Black Hole immediately makes me think of science fiction. In part this is from its formal similarity to a number of classic film sequences, such as the ending moments from 2001, and to a lesser extent the space travel depictions from films like Contact and Stargate (rendering them through the lens of Aronofsky’s Pi). The film which first came to mind for me was the 2007 Danny Boyle directed oddity, Sunshine. Or rather its first half, in which it expertly constructs a rising tension between the inner space of its starship setting and the outer space through which the former darkly drifts. Already primed to read Ongman’s piece through an architectural lens, due to its inclusion under our current theme, I couldn’t help but assign a structural weight to its fluctuations of light and dark. Like walls expanding and receding, phasing in and out, in an interplay between claustrophobic closeness and agoraphobic absence.

Sunshine plays out in a very similar way, forcing both viewer and cast to alternate between the cramped technological confines of its low-tech near-future spaceship and the lightless expanse of open space; sometimes unexpectedly and sometimes with an aching amount of build-up. And like its Kubrick directed forebear mentioned above, the film ends in an abstract dive into the unknown, in this case embodied by the heart of our own sun. Unfortunately, most of the second half of Sunshine undoes all of its excellent build-up, going off on a bizarre tangent that falls somewhere between Jason X and a PSA about wearing sunblock. If you’ve seen it, you’ll know.

In short, Sunshine, despite a lot of promise and strong sequences, lacks a certain clarity of purpose. This is not a problem with Black Hole, which plays just long enough to become uncomfortable, and to make clear the duality it speaks to, without overstaying its welcome or overplaying its hand. For my own part, I also read beyond merely the duality of light-and-dark, inner-and-outer, and also found myself contemplating the nature of power dynamics. Within our current system, the dominant power structure, the dominant architecture if you will, has learned to exert control not only with its presence, but also its absence.

Despite the claustrophobic control of Neoliberal systems, when those systems choose to recede they remain just as devastating, taking all of the air out with them. By absorbing every facet of both the natural world and human activity, by drawing them down into its crushing, almost viral gravity, contemporary capitalism leaves nothing behind when it pulls back. It's like a black tide, crushing us against a rocky cliffside at its height, and discarding us upon the barren shore at its low-point. This relationship is what I read in Black Hole’s pulsing, rorschach visuals and distorted room-tone audio.

There’s another cult horror / sci-fi film which I’d also like to speak to here. 1997’s Canadian made classic Cube. While visually having less in common with Ongman’s piece, (although Black Hole’s stark black and white do resemble its lesser sequel, Cube 2: Hypercube. Yes, that is its name) Cube is also very much about control, inner versus outer, and about imprisonment versus escape. Within the film, a group of protagonists (ragtag, naturally) awaken inside a cube-shaped metal chamber, with hatch-like doorways in the center of each of its six sides. The cube is dark, industrial, and foreboding, and none of them can remember how they arrived there. They go on to discover that they are in a massive structure consisting of an unknown number of such chambers, many of which are filled with deadly traps.

Over time, and after some casualties, the protagonists piece together that they are inside one enormous cube, the individual blocks of which rearrange themselves according to complex, almost arcane patterns. After finally struggling to reach one of its outer edges, they open the hatch to reveal a massive, dark void. Not literally outer space, rather the inside of a massive underground complex somewhere; but so barren and uncrossable that it might as well open up into literal vacuum. It’s here that the real twist of the movie is revealed. One of the characters has seen elements of the cube before, having helped to design them. He’s not in on its secrets, merely a contractor whose company made one small part of the thing, unaware of what it was meant for. When asked why anyone would build such a thing, he explains that it’s the result of mere bureaucratic inertia.

Someone started some aspect of the project long ago, classified and budgeted it, and from there on out its original purpose (if it even had one) was dissolved away as those working on the project continued to find justifications to keep it going. To keep it funded. The cube is the outcome of Neoliberalism in itself; a system of economic self-justification that long ago abandoned even the semblance of a central logic. It is a black hole, all-consuming and all-producing, but without ends. A pit whose edge we are forever inching out over, yet perpetually kept from either toppling into or receding from. It is an elaborate cage, with increasingly little exterior; a Cenobite’s puzzle box which conjures only itself.

Ongman’s piece almost feels like a puzzle box itself, taken to a point of infinite complexity where its many cells exist both within and without themselves, and which no longer requires human hands to operate it. It is an endless drift through space, escaping the control of a hypermodern earth, but still infected with the germ of its (non) logic and dominating dualities. Part escape pod, part prison ship. Ever approaching, never arriving.