2001: A Space Odyssey

Using perhaps the most famous science fiction film ever made, what does it mean that we are determined by space? That the human individual was created by controlling its spatial environment(s)? Complicating matters further, that same control that defines us limits our understanding and the spaces themselves, to the extent that the individual itself is under command. space/self/world is a critical examination of a certain philosophical approach to space via Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. As bookends to a chronology of the human selfspecifically its spatial relationship(s)-that encompasses Kubrick's whole body of work, 2001 provides an account of human existence from "beginning" to "end." That existence is deeply informed by spatial negotiations involving all people and things. Theodor Adorno's essay "Odysseus of Myth and Enlightenment" explains how the modern self (and reason) came to be, in terms of power relationships and self-domination. Seen together, the film and theories articulated by the Frankfurt School icon give an account of spatial identities that, when brought up against theories of acoustic space put forth by communications theorists Marshall McLuhan and J. Macgregor Wise, demonstrate human identity as largely the outcome of spatial negotiations that have resulted in instrumentalization of spaces, and, in turn, ourselves. This book travels 2001's narrative arc, critically analyzing it by providing a nuanced-at times abstract and metaphorical-account of space, instrumentalization, and power relationships that all intersect as building blocks of the contemporary self. Originally written 15 years ago, its concepts and concerns are as apt and urgent as ever.

https://www.diopress.com/space-self-world

Si parte da una contestualizzazione dell’opera dal punto di vista del periodo storico, culturale e cinematografico.
Successivamente viene gettato uno sguardo sulla fase di lavorazione, partendo dalla pre-produzione e arrivando fino al montaggio definitivo. L’accento è qui posto sulle “ossessioni” e sull’ideale di perfezione tipici di Kubrick e sulla realizzazione di alcuni degli effetti speciali artigianali più stupefacenti di sempre.
Un paragrafo è dedicato alle influenze che il film ha avuto sulle opere cinematografiche posteriori.
Nel successivo capitolo l’attenzione si sposta sulla forma e sulla sintassi filmica, vere innovazioni del lungometraggio; una sezione è inoltre interamente dedicata alla descrizione delle singole scene. L’utilizzo rivoluzionario della musica, la freddezza generale dei toni e la modalità particolare con cui vengono trattati i dialoghi sono gli argomenti principali di questi paragrafi.
Nell’ultimo capitolo, infine, sono messi in evidenza miti, figure simboliche e interpretazioni del film che si sono susseguite nel corso degli anni, ponendo particolare attenzione al rapporto che l’opera sembra intrattenere con alcuni concetti filosofici; si è cercato di relativizzare il presunto carattere ottimista del film che sembra permeare i testi di molti autorevoli critici. Vengono messi in particolare risalto l’ambiguità e gli eterni contrasti che fanno del lungometraggio di Kubrick un’opera d’arte senza tempo, fruibile per lo spettatore di ogni epoca proprio perché concernente verità universali.

I film di Stanley Kubrick sono dei monumenti. A vent’anni dalla scomparsa del loro autore sono ancora al centro di ricerche e analisi che li caricano di significati e valori, e per altri versi continuano a circolare nella cultura popolare con l’evidenza delle icone e il fascino degli enigmi. La vitalità di questo cinema risiede forse nel particolare regime emozionale che contrassegna il brand kubrickiano, nel quale si intrecciano senza contraddirsi l’immediatezza dell’esperienza e la complessità del senso, la sollecitazione dei sensi e l’astrazione intellettuale, la ricerca dell’immersione e la presa di distanza. Si tratta di una vitalità che sembra ben lontana dall’esaurirsi: lo stile visivo, la funzione della musica, la costruzione dei personaggi e le invenzioni narrative di Kubrick sono parte di un immaginario condiviso che affascina spettatori di tutte le generazioni, e che non smette di rigenerarsi e di nutrire la cultura visuale contemporanea.

The author tries to characterize still fresh and recent phenomenon of
the postdigital aesthetics. He tries to answer the question: why
postdigital artists most often take destruction actions, use
imperfection, distortion and errors. He look at the work of glitch art
creators, using theoretical tools of Rosa Menkman and Michael
Betancourt. He wants to show the reason of returning to analogue in
postdigital age and underline the critical potential of using glitch
in contemporary art. The art of glitch perhaps gives the best example
of our postdigital condition and show discontinuous experience of
reality.

