Science Fiction: A Journey into the Unknown

“Science Fiction: Journey into the Unknown” is divided into four sections and includes over 800 exhibits.

In the first section, “Strange Journeys”, using the work of the pioneering visionaries of the genre as our map, we explore unknown and inaccessible corners of the Earth and other planets. We wander through lost cities, come face to face with dinosaurs, and conquer mysterious islands. We travel the globe, through the air and deep beneath the sea. From the original manuscripts and drawings of Jules Verne to props from the films “Godzilla” and “Jurassic Park”, and from Francis Bacon’s “New Atlantis” to Daniel Defoe’s “Robinson Crusoe”, Rudyard Kipling’s “With the Night Mail”, Jonathan Swift’s “Gulliver’s Travels”, and Edgar Rice Burroughs’ “Tarzan and the Lost Empire”.

In the exhibition’s second section, having now explored the planet Earth, we embark on a “Space Odyssey”, meeting creatures from other planets and spacecraft in far-flung locations along the way. We wander among artefacts from films including “Strange encounters of the third kind”, “Aliens”, “Stargate”, “Star Trek”, “Star Wars”, “Interstellar”, “Independence Day”, and works based on “Alien”, “District 9” and “First Men in the Moon”. We engage with the heart of the action through the new interactive commission from Territory Studio, which is based on Ridley Scott's The Martian.

Armed with a vision, improving our planet, in the third section, “Brave New Worlds”, we return to Earth and witness the collapse of society. We see the places and cultures Mankind created up-close. We wander through states of the future with towering skyscrapers and live in dystopian societies plagued by wars and pestilence. In the heart of this section, we discover emblematic texts including Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale”, Ray Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451”, Suzanne Collins’ “The Hunger Games”, Anthony Burgess’s “A Clockwork Orange”, and George Orwell’s “1984”. In addition to stills from movies and television series including “Metropolis”, “Dark City” and “The Prisoner”, this section is also home to architectural plans and drawings from Ben Wheatley’s recent hit movie “High Rise”.

Bringing our journey to an end, we explore the last thing left to explore, our selves, in the fourth section of the show, “Final Frontiers”. We delve deep into our bodies and our minds and call into question the very existence of humanity. As science and technology continue to extend ever outwards, we encounter cyborgs, clones and robots at first hand in landmark books including “Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde” by Robert Louis Stevenson and Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein”, literary best-sellers by Mikhail Bulgakov, Philip K. Dick, Philip Pullman, William Gibson and films and series including “Back to the Future”, “Doctor Who”, “Donnie Darko”, “eXistenZ”, “The Terminator” and “Total Recall”. We meet the android Ava, protagonist of the film “Ex Machina”, TARS from “Interstellar”, Robot B-9 from the TV series “Lost in Space” and Sonny from “I-Robot”. We also watch Terence Broad’s autoencoded version of “Blade Runner”.