- Benjamin, W – A Small History of the Photograph – “the mere reflection of reality tells us nothing about reality”
- Bertol Brecht – illusion in theatre, show its artificiality in order to reflect on reality
[Science Fiction] – “Defamiliarises the past in order to reaffirm the present”
– “Comforting and nostalgic/Conservative and restorative”
- Defamiliarise the present and make abnormal the idea of the present, the real, the new
- Good science fiction makes reality clearer to us
***David Blandy
***Michael Rakowitz
The worst condition is to pass under a sword which is not one’s own,
2009, Installation
Lombard-Freid Projects, New York City
Tate Modern, London, January 22, 2010-May 3, 2011
The worst condition is to pass under a sword which is not one’s own traces links between western science fiction and military-industrial activities in Iraq during Saddam Hussein’s regime. A free comic book was published as a component of the exhibition.
- Andreas Gursky – technological sublime from an unknown future
Gursky, 99 Cent, 1999
Contemporary Photography and the Technological Sublime, or, Can There Be a Science Fiction Photography?
***Afro Futurism: John Akomfta – The Last Angel of History
Afrofuturism is a literary and cultural aesthetic that combines elements of science fiction, historical fiction, fantasy, Afrocentricity, and magic realism with non-Western cosmologies in order to critique not only the present-day dilemmas of people of colour, but also to revise, interrogate, and re-examine the historical events of the past.
First coined by Mark Dery in 1993, and explored in the late 1990s through conversations led by scholar Alondra Nelson, Afrofuturism addresses themes and concerns of the African Diaspora through a technoculture and science fiction lens, encompassing a range of media and artists with a shared interest in envisioning black futures that stem from Afrodiasporic experiences.
[Definition] The African diaspora refers to the communities throughout the world that are descended from the historic movement of peoples from Africa, predominantly to the Americas, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, among other areas around the globe
Seminal Afrofuturistic works include the novels of Samuel R. Delany and Octavia Butler; the canvases of Jean-Michel Basquiat and the photography of Renée Cox; and the explicitly extraterrestrial mythoi of Parliament-Funkadelic, the Jonzun Crew, Warp 9, Deltron 3030, and Sun Ra.
Science Fiction as a intertextual form
(continual learning from other examples of the same kind)
Clip from ‘Dark Star’ (1974), John Carpenter, starring Dan O’Bannon, Brian Narelle, Dre Pahich, Cal Kuniholm
***Robert Gober
Robert Gober’s rose to prominence in the mid-1980s and was quickly acknowledged as one of the most significant artists of his generation.
Early in his career he made deceptively simple sculptures of everyday objects—beginning with sinks before moving on to domestic furniture such as playpens, beds, and doors.
In the 1990s, his practice evolved from single works to theatrical room-sized environments. Featuring loans from institutions and private collections in North America and Europe, along with selections from the artist’s collection, the exhibition includes around 130 works across several mediums, including individual sculptures and immersive sculptural environments and a distinctive body of drawings, prints, and photographs. The loosely chronological presentation traces the development of this remarkable body of work, highlighting themes and motifs that emerged in the early 1980s and continue to inform Gober’s work today.
Gober, Untitled (Leg), 1989-90;
Beeswax, cotton, wood, leather and human hair
***Do Android Dream of Elected Sheep – Phillip K. Dick
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is a science fiction novel by American writer Philip K. Dick. First published in 1968, the book served as the primary basis for the 1982 film Blade Runner. The novel is set in a post-apocalyptic near future, where Earth and its populations have been damaged greatly by nuclear war during World War Terminus. Most types of animals are endangered or extinctdue to extreme radiation poisoning from the war. To own an animal is a sign of status, but what is emphasized more is the empathic emotions humans experience towards animals.
The main plot follows Rick Deckard, a bounty hunter who is faced with “retiring” six escaped Nexus-6 model androids, the latest and most advanced model, while a secondary plot follows John Isidore, a man of sub-par IQ who aids the fugitive androids. In connection with Deckard’s mission, the novel explores the issue of what it is to be human.
Unlike humans, the androids possess no sense of empathy.
***A Scanner Darkly, 2006, Linklater
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Scanner_Darkly
Online Book – http://www.5novels.net/ScienceFiction/AScannerDarkly/
Metropolis, 1927, Fritz Lang
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSExdX0tds4
A.I, 2001, Kubrick/Speilberg
It was the literary basis for the first act of the feature film A.I. Artificial Intelligence. This was originally an unrealised film project of the late Stanley Kubrick. It was posthumously developed and filmed by Steven Spielberg and released in 2001.
In the same year, the short story was re-published in the eponymous Aldiss short-story collection Super-Toys Last All Summer Long, along with the tie-in stories Super-Toys When Winter Comes and Super-Toys in Other Seasons. The collection also contained a number of stories not tied to the Super-Toys theme.
The Left Hand of Darkness – Ursula K. LeGuin
The Left Hand of Darkness is a 1969 science fiction novel by Ursula K. Le Guin. It is part of the Hainish Cycle, a series of books by Le Guin set in the fictional Hainish universe, which she introduced in 1964. It is among the first books published in the feminist science fiction genre, and the most famous examination of androgyny in science fiction.
Harold Bloom edited a critical anthology about the book and said in the introduction that “Le Guin, more than Tolkien, has raised fantasy into high literature, for our time”.