Artificial Culture is an examination of the articulation, construction, and representation of "the artificial" in contemporary popular cultural texts, especially science fiction films and novels. The book argues that today we live in an artificial culture due to the deep and inextricable relationship between people, our bodies, and technology at large. While the artificial is often imagined as outside of the natural order and thus also beyond the realm of humanity, paradoxically, artificial concepts are simultaneously produced and constructed by human ideas and labor. The artificial can thus act as a boundary point against which we as a culture can measure what it means to be human. Science fiction feature films and novels, and other related media, frequently and provocatively deploy ideas of the artificial in ways which the lines between people, our bodies, spaces and culture more broadly blur and, at times, dissolve.

Building on the rich foundational work on the figures of the cyborg and posthuman, this book situates the artificial in similar terms, but from a nevertheless distinctly different viewpoint. After examining ideas of the artificial as deployed in film, novels and other digital contexts, this study concludes that we are now part of an artificial culture entailing a matrix which, rather than separating minds and bodies, or humanity and the digital, reinforces the symbiotic connection between identities, bodies, and technologies.

Mémoire de maîtrise en Études littéraires, UQAM, année 1999

À noter qu'il s'agit de la version 1, celle qui a été déposée à la fin de mes études, et qu'une version corrigée est en cours de préparation. (2022)

Le simulacre, mettant à l'épreuve les frontières entre réalité et fiction, est le faux qui se fait passer pour vrai, qui prend la place du réel. Ce que nous observons dans les romans 2001 : L'Odyssée de l'espace d'Arthur C. Clarke, Solaris de Stanislaw Lem et Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep de Philip K. Dick, c'est la mise en scène de personnages secondaires qui sont des simulacres d'êtres humains. Cette analyse s’applique à suivre le parcours identitaire du personnage principal de chacun des récits, déterminé par la relation avec les êtres factices. Deux types de simulacres interagissent dans les textes, désignés par les termes "anima" et "automata". L’être humain, bouleversé dans cette relation à l’automata par le biais du simulacre qui lui sert de miroir, subit les effets d'une scission, suivant un processus par lequel les personnages principaux vont renouveler leur rapport au réel et recréer leur identité. À noter que certaines citations sont en anglais.

Copyright: © 2010 Julie Martineau Standard Copyright License
Version : 2 (non définitive)

Hermeneutik, metodolojik bir problemden doğmuştur. Bu problem aynı zamanda anlama ve yorumlama sürecini içerir. Hermeneutik bu sürecin içerisinde ortaya çıkmıştır. Dolayısıyla hermeneutiğin doğuşu Antik Yunan dönemine kadar götürülebilir. Hermeneutik en genel tanımıyla yorum bilimdir. İnsanın anlamaya yönelik gereksinimi aynı zamanda yorumlama ediminin doğmasının sebeplerindendir. Herhangi bir dilden söz edilebiliyorsa aynı zamanda anlamadan ve yorumlamadan söz ediliyor demektir.
Hermeneutiğin dil ve anlam ile olan ilişkisi, sanat ile olan ilişkisinde de görülmektedir. Sanatın hermeneutik ile olan ilişkisi benzerliğinin yanında işleyişleri üzerinden de kendini gösterir. Bu çalışmada “hermeneutiğin neliği” meselesinden sonra sanatın hermeneutik ile olan ilişkisi analiz edilmiştir. Sanat ve hermeneutiğin işleyiş biçimleri ve sınırları incelenmiş, sinema sanatının hermeneutik incelemesine doğru bir temel oluşturulmuştur.
Bu tezin konusu olan hermeneutik metodoloji bir sinema filminin yorumlanmasında kullanılmıştır. Uygulama nesnesi olan “2001: A Space Odyssey” adlı film, Ricoeur’un hermeneutik metodolojisi kapsamında incelenmiştir. Ayrıca film hermeneutiğinden söz etmenin imkânları, sanatın ve sinemanın kapsamında denenmiştir. Buna ek olarak, hermeneutiğin, sanatın ve sinemanın kavramsal olarak inşa edilmesinin aşamaları birbirleriyle ilişkilendirilmiştir. Bu ilişkilendirme sonucu bu üç kavramın birbirleriyle olan benzerlikleri konusunda teorik bir yaklaşım inşa edilmiştir.
Sonuç olarak hermeneutik metodoloji kullanılarak bir sinema filmi incelenmiş ve bunun uygulanabilirliği sınanmıştır. Ayrıca bu uygulamanın, film hermeneutiği konusunda ortaya koyacağı önermelerin ışığında, “2001: A Space Odyssey” filminin bizatihi hermeneutik bir film olduğu iddiası kanıtlanmaya çalışılacaktır.


