Hiroshi Sugimoto took part in Star Sphere, an initiative that invited creators and members of the public to use a satellite equipped with a Sony camera to create art in space. The project aimed to promote what organizers call “the perspectives of space”—the longview that acknowledges the vast distances and timelines of our universe, and the smallness of our place in it.
As part of the collaboration, Sony produced a series of videos with Sugimoto titled From Science to Fantasy, focused on the relationship between science and storytelling. In them, Sugimoto talks with a range of experts in fields that touch on topics related to “the richness and naivety of human fantasies of outer space.”
Watch the episodes below:
Episode 0 features Sugimoto in conversation with writer, game designer, and professor of philosophy Takamitsu Yamamoto and art writer, editor and curator Mari Hashimoto.
Episode 1 features astronomer Junichi Watanabe, Yukinori Kawae, an archaeologist specializing in ancient Egypt, and So-oku Sen, head of the Mushakoji Senke school of tea ceremony, in a wide-ranging conversation.
Episode 2 includes Momoe Kanazawa, a historian who specializes in Romanesque art, and Toh EnJoe, an author known for works filled with linguistic experimentation, for a conversation that explores human fantasies of outer space.
Episode 3 presents a conversation with astrology researcher Ryuji Kagami about connections between the external universe and the inner universe of individual emotion.
Episode 4 includes information scientist Dominique Chen, who talks about play as an intrinsic aspect of humanity, and soprano Ayako Tanaka, who performs on the Enoura Observatory’s glass stage.
Episode 5 features AXA astronaut Kimiya Yui and Sony Chief Technology Officer Hiroaki Kitano, who discuss the physical and spiritual transformations that embracing the perspectives of space will bring.