From Solar to Nocturnal

Staring at the Sun is a "sci-fi documentary" that delves into the dark side of solar geoengineering — the deliberate, large-scale modification of Earth's climate systems through manipulation of solar influence. Set globally, from the Louisiana Bayou to the Arctic Circle, Wyoming to Gstaad, the Great Barrier Reef, and Indonesia’s palm oil plantations, it features protagonists based on real interviews. The work examines geoengineering proposals under research in the U.S. and Europe, alongside advancements in climate modeling and digital twin technology. 

Matthew C. Wilson’s  Interspecies Interfaces (Part I) is the first chapter of a two-part film project, realized in a joint residency with Emilia Tapprest, which will unfold in two chapters presented in March and June. Focusing on newly evolving contact zones between bats, humans, and technology, the project introduces the concept of "other suns" to challenge the solar-centric hierarchy of perception. Just as the transition to solar and other energy sources requires new ways of thinking and designing, reimagining cultural and technological approaches to perceiving the more-than-human world also demands a shift. In their nocturnal world, bats’ use of echolocation—where sound, rather than light, serves as the primary signal for orientation—presents us with a different strategy for perceiving and interfacing with the environment.

From world-building technology and AI to interspecies sensory translation, the exhibition traces a narrative itinerary from solar to nocturnal, shifting from real-world scenarios to the exploration of alternative visions for how we act, perceive, and interact with our surroundings. 

• The Solar Biennale 2

From the spring equinox to the autumn equinox of 2025, mudac will host the second Solar Biennale with the exhibition Soleil·s which will take place in the Plateforme 10 arts district and on the EPFL campus. Launched in 2022 in the Netherlands by designers Pauline van Dongen and Marjan van Aubel, the Solar Biennale provides a platform for reflection on the challenges of solar energy. For this second edition, mudac will broaden the theme by bringing together designers, curators, activists, and researchers to explore expanded perspectives on how to approach ecological transition. 

-> www.mudac.ch

• Alice Bucknell

Alice Bucknell is an artist and writer based in Los Angeles. Their recent work has focused on creating cinematic universes within game worlds, exploring the affective dimensions of video games as interfaces for understanding complex systems, relations and forms of knowledge. Their work has appeared internationally at Ars Electronica with transmediale, Arcade Seoul, the 18th Venice Architecture Biennale, Gray Area in San Francisco, Singapore Art Museum, and Serpentine in London, among others. Their writing appears in publications including ArtReview, e-flux architecture, frieze, Flash Art, the Harvard Design Magazine, and Mousse. In 2025, they are a Creative Capital awardee and Y11 member of NEW INC. Bucknell received a MA in Contemporary Art Practice from the Royal College of Art and a BA in Anthropology from the University of Chicago. They are currently faculty at SCI-Arc in Los Angeles where they teach courses on worlding, gaming, and philosophies of technology. 

• Matthew C. Wilson

Matthew C. Wilson is a filmmaker and artist from the United States based in the Netherlands. In his videos, sculptures, and installations, viewers meet human, non-human, and inter-subjective agents that are entangled with natural processes and shape-shifting historical forces. His projects utilize research-oriented, site-specific, and methodologically eclectic approaches to track the inertia of modernity through contemporary ecological crises and into speculative futures. Wilson holds an MFA in visual arts from Columbia University and has been a participant in the Whitney Independent Study Program, Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture, and the Jan van Eyck Academie. He has held numerous fellowships including most recently the KNAW - Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences artist in residence fellowship at NIAS - Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences in Amsterdam. Wilson’s exhibitions have included Galeria Skala, Poznań, PL, Walk&Talk Festival of Art, São Miguel, Azores, PT, Het Nieuwe Instituut, Rotterdam, NL, Exhibition Research Lab, Liverpool, UK, among others. His films have screened on Vdrome.org, at IFFR - International Film Festival Rotterdam, the Eye Filmmuseum in Amsterdam, and HKW - Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin.

• Enter the Hyper-Scientific

Initiated by the EPFL College of Humanities (CDH), amplified by EPFL Pavilions, and in partnership with the City of Lausanne, the EPFL-CDH Artist-in-Residence (AiR) Program “Enter the Hyper-Scientific” fosters transdisciplinary encounters and collaborations between artists and EPFL’s scientific community. The program invites international artists, for three-month residencies to realize innovative and visionary projects at the intersection of art, science, advanced technologies, and the humanities. 

• Dates

19.4.2025
Opening Alice Bucknell and Matthew C. Wilson
Joint opening with Archizoom
SG Hall & EPFL Pavilions, Pavilion A, 6 pm
Dates of the exhibition: 20.3–27.4.2025