Victory over
the sun

In 1913, the Russian Futurists unleashed this dizzying piece of canonical apocrypha: a psychedelic proto-science fiction saga of time-travelling revolutionaries and singing weaponry, set against a backdrop that included an early draft of the avant-garde painter Malevich’s iconic Black Square. The text: untranslatable. The music: lost to history. Alongside Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring and Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author, it is one of the few artistic works whose premiere provoked a riot.

The 20th Biennale of Sydney brings together SCO and visionary Sydney artist Justene Williams to make a new Victory for the 21st century. The result is a masterwork of passionate strangeness for the digital age that shows us worlds the Futurists could never have imagined.

Drones soar, history collapses, and a pair of strongwomen battle over humanity’s fate in a glorious dream of tomorrow.

Welcome to the new future.

Image: Justene Williams, Your Boat My Scenic Personality of Space, 2012, video still. Courtesy the artist and Sarah Cottier Gallery, Sydney