SIX MIL ANTENNAS
/ MINDROOTS
Project Summary — Six Mil Antennas
Six Mil Antennas is a 360-degree immersive audiovisual work originally developed for the Satosphère dome theatre at SAT in Montréal. The film situates viewers within a surreal, fictional universe in which communication processes, dimensions, and perception are radically re-imagined through visual and audio design. It forgoes conventional narrative structure in favor of non-linear, multi-layered exploration, blending abstract characters, fabricated landscapes, and shifting states of sensory and conceptual experience.
The work engages audiences in a journey that moves between:
Deconstructed gravity and dimensionality
Aesthetic and sensory abstraction
Satirical and ironic tones
This approach places viewers inside a futuristic interplay of imaginary states, socio-political subtexts, and symbolic environments.
The piece interweaves personal, social, and political themes, evoking a “complex intertwining multiverse” where characters and environments evolve in tandem with speculative imagery.
First 360 Immersive film of the SATOSPHERE
Commissioned by the SAT_society for arts & technology
Director / Creator: Johnny Ranger
sound Arist / Manuel Chantre
Production: Society for Arts and Technology (SAT), Montréal
Format: 360° immersive fulldome film (Satosphère)
Runtime: Approximately 55 minutes
After its initial run at the Satosphère in Montréal (2011–2012),
Six Mil Antennas – The Final Cut toured internationally to several prominent immersive and planetarium platforms:
Fulldome UK 2012 – Best Experimental Film Award winner (UK) FullDome Festival, Jena (Germany) Melbourne International Film
Festival (MIFF) (Australia)
B3 Festival, Frankfurt (Germany)
See full Credits * review exceprts below
SIX MIL ANTENNAS creates an immersive experience of futuristic psychedelia
Benoit Pallop, the creators project, vice
If Philip K. Dick spent an hour lying in a sensory deprivation tank, he very well might experience something akin to Johnny Ranger’s Six Mil Antennas. In this 360-degree immersive film, viewers lie back on couches and let a kaleidoscope of animated and natural visual environments surround them. The effect is a visceral, almost tactile experience of being inside the haunted mind of another.
-Rachel Levine, Cult Montreal
SIX MIL ANTENNAS opens up a fascinating artistic space at the crossroads of art cinema and auteur film. Viewed while lying on long mattresses, the work evokes parallel universes while remaining rooted in reality. Beneath the guise of an experimental film, Six Mil Antennas addresses the human condition, environmental protection, respect for differences, arms trafficking, and the dangers of an unregulated economy. Both futuristic and playful, the film reflects on the fate of the planet and its inhabitants with elegance and restraint. Its message is all the more powerful thanks to a beautiful soundtrack that carries the viewer in a state of suspension for 55 minutes.
-Eric Clément, La presse
Johnny Ranger is the real thing. Focused, intense, and tireless when performing—yet generous and humble in private—he brings the same talent and integrity to everything he does. I was immediately captivated by his images some ten years ago in the freshly painted spaces of the new SAT on Saint-Laurent Boulevard. I vividly recall his intoxicating videos, adorned with evocative texts, and the striking demonstration of his refined mastery of framing, movement, and rhythm. He later boldly carried his art onto the first immersive screens, enveloping us in his magical touch—much to our delight.
More recently, he has invited us even deeper into his imagination, weaving subtle and ingenious narrative threads that hardly appear as such. He draws us into his stories while paradoxically leaving us free to imagine and simply be. Johnny Ranger is among those who dare to challenge the rules of art through contact with new technologies. Fortunately for us, he knows how to reveal their full potential—and, ultimately, it is the talent of a great artist that is revealed.
-Luc Courchene, Kalibre webzine
CREDITS:
Directed & conception: Johnny Ranger
Original Music: Manuel Chantre
Costume creation: Marie Tourigny
Scénario : Johnny Ranger
Sound Effects: Manuel Chantre, Johnny Ranger
Caméra: Johnny Ranger, Jean Marc Abela
2D Animations: johnny Ranger, Sindre Ulvik Péladeau
3D Animations: Nelson De Robles
Lighting Studio shoot : Stéphane Ménigot
Asssistance for shoot: Victorine Yok
CAST :
Chanti Wadge, Luciane Pinto, Chi Long, Brigitte Poupart, Guillaume Tremblay, Adrian Burhop, Mathieu Lippé, Barbara Requesens, Thomas Csano, Annie-Lolita Sama, La belle Déesse, Nahka Bers, Nathalie Doumar, Simon Vermeulen, Rosie Contant, Catherine St Laurent, Jean-Mathieu Ledoux, Audrey Rochette, Michelle Clermont Daigneault, Marie Eve Archambault , Maude Celestin, David Campbell, Kim Henry, Isabelle Boulanger, Joanie Deschatelet, Jonathan Corbeil, Erin Drumheller, Joanie Leblanc-Proulx
Acknowledgements and thanks
Monique Savoie, Dominic St-Amant, SAT, Victorine Yok, Stéphane Ménigot, Jason Rodi, Sylvain Lavoie, the Nomads, Jean Marc Abela, Julie Prieur, Noé Sardet et Sharif Mirshak, Fanny Nguyen, Lucie Boissinot et Ladmmi , Jean Francois Marquis et Avani Clarke.
Production and Collaboration
The film’s soundtrack — composed by Manuel Chantre — is an integral component, constructed to reflect and enrich the immersive visual environment. Chantre’s score draws on contemporary electronic music and references from European avant-garde cinema, contributing to the work’s psychedelic, dreamlike quality. The collaboration with Ranger on this project represents the third such joint immersive work by the two artists.
Reception and Touring
Reviews describe it as a “futuristic psychedelic” experience that pushes the boundaries of digital immersive cinema, taking advantage of the 360° projection environment to envelop the viewer fully within the work.
After an international tour that took it to Fulldome UK 2012 (Best Experimental Film), the FullDome Festival in Jena, the Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF), and the B3 Festival in Frankfurt over the past year, the immersive film Six Mil Antennas – The Final Cut by Johnny Ranger returns to the SAT for one final series of screenings.
Marked by a series of surreal audiovisual codes that reinvent communication processes within a fictional framework, the work will envelop you in various imaginary states from a futuristic perspective. Through a series of events, its narrative wanders freely between universes of deconstructed gravity, aesthetic sensuality, and satirical humor... The film is built around an entanglement of parallel dimensions, within which abstract characters and places evolve and draw you in.
Context: The Satosphère and Fulldome Medium
The Satosphère is SAT’s dedicated fulldome theatre — a 13-meter domed space equipped with multi-projector systems and immersive audio — designed to support experimental, panoramic cinema and digital art experiences. Immersive works like Six Mil Antennas were among the early original productions in this medium at SAT and helped position the venue as a pioneer in non-traditional narrative fulldome art.
Furthermore, such works prefigure contemporary immersive cinema festivals and platforms (e.g., SAT Fest, FullDome Festival) that celebrate and develop 360° visual storytelling across the global creative community.
