I want to leave this Earth behind

Immersion in interplanetary atmospheres and their disabling realities. 

I want to leave this Earth behind is a multi-sensory project by Stefana Fratila and Diana Lynn VanderMeulen, which investigates space exploration, speculative-fictive realities and Crip futurism. Created in collaboration with NASA scientists, the project’s soundscape aims to reproduce the atmospheres of each planet in our solar system, while the playful, colorful visuals transport us. The work thus engages the audience in an immersive exercise of imagining interplanetary and sci-fantastic atmospheres: conditions that are intrinsically unlivable, irrespirable, converting all bodies into handicapped bodies.  

This experiment combines three main works: Sonaut (VST audio files), Fratila’s I want to leave this Earth behind (2LP), and VanderMeulen’s A Boundless and Radiant Aura (extended reality). A research-creation residency with the Society for Arts and Technology gave Fratila and VanderMeulen the time and tools to transform their work into a 40-minute immersive audiovisual show, specially formatted for the Satosphere’s multi-channel sound system and 360-degree projectors. The show, presented for the first time in the Satosphere as a performance in 2023, now returns for a longer run in a screening format. 

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This project benefited from the artwork creation program at the Society for Arts and Technology (SAT) 

Stefana Fratila

Stefana Fratila is a Romanian-born artist, composer and sound designer based in Toronto, Canada. She is also a DJ and co-founder of Crip Rave, an event platform showcasing and prioritizing Crip, Disabled, Deaf, Mad, and Sick body-minds within safer and more accessible rave spaces. She has exhibited and performed her work internationally, including at MoMA and e-flux, Ars Electronica, MUTEK Montréal, and the ISEA. She has also completed residencies at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, Wave Farm Transmission Arts and CMMAS (Mexican Centre for Music and Sonic Arts). She was a winner of the Canadian Screen Award for Best Sound Editing (2022) and the Director’s Guild of Canada Award for Outstanding Achievement in Sound Editing (2023). Her film scores have screened at Le Centre Pompidou, Toronto International Film Festival, New York Film Festival, Festival du Nouveau Cinéma Montréal, and The Viennale. 

Diana Lynn VanderMeulen   

Diana Lynn VanderMeulen is a multidisciplinary artist who lives and works in Toronto. Her practice is fluid between analogue and digital mediums with a focus on extended reality and cyclical material use as she develops expansive, multisensory environments. A Boundless and Radiant Aura, the work she combines with Fratila’s sound exploration, was first presented in multimodal exhibitions with Debaser at SAW Gallery in Ottawa, Toutoune Gallery in Toronto, and for virtual audiences via the downloadable Magic Window application. Other recent works include a solo hybrid physical-virtual exhibition Shimmer of a Petal, Now a mountain Stream, with Sky Fine Foods & ArtGate VR, and self released Augmented-Reality application Swampy GoGo. Notably, she has shown at The Canadian Embassy in Tokyo, CADAF Digital Art Fair, Constellations Festival, The Gardiner Museum, and The Lincoln Centre.