Press

  Age after age, we’ve looked to the heavens and wondered what’s out there. About all we’re certain of is this: We are definitely NOT alone. And now, we’ve got the pictures to prove it. Fact is, some of the … Continued

We’ve featured many space images here on Universe Today that have been produced by imaging enthusiasts who take raw images from a mission or spacecraft and refine them into what many consider works of art. Michael Benson has taken this … Continued

Exhibit It took 40 years of robotic space missions to collect more than 50 photographs of Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and other planets for “Beyond: Visions of Planetary Landscapes” – there must be more to it than point and shoot. … Continued

There aren’t any bells and whistles in “Beyond: Visions of Planetary Landscapes,” an exhibition on view at the Worcester Art Museum through May 24. But the massive photographs from outer space, some 5 feet wide, should still rank high on … Continued

There have been a number of good illustrated books published dealing with the Sun, Moon, and planets of our solar system, but it is doubtful you have seen or ever will see a book quite like this one. The photographs … Continued

While working on a forthcoming documentary feature, More Places Forever, which he describes as a “global road movie,” filmmaker Michael Benson found time to complete an eye-opening cinematic art book for Harry N. Abrams. Titled Beyond: Visions of the Interplanetary … Continued

(…) The second book is Beyond: Visions of the Interplanetary Probes. There is perhaps no better book illustrating the amazing images sent back by JPL’s spacecraft over the last 40 years. Worthy of any coffee table, sumptuous is the best … Continued

(Review of German edition of Beyond: Visions of the Interplanetary Probes ) Absolute visual genius. This fantastic picture book is an excellent plunge into a strange, different, but exciting world: that of space. Years and years of work in archives … Continued

Many readers can recall when the only objects in the solar system whose surfaces were mapped were Earth, the near side of the Moon, and Mars at poor resolution. Today, every planet but Pluto (including even cloud-enshrouded Venus), most of … Continued

Seen from the outside there is no misery nor crowds on Earth, no lack of resources, no garbage dumps. Instead: deep blue spots in endless green, the Great Lakes of North America. Or the delicate boot called Italy. This book … Continued

Books about our planetary system and its nine planets are a dime a dozen, but Michael Benson’s book “Beyond” enters virgin soil. For it is less about describing how the Sun and its planets came into being, or how many … Continued

It’s said that Buckminster Fuller was asked shortly before his death if he was disappointed that he, who had done so much to prepare space travel, would never experience outer space. The old man answered: “But, sir, we are in … Continued

Michael Benson, author of Beyond: Visions of the Interplanetary Probes (read Universe Today’s review) took some time from his busy schedule, and nasty cold, to answer some of our questions about his book and interest in astronomy and space exploration. … Continued

People usually associate squads of bespectacled engineers and scientists as being the sole guardians of space. Beyond: Visions of the Interplanetary Probes by Michael Benson is the type of book that rationalizes and moreover encourages the inclusion of other specialists, … Continued

BOOK REVIEW For the past four decades, robotic spacecraft have been taking snapshots of our solar system, mostly with a scientific agenda-to gather data about our celestial neighborhood. But as writer and filmmaker Michael Benson shows in Beyond: Visions of … Continued

In 1949, when I was 15, I was enthralled by my copy of The Conquest of Space, with sober text by German-born Willy Ley and spectacular color paintings by Chesley Bonestell, even then the dean of astronomical art. No one … Continued

Take a trip to the far parts of our solar system in this spectacular selection… Writer/photographer/filmmaker Benson chooses fire and ice and craters and mountains that stretch to the orbits of Uranus and Pluto.

Beyond: Visions of the Interplanetary Probes is a collection of 295 photos of the Earth, Sun, Mars, and other planets taken by unmanned space probes. Photographer Michael Benson culled thousands of archived images for the ones he found most striking … Continued

(…) The other books on this list offer photographs taken by humans, but these breathtaking images were taken by robots. Magnificent pictures of asteroids, the sun, the planets and their moons have been sent to Earth over the past four … Continued

Starred Review Pardon my buzz but it’s been a long vacation, Pittsburgh to Boston to SF in less than ten days, and I’ve been waiting for almost two weeks to receive my copy of this book. All I have to … Continued

(…) Mars also makes an appearance in Michael Benson’s Beyond: Visions of the Interplanetary Probes (Abrams, $55), but here the Red Planet must share some space with the other members of our solar system. Like Croswell, Benson takes advantage of … Continued

On 5 March 1979, Voyager I snapped the Pele volcano erupting on Io, Jupiter’s fifth satellite. This is one of nearly 300 stunning pictures in Beyond, a collection of images beamed back from space over the past 40 years. The … Continued

Beyond: Visions of Interplanetary Probes by Michael Benson (Harry N. Abrams, 320 pages, $55). This is the kind of book that makes reviewers indulge in hyperbole. A stunning visual feast, Beyond is the labor of love of author Michael Benson … Continued

Presenting photographs from the history of robotic space exploration, this oversized book provides an awe-inspiring visual narrative of the solar system’s planets, moons, and asteroids. From the vantage point of unmanned explorers, the book shows Venus’s veil of clouds lifted … Continued

”BEYOND: VISIONS OF INTERPLANETARY PROBES” will let you see what a dust storm on Mars looked like to the Viking Orbiter 2 in 1977. It looked spacey indeed.

