What if the technologies that shape our lives are not as secular as they appear? Beneath contemporary ideas of technological progress and artificial intelligence lie deeper cosmologies inherited from specific ways of understanding the world, birthed by certain religious logics and persevering historical narratives. But, what alternative technological futures might emerge if we began from a different point of departure?

For 母体 Mǔtǐ, artist and filmmaker Riar Rizaldi explores how Sufi mysticism offers another framework for understanding intelligence, consciousness, and humanity’s relationship to the unknown. Drawing on his ongoing research into spirituality and histories of futurity, Rizaldi will share excerpts from his three-part film series Mirage, which imagines speculative futures shaped by cosmologies beyond the dominant Western scientific worldview. Through these filmic works and his lecture, When Particles Dream, Rizaldi invites us to consider how different systems of belief produce different technological imaginaries, and how alternative futures might become visible when we recognize that our current models of progress are neither neutral nor universal.

Riar Rizaldi works as an artist and filmmaker. His practice explores the relationships between science, technology, labour and nature, alongside competing worldviews, genre cinema, and the possibilities of theoretical fiction. His works have been shown at various international film festivals (including Berlinale, Locarno, IFFR, FID Marseille, etc.) as well as Singapore Biennale (2025), Thailand Biennale (2025), MoMA New York (2024), Whitney Biennial (2024), Taipei Biennial (2023), Istanbul Biennial (2022 & 2025), Venice Architecture Biennale (2021), and other venues and institutions. Recent solo exhibitions and focus programmes have been presented at Museum MACAN, Jakarta (2026); Almanac, Turin (2025); Gasworks, London (2024); ICA, London (2024); Z33, Hasselt (2024); Centre de la Photographie Genève (2023); and Batalha Centro de Cinema, Porto (2023), among others.