Hermeneutics, was born from a methodological problem. This methodological problem also includes the process of understanding and interpreting. Hermeneutics has emerged in this process. Hence the birth of hermeneutics could be dated back to Ancient Greek era. Hermeneutics, in general terms is the science of understanding. Man’s need of understanding is the main reason of the birth of interpretation at the same time. If any language is being mentioned, it means that at the same time understanding and interpretation is mentioned.
Hermeneutics relationship with language and meaning, can also be seen in its relationship with art. The relationship of art with hermeneutics is manifested not only by its similarity but also by its functionality. In this study, the relationship between art and hermeneutics has analysed after the issue/question of "what is hermeneutics". The forms, functions and boundaries of art and hermeneutics is examined, and with this a basis towards hermeneutic examination of cinema art has been built.
Hermeneutic methodology which is the main topic of this thesis is used on interpretation of a movie. The movie/film "2001: A Space Odyssey", as the application object, was examined within Ricoeur's hermeneutic methodology. Also talking about the possibilities of movie hermeneutics, has been tried in the scope of cinema and art. In addition to this, the conceptual construction processes of hermeneutics, art and cinema has associated with each other. As a result of this association, a theoretical approach about the similarities of these three concepts has built.
As a result, a cinema film was examined using the hermeneutical methodology and its applicability was tested. In addition, this application will try to prove that the movie "2001: A Space Odyssey" is a hermeneutic film, in the light of the suggestions that the film hermeneutics would reveal.

Making Worlds: Art and Science Fiction is an anthology of new writings by artists, curators, art historians and writers who are self-confessed science fiction fans. The linking point is the idea of science fiction as a platform for the building of alternate art histories. This collection is concerned with the ways in which science fiction might be performed, materialised or enacted within a contemporary context. Featuring essays on Stanislaw Lem, Robert Smithson, J.G. Ballard, Eduardo Paolozzi, H.P. Lovecraft, Philip K. Dick, Samuel Delany, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Andrei Tarkovsky, R.A. Lafferty, and Stanley Kubrick as well as texts on time travel, philology, geophilosophy, loops, speculative realism, dystopias, telepathy, surrealism, pop, Mercerism, and contemporary art.

Edited by Amelia Barikin and Helen Hughes with contributions by: Adrian Martin, Amelia Barikin, Andrew Frost, Anthony White, Arlo Mountford, Brendan Lee, Charles Green, Chris McAuliffe, Chronox, Damiano Bertoli, Darren Jorgensen, Dylan Martorell, Edward Colless, Helen Hughes, Helen Johnson, Justin Clemens, Lauren Bliss, Matthew Shannon, Nathan Gray, Nick Selenitsch, OSW, Patrick Pound, Philip Brophy, Rex Butler, Ryan Johnston, and Soda_Jerk.

Ce livre est né du désir d'explorer en quoi consistent les trois énigmes majeures de 2001 l'odyssée de l'espace (de Stanley Kubrick) : le monolithe et la naissance de l'humanité, le langage et la technique, les modifications des formes de la sensibilité lors de l'épisode final. L'auteur met en évidence, dans une approche qui articule analyse précise de séquences et réflexion philosophique, le caractère central de la question du temps dans 2001 (l'odyssée de l'espace devient une odyssée du temps) ainsi que les dimensions artistiques d'un film défini comme passage sensible d'idées.

