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Urthworks, Ben Rivers, 2025
Book tickets
Join us for a special screening and conversation to celebrate the launch of Urthworks by Ben Rivers, published by MACK.
Adapted from Rivers’s Urthworks film trilogy, this new book takes the form of a visual novel set on a future planet, imagined across three distinct stages following environmental collapse. Interwoven with texts by acclaimed science fiction writer Mark von Schlegell, Urthworks merges speculative storytelling with visual experimentation.
Working in 16mm film and digital imagining technology, Rivers captures extraordinary real locations in Japan, Tuvalu, Lanzarote, Arizona, and Somerset as well as fabricated environments. While epic in scope, the narrative that unfolds is shaped around tactile and human detail, offering an intimate, sensory account of ecological upheaval and human adaptation.
The evening will include a full screening of the Urthworks trilogy, followed by an in-depth conversation between Ben Rivers and Mark von Schlegell.
Programme:
Slow Action (2010, 45 mins)
A post-apocalyptic sci-fi work that blends documentary, ethnography, and fiction. Set on Earth in the distant future, where new islands and archipelagos have been formed after catastrophic sea-level rise, it re-imagines the remnants of civilization.
Urth (2016, 19 mins)
A reflection on isolation, sustainability, and human ambition, inspired by the experimental ecological project Biosphere 2.
Look Then Below (2019, 23 mins)
Shot in the eerie depths of Wookey Hole Caves, this film conjures a subterranean future populated by otherworldly beings and thick with mythic atmosphere.
Adapted from Rivers’s Urthworks film trilogy, this new book takes the form of a visual novel set on a future planet, imagined across three distinct stages following environmental collapse. Interwoven with texts by acclaimed science fiction writer Mark von Schlegell, Urthworks merges speculative storytelling with visual experimentation.
Working in 16mm film and digital imagining technology, Rivers captures extraordinary real locations in Japan, Tuvalu, Lanzarote, Arizona, and Somerset as well as fabricated environments. While epic in scope, the narrative that unfolds is shaped around tactile and human detail, offering an intimate, sensory account of ecological upheaval and human adaptation.
The evening will include a full screening of the Urthworks trilogy, followed by an in-depth conversation between Ben Rivers and Mark von Schlegell.
Programme:
Slow Action (2010, 45 mins)
A post-apocalyptic sci-fi work that blends documentary, ethnography, and fiction. Set on Earth in the distant future, where new islands and archipelagos have been formed after catastrophic sea-level rise, it re-imagines the remnants of civilization.
Urth (2016, 19 mins)
A reflection on isolation, sustainability, and human ambition, inspired by the experimental ecological project Biosphere 2.
Look Then Below (2019, 23 mins)
Shot in the eerie depths of Wookey Hole Caves, this film conjures a subterranean future populated by otherworldly beings and thick with mythic atmosphere.
Bios
Ben Rivers was born in Somerset, UK in 1972 and lives and works in London. Rivers’ films are typically intimate portrayals of solitary beings or isolated communities; his practice as a filmmaker treads a line between documentary and fiction. Rivers uses these themes as a starting point from which to imagine alternative narratives and existences in marginal worlds.
Mark von Schlegell is an American science fiction writer and cultural critic, known for his novels, screenplays, essays and plays, often combines speculative fiction with experiments in language. With novels such as Venusia (2005), Mercury Station (2009), and Sundogz (2015), he has received international acclaim for his unique storytelling.
Book tickets
06:30 pm
Tue, 27 May 2025
Cinema 1
Ticket information
- All tickets that do not require ID (full price, disabled, income support) can be printed at home or stored in email
- For aged-based concession tickets (under 25, student) please bring relevant ID to collect at the front desk before the event.
Access information
Cinema 1
- Both our Cinemas have step free access from The Mall and are accessible by ramp
- We have 1 wheelchair allocated space with a seat for a companion
- All seats are hard back, have a crushed velvet feel and they do not recline
- These are our seat size dimensions: W 42 x D 45 x H 52
- Arm rest either side of the seat dimensions: L 27 x W 7 x H 20
for the following requirements:
- We have unassigned seating. If you require a specific seat, please reserve this in advance
- Free for visitors where ticket prices are a barrier, please email
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