The Wende Museum · Culver City, California
Art and the Universe, 1945–2025
Competing Cosmologies: Interpreting the Sky is a major survey exhibition at the Wende Museum examining how artists across the Cold War era and beyond have responded to humanity's expanding understanding of the cosmos—from Sputnik to string theory, from the Space Race to Afrofuturism.
The show spans four sections—Astronomy, Space Race, Futurisms, and Aliens—drawing on work from the Soviet Union, the United States, and the Global South. Over a hundred years of artistic and scientific production. More than eighty artists. One question: how do we understand the universe?
The Wende Museum asked Auteur Studio to extend the catalogue into space.
Curated by
Joes Segal
Chief Curator & Director of Programming, the Wende Museum
Emma Diffley
Associate Curator, the Wende Museum
Lois Rosson
NASA field historian whose research traces how Los Angeles's special effects and art industries shaped the visual language of space science
“From the time when our ancient ancestors first pondered the night skies and charted our closest planets to the modern era of space exploration and new technologies, the universe has been both extremely close and inconceivably far, both familiar and yet unknown to us all.”
Joes Segal & Emma Diffley · Exhibition catalogue
Not a catalogue. A space.
The traditional exhibition catalogue is a document. It follows the show, documents it, and lives on a shelf. We asked a different question: what if the catalogue could be the show—experienced in the round, responsive to your attention, and still talking to you six months later?
Cosmo-Nought is a choreographed three-minute spatial AR experience. Scanning a QR code in the physical catalogue opens a star hemisphere on the user's phone. Oumuamua—the first confirmed interstellar object to pass through our solar system—hangs overhead. A procession of objects from the show orbits the user in sequence, each fading, spinning, and drifting to an original score by composer Damir Price, with NASA audio woven through the sound design.
Each object can be tapped to summon information hovering in virtual space. And the virtual docent—a voice agent trained on the show's curatorial materials—can be asked anything.
The experience runs for free on any modern smartphone—and stays available long after the show closes.
Cosmo-Nought · spatial composition study
“The AR extends the catalogue into space.
The agent extends the curation into time.”
Three minutes in orbit.
A scored, choreographed sequence of objects from the show—appearing, orbiting, and fading to an original composition by Damir Price.
- Star hemisphere · 360° spatial environment
- Oumuamua · First confirmed interstellar object, overhead
- NASA audio · Original recordings woven into score
- Tap to reveal · Object information in virtual space
- Voice agent · Ask the virtual docent anything
The sequence ends where it began—
the catalogue cover, reassembled in space.
A black disc. A blinking red light.
Then the docent speaks.
Ask the docent.
The voice agent is trained on the exhibition's full curatorial materials—the catalogue essays, artist biographies, curatorial notes, and museum history. Ask it about an artist. Ask it about the Cold War context. Ask it what Afrofuturism has to do with the Space Race.
This is the same agent a visitor encounters in the AR experience. It runs on any device, in any browser, without an app.
Powered by ElevenLabs voice AI · Deployed by Auteur Studio
What orbits the user, and why.
The selection of objects for Cosmo-Nought was itself a curatorial act. The pieces span more than sixty years and four continents. They range from Soviet space propaganda to Afrofuturist resistance painting, from NASA deep-space imagery to outsider UFO ceramics. Their interrelationship—what they say to each other across time and ideology—is the argument of the show made spatial.
The experience doesn't end when the show closes.
The traditional exhibition lives and dies on its run dates. When the show is over, using the QR on the catalogue cover, the objects keep orbiting. The score keeps playing. A visitor who encounters the catalogue in a library three years from now can have the same conversation with the virtual docent that a visitor had on opening night.
This is what AR and agentic AI make possible that neither could accomplish alone. AR puts objects in space—it creates presence and scale that no flat image achieves. The AI agent creates continuity—it stays in the relationship, carries the institution's voice, and answers the question that the wall text couldn't anticipate.
Auteur Studio builds both.
“Competing Cosmologies: Interpreting the Sky shows that art and astronomy share a common trait: they both push the boundaries of what can be expressed, known, and understood.”
Exhibition catalogue · Conclusion
Spatial computing. Agentic AI. Authored storytelling.
Built for institutions and publishers with new audiences to reach.
Auteur Studio is a creative technology studio at the intersection of spatial XR, agentic AI, and authored storytelling. We build experiences for brands and institutions that want to create lasting audience relationships—not isolated moments.
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