Now available in August 2018, the complete book. Inspired by 2001: A Space Odyssey, this book presents an entirely new space philosophy for the human species: based in science, aesthetics, ecology, and planetary cooperation.

Blurb inside cover: "Like David Bowie’s Major Tom, 'floating in a most peculiar way', Barry Vacker seems to contemplate Planet Earth through the porthole of a spacecraft. Via critiques of the Apollo program and films like 2001 and Interstellar, Barry offers us a unique opportunity to step back and think of the contradictions of space exploration and our contemporary society. Barry shows we live in a 'post-Apollo' culture torn between a frenetic race towards ever more scientific-technological progress and a just as powerful fall-back into the cultural ideologies of tribal ages of the past. For those who can embrace their non-centrality and possible meaninglessness in a majestic universe, yet yearn for a shared destiny in a sane planetary civilization, Specter of the Monolith is a wonderful and inspiring work." — Carine and Elisabeth Krecke (internationally renowned artists). Available in high-quality paperback in Amazon and Barnes & Noble; available in Kindle and Apple iBook.

My original undergraduate thesis, “What About Hal?”, is comprised of three core segments, titled “What,” “About,”and “Hal,” respectively. I used this question to structure my Queer phenomenological approach to 2001. In the first section, “What,” I identify the presence and use of physicality in 2001; “what” is in 2001 and “what” else interacts
with it? In “About,” I articulate 2001’s use and treatment of potentiality, using “about” as a spatial term that relates to imminence and anticipation of a particular action or moment. In the third and final section, “Hal,” I examine the specific interplay between physicality and potentiality in which 2001, specifically Hal, indulges, which ultimately
allows for a Queer amalgamation of the two.

This is an excerpt from “Specter of the Monolith: Nihilism, the Sublime, and Human Destiny in Space — From Apollo and Hubble to 2001, Star Trek, and Interstellar.” The book critiques the trajectories of civilization through technology, space films, and the quest for human meaning in a vast and ancient universe. This essay was originally posted in Medium.

Ethics of Cinematic Experience: Screens of Alterity deals with the relationship between cinema and ethics from a philosophical perspective , finding an intrinsic connection between film spectatorship and the possibility of being open to different modes of alterity. The book's main thesis is that openness to otherness is already found in the basic structures of cinematic experience. Through a close examination of the ethical relevance of the philosophy of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Stanley Cavell, Emmanuel Levinas and Gilles Deleuze to cinema studies, Ethics of Cinematic Experience: Screens of Alterity pursues the question of how film can open the viewer to what is not her and so bring her to encounter otherness in a way that is unique to cinematic experience. The book sees ethics as not just the subject, content or story of a film but part of its aesthetic structure. Accompanied by readings of films mainly from mainstream cinema, each chapter focuses on a different aspect of the encounter with alterity through cinema. The book gives particular attention to how theoretical discussion of the cinematic close-up can lead to ethical insights into the status of both the human and the non-human in film, and thus lead to an understanding of the relationships the viewer makes with them. The book is a helpful resource for students and scholars interested in the relationship between philosophy, film and ethics, and is appropriate for students of philosophy and media and cultural studies. Orna Raviv is a filmmaker and a film theorist. She teaches on the MA program in the Cultural Studies Department at the University of Haifa, and at the Unit for History and Philosophy of Art, Design and Technology, at Shenkar College.

O presente trabalho propõe uma análise do filme 2001 : Odisseia no Espaço  de Stanley Kubrick (1968) quanto à sua função, efeito e significado. Entenda-se por função a posição do realizador perante o tema central do filme, por efeito as emoções evocadas no espectador e significado pelas possibilidades de interpretação da mensagem.  Esta análise pressupõe ainda oestudo das personagens para a compreensão do enredo da história, assim como a escolha dos planos, técnicas e sonoplastia que dão sustentabilidade à descodificação do filme.  Esta análise fundamenta-se com o recurso aos livros Making of Kubricks 2001, editado por Jerome Agel, A A udiovis ão – Som e Imagem no Cinema , de Michel Chion e The Philisophy of Sta nley Kubrick  por Jerold J. Abrams.

This dissertation was executed, from proposal to defence, during a single semester (hope it doesn't show). 2004

Abstract:
Abstracts are space-time hybrids: spatially first, temporally last. Anorexic monsters with a hybrid vocabulary of 1050 characters / spaces / punctuations, they come from abstractus: "to draw from, separate." The bricoleur's bricolage makes the estranged segments feel at home in their homelessness. Bricks, held in place (thesis: "placing") with mort defying mortar, fill in gaps of memory in reconstituted walls that are prone to leakages. Such walls are inadvertent memorials. The labyrinth they make up is roofless. Monsters that fled its confine to infect scholarship and pedagogy, dreams and chess, films and architecture, return to haunt. They attempt to make their way back to the impossible centre, recalling architecture to its role of recalling. Uncoiled scrolls of De architectura and unravelled films of Stanley Kubrick spliced to make the Daedalus cut are held against the light: the thread of Ariadne read in reverse. This time: to find the way in.

In one of his lectures which Slavoj Zizek gave in the recent past, he modestly explained Lacan’s vision regarding how to deal with oneself. He asserted that the Freudian formula and obsession to know oneself is in itself pathology. Slavoj claims that “his (Lacan’s) point is that instead of probing into yourself, dedicate yourself to an external cause”. Then he elaborates this idea in a much more understandable way, “you are not cured when you can say: Now I can tell a complete story about myself! The point is not to ease your suffering, but to move out of these categories… and, to discover things… that are more important than your suffering or pleasure.” In that respect, I suggest incorporating the work of Tarkovsky in the Lacanian zone of philosophy. Tarkovsky was not only evoking childhood memories, he went beyond his personality and tracked down something more. He disclosed the dimension where he was openly telling stories that were not just his personal stories anymore but turned into stories of everyone.

Pramaggiore claimed that Barry Lyndon is slow, similarly Ciment suggested that 2001: A Space Odyssey and Eyes Wide Shut are slow films, too. Moving from the debate on slowness, especially from Jaffe's discussion, from the data collected in Cinemetrics about Kubrick's films, from their comparison with data of other films elaborated by Bordwell, and from a stylistic analysis of Kubrickian films, I will show that, in Kubrick's oeuvre, only the three films mentioned by the French scholar can be considered slow. One of the features of slowness is the presence of numerous long takes characterised by a few dialogue or silence, by rare and slow movements of the camera that often do not follow the staged events, and that show in long shots the lengthy movements of characters and objects. During these takes, the associative narrative form substitutes the sequential one – as discussed by Grodal – and the expressed time – as defined by Yacavone – is emphasised. Beginning with Totaro's discussion of long takes, I will analyse them in 2001, Barry Lyndon, and Eyes Wide Shut, and compare their features with those of long takes in slow cinema. When either the camera or the characters and objects in frame moves, I will draw conclusions about expressed time through a discussion of movement, adopting the Conceptual Metaphor Theory. My hypothesis is that Kubrick managed to extend expressed time, much like the directors of slow films do, although in his films the sequential narrative form is never completely abandoned in favour of the associative one, and coexists along with it.

Der Aufsatz widmet sich dem Versuch des französischen Philosophen Quentin Meillassoux, die narrative Überschreitung der  Grenzen der experimentell zugänglichen Welt innerhalb der Science-Fiction zu systematisieren und fragt, wie ernst dessen Konzept der Extro-Science-Fiction die ästhetische Verfasstheit dieser Spekulationen nimmt. Anhand von Stanley Kubricks 2001:
A Space Odyssey wird gegen die gängige Reduktion fiktionaler Narrative auf die Funktion von Gedankenexperimenten argumentiert, dass Film und Literatur den Rahmen des Vorstellbaren und Möglichen nicht im narrativen Weltentwurf, sondern im ästhetischen Überschuss zu sprengen vermögen.

The topics of the great philosophers – the nature of reality, the limits to knowledge, the origin of good and evil – are also the themes of some great movies. This course explores philosophical ideas and problems as they arise in various films by pairing texts with films. The emphasis is on moral issues in personhood and personal identity, but we also explore epistemological and ontological themes.

