Tuesday 19 April 2011

‘Radiant Static’: a talk on Yuri Gagarin for Easter Sunday


Anyone remaining in London over the spring festivities may like to know that I am giving a short talk about Yuri Gagarin on the eve of Easter Sunday as part of ‘I Don’t See Any God Up Here’, an event organized by Club Integral at the Grosvenor in SW9. Other participants include Space Heads, Gagarin and Oscillatorial Binnage vs. Sound of the Sun. All the relevant details are included on the flyer reproduced above or can be accessed by clicking here.

It seems entirely appropriate to stage a memorial to the great achievement of Yuri Gagarin as part of the mystery of Easter rather than another instalment in the series of hearty celebrations officially held on Cosmonaut’s Day. The truth is that we don’t want our cosmonauts and astronauts back in our lives – they are too painful a reminder of technological as well as spiritual failure, just one more indication that we are trapped down here on this cop-ridden planet, beset by the sins of materiality and so terribly afraid that there will be no resurrection. Gagarin’s claim not to have seen God while orbiting the Earth is not, therefore, the cheery expression of faith in progressive humanism but an echo of the dark despair of a redeemer, abandoned in Hell, giving up all hope of a new dawn. Have a Happy Easter.

3 comments:

Fari said...

Thanks for that x

Ken Hollings said...

You're very welcome - it was a really great event.

Keith Seatman said...

Would very much like to have been there.