Beyond is an especially cool book… Benson has compiled and processed the best images he can find from NASA’s space probes. The result is an eye-popping combination of art and science.

(…) If you want more than Mars, there’s another brand-new coffee-table book for space buffs: Beyond, by Michael Benson. Coming from the distinguished publisher of art books Harry N. Abrams, Beyond is not just a collection of pretty pictures; it … Continued

NEW YORK — Much like paintings of America’s Wild West commissioned by government surveyors became icons that redefined American culture in the 19th century, photographs of alien landscapes taken by the Voyager spacecraft have shaken our sense of self today. … Continued

Michael Benson’s “A Space in Time,” a meditation on satellite imagery available on the Internet, is one of the most sublime, captivating essays on our solar system and beyond since the late Carl Sagan hung up his pen. – Clay … Continued

Michael Benson’s brilliant film Predictions of Fire follows a Slovene art collective in the 1980s as they redeploy vanguard symbols, both Russian and German, from the early twentieth century. They believe that these residual symbols were embers of a totalitarian … Continued

A challenging documentary of art and politics in the former Yugoslavia ROCK-AND-ROLL bands usually adopt the outlaw stance towards society that Marlon Brando took in The Wild One: “What have you got?” goes the famous answer, when asked what he … Continued

Set in Slovenia, this documentary companion to Sonic Outlaws weaves newsreel footage and quotes from Walter Benjamin and Bertolt Brecht into a dense compendium of history and art theory. It focuses mainly on the Slovenian industrial band cum “resistance art” … Continued

(NYC industrial/gothic scene magazine) Review It is nothing less than chilling. Don’t be fooled. This film, winner of the National Film Board of Canadia’s Best Documentary in 1996 at the International Film Festival in Vancouver, does nothing less than substantiate … Continued

Predictions of Fire Besides being an international film festival favorite (Canada, Russia, New York, Sundance, Sydney), Predictions of Fire has gained such swift cult status that it may be the only movie with a website dedicated to “all discernible written, … Continued

Part documentary, part travelogue, history lesson, art lesson and political manifesto, Predictions of Fire is a unique investigation into the world of Laibach, an industrial/rock/performance/art/agitprop musical group who invoke the lost history and culture of Slovenia even while they summon … Continued

A documentary about the Eastern European art collective NSK (that’s New Slovenian Arts to you), which comprises art rockers Laibach, theater troupe Red Pilot and painting group Irwin. Former New York Times reporter [sic] Michael Benson sets NSK’s art against … Continued

The mingling of art and politics in America is, for the most part, clear and simple: Democrats are drawn as a donkey, Republicans are depicted as an elephant, and their views are summed up in word bubbles skirting the edges … Continued

[Shortly before leaving for the Sundance Film Festival in January 1996, Predictions of Fire director Michael Benson and Belgian film programmer and journalist Koen Van Daele - who had originally programmed the film for its premiere screening in September 95 … Continued

Predictions of Fire (Kinetikon) Best when it’s blaring forth historical truths alongside philosophical explanations of deconstruction at such breakneck speed as to make it practically incomprehensible, Predictions of Fire outlines the 20th-century history of Slovenia, from the Hapsburg Empire to … Continued

The central quality of the film is that it is multifaceted, but it clearly and understandably illuminates the theoretical background of NSK (and NSK’s taking over of the mechanisms and symbols of power in order to reveal this power). In … Continued

Michael Benson proves with this film that he has a perfect grasp of the aestheticization of politics as well as of myth- creation within totalitarian systems. Predictions of Fire skillfully exchanges archival, reportorial and also fictional scenes, which together make … Continued

Predictions of Fire is without a doubt one of the most persuasive — and not the least, the most watchable — contributions to the history of the Slovene 20th century, at least in the genre of tele-documentaries. With this film … Continued

The film is as efficient as every NSK performance has been… The documentary is a skillful and witty interweaving of Slovenian history within the fabric of a Western European historical background, and it threads some of the important NSK performances … Continued