Space is the Place emerged from Dilexi, an "experimental art series" produced by Jim Newman and directed by John Coney. Wishing to build on his forays into filming avant garde music, Newman recruited Coney to film concert footage of Ra and His Arkestra; Coney then hired Seth Hill to act as cinematographer. Filming of Arkestra performance footage was followed shortly by a scant number of loosely scripted dramatic scenes. Hill was then asked to create "a story to tie all the disparate elements together." To this end, Hill enlisted the help of Joshua Smith, a friend from film school whose fascination with "the culture of pimps and whores" would result in the blaxploitation themes underpinning those scenes in the film not involving Sun Ra.[5] According to assistant director Tom Bullock, the "seemingly death-defying existential leaps in logic and continuity" that resulted from the film's fragmented production were resolved in post-production by editor Barbara Pokras.[6]
Two cuts exist of the film. The first, sometimes referred to as "Sun Ra's edit",[7] is abridged to 64 minutes; for decades following its limited initial release, Space is the Place could only be found on VHS in this form. The second, uncut version runs 82 minutes, and was made available for the first time in 2003, when the film was re-released by Plexifilm. Following another lapse out of print, both cuts of Space is the Place were released together for the first time by Harte Recordings in 2015.
Some of the dialogue is sampled in C-Mos' "2 Million Ways" (Axwell Remix) (2006).
Interpretation[edit]
Ra's greatest adversary in his quest is the Overseer, an incarnation of evil in the Black community who poses himself to be a community leader and a man of charity, but who, in fact, is a tool of the white power structure. On the other hand, Jimmy Fey is a representative of black people in the entertainment industry and mass media; he means well, but his intentions have been co-opted by the normalizing, status quo-reinforcing forces of white-led capitalism.
It has also been suggested[9] that Space Is the Place can be interpreted as Sun Ra's response to the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, with whom Ra was engaged in a performative struggle for the imagery of the future of the black race. Daniel Kreiss writes:
