Dã Tràng, a hunter from Vietnamese folklore who transformed himself into a sand crab in search of a magical pearl that would allow him to talk to animals.

Through his own unique sci-fi language, New invites viewers to think about alternative realities and question their worldview.

Learn more about Leeroy New

In connection with the exhibition Science Fiction(s) – If There Were a Tomorrow, Weltmuseum Wien presents the work SpaceMosque by Pakistani-American artist Saks Afridi in the Theseus Temple in the Volksgarten. As a spaceship minaret, SpaceMosque floats inthe midst of the Theseus Temple and recounts the following narrative:

In the recent past, just before the Internet age, a spaceship appeared above the Earth thatfulfilled one prayer per day for each person. The ship appeared in countless forms, depending on peopleʹs expectations and inclinations: as a church, temple, synagogue, mosque, or ray of light.

To the first people who saw it, the ship appeared as a mosque-like structure, which is whythe media named it ‘space mosque’. The fulfilled prayers competed with each other and upset the world so much that the spaceship exploded.

Using these remaining artefacts, Saks Afridi has reconstructed events of which we now have no memory. An LED tape announces, ‘Your prayers have been received and will be answered’. Prints show instruments that converted prayers into algorithms. The centrepiece of Afridi’s installation is a spaceship minaret, created as a 3D print in collaboration with the Vienna-based company Object Fabrication GmbH.

Behind the fusion of Islamic art and spaceship design lies the question of where we direct our desires. In the clash between generosity and greed, in which prayers become a global currency, we are confronted by the question of whether the world really would be better if our prayers were fulfilled? Would morality or selfishness prevail?

Saks Afridi was born in Peshawar, Pakistan, in 1975. He lives and works as an artist and designer in New York. Afridi makes art objects in various media, drawing inspiration from Sufi poetry, Afrofuturism, South Asian folklore, Islamic mythology, science fiction, architecture, and calligraphy. Afridi describes his work, in which he merges storytelling with Islamic mysticism, as "sci-fi Sufism".