Falling Up

One characteristic of the contemporary imagination seems to be that “hells” have moved from beneath the Earth’s crust to the heavens, while Earth has been cosmicized as a wasteland. It is no coincidence that the terrestrial wastelands serve as the backdrops for the aesthetic of the alienated outer space: if the post-apocalyptic visions situate the sites of the Last Judgements in space, then the universe is entering Earth’s territory as well. The special issue will explore this transformation from many different angles: it will focus on the philosophical relevance of “hellscapes” in art, the call for a new diplomacy between the living and the inanimate, the phenomenon of radiation or the monstrous canonical figure of the Alien. And, of course, the special issue does not omit the obligatory question for new “sublime”: whether in the abysses of light or darkness.