dir. Deborah Stratman

2023 // 50 min

Free Screening Funded by Science on Screen:

A Screening of Last Things by Deborah Stratman with a presentation to follow by Astrobiologist/Spectroscopist Claire Marshall

The Film: The project originated from two novellas of J.-H. Rosny, the joint pseudonym of the Belgian brothers Boex who wrote on natural, prehistoric and speculative subjects—sci fi before it was a genre. The film takes up their pluralist vision of evolution, where imagining prehistory is inseparable from envisioning the future. Also central are Roger Caillois’ writing on stones, Robert Hazen's theory of Mineral Evolution, Clarice Lispector’s Hour of the Star, the Symbiosis theory of Lynn Margulis, multi-species scenarios of Donna Haraway, Hazel Barton’s research on cave microbes and Marcia Bjørnerud’s thoughts on time literacy. In one way or another, these thinkers have all sought to displace humankind and human reason from the center of evolutionary processes. Passages from Rosny and interviews with Bjørnerud form the film's science-fictional / science-factual spine. Stones are its anchor. To touch stone is to meet alien duration. We trust stone as archive, but we may as well write on water. In the end, it’s particles that remain.

Claire Marshall: Claire Marshall (B.App.Sc (Hons) Materials Chemistry, Ph.D), Associate Professor of Geospectroscopy, is a solid-state Raman spectroscopist, and astrobiologist. She has been involved in Raman spectroscopy of crystalline solids, and the application of Raman spectroscopy in astrobiology and planetary science research since 2002. Her interests are in Raman spectroscopy, astrobiology, and exploring the potential of Raman spectroscopy as a life detection technique, and design, fabrication, and development of spectroscopic instrumentation for life detection. She has been awarded and managed over $4 million in grants throughout her career.

This screening is in partnership with 100,000,000 and their exhibition The Rock Show.