Wraz z wynalezieniem komputera (pierwszy superkomputer powstał w 1938 r.) i od tego czasu wzrastającym wykładniczo postępem technologicznym (The Law of Accelerating Returns), w wyobraźni (pop)kulturowej oraz w obszarze refleksji filozoficzno-techniczno-naukowej wykształcił się koncept tzw. sztucznej inteligencji czy też później superinteligencji (umysł lub też rodzaj inteligencji przekraczający możliwości ludzkiego umysłu). Jednym z możliwych scenariuszy zrealizowania się lub też zaistnienia tzw. osobliwości (pozabiologiczna inteligencja i/lub latourowska hybryda) jest (samo)stworzenie (samo)świadomego (inteligentnego) superkomputera.

David Bordwell wrote that “Narrative is a fundamental way that humans make sense of the world”, a very solid statement, an event without a story to it is unheard of, if we are not told the story then what is left for us to make sense of the event? The notoriously ambiguous 2001: A Space Odyssey (see fig.1) is remembered for its groundbreaking visual effects and its distinctly noticeable lack of dialogue, with only 40 minutes in a 141 minute film. With such minimal dialogue, not necessarily always driving the narrative forward, we are provided with captions on the screen telling us the changing times, and some other very interesting visual story telling devices. I am going to be analysing the narrative of 2001: A Space Odyssey and whether or not the decision to remove a vast majority of the dialogue affects the way in which the story is told. From that, I am going to look into the relationship between image and sound, focusing on the way in which the narrative is driven forward through images and music, and whether or not this enables the viewer to interpret the film in their own way – just as Kubrick had intended.

This project examines the representation of anxiety about technology that humans feel when encountering artificial intelligences in four science fiction novels: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Neuromancer, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and Cloud Atlas. By exploring this anxiety, something profound can be revealed about what it means to be a person living in a technologically saturated society. While many critical investigations of these novels focus on the dangerous and negative implications of artificial intelligence, this work uses Martin Heidegger's later writings on technology to argue that AIs might be more usefully read as catalysts for a reawakening of human thought.

Paper and handout for a presentation at Section #234, 8:30-10 a.m., Communitarianism and Utopianism: Configuring Utopia in Film, Literature, and Theory--Friday, 8 April 1994, 24th Annual Meeting of the Popular Culture Association, Chicago.

Argues that Kubrick's 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY both uses and "interrogates" the Nietzschean/masculinist myth of the Superman.

Per commemorare i 50 anni di 2001: Odissea nello Spazio di Stanley Kubrick – uscito il 2 aprile 1968 negli Stati Uniti e l’11 dicembre nel nostro paese – ripercorriamo i quattro intricatissimi anni di lavorazione del film attraverso il più dettagliato calendario di produzione mai compilato.
Intrecciando le informazioni contenute in libri e periodici inglesi e statunitensi con documenti di produzione dell’Archivio Kubrick di Londra si ottiene un diario quasi giornaliero degli anni 1964-1968 che rivela quanto complicata sia stata la realizzazione del film e soprattutto quale sia stato il vero ruolo di Stanley Kubrick nell’immaginare, preparare, sviluppare, dirigere e presentare al pubblico il più grande film di fantascienza di tutti i tempi.

Embora muitos considerem desatualizada a contribuição de Barthes para a análise da significação do vestuário, acreditamos que situar sua perspectiva em relação ao contexto da linguística e operacionalizar algumas de suas propostas em análises concretas são formas de aproveitar os aspectos mais relevantes dos desenvolvimentos do teórico francês. Por meio da revisão dos trabalhos de diversos teóricos dos estudos da linguagem, o presente artigo objetiva articular a noção barthesiana de "sistema" com a semântica lexical de Pottier, de modo a, mediante a análise de alguns elementos do figurino do filme 2001: uma odisseia no espaço, propor um ferramental interpretativo que reconheça as particularidades do discurso fílmico, em detrimento da tendência largamente difundida que transpõe mecanicamente os modelos de análise de textos verbais para o cinema. Concluímos que do diálogo teórico entre Barthes e Pottier emerge uma perspectiva analítica que pode iluminar as relações estabelecidas entre sistema e sintagma.

A 50 anni esatti dall’anteprima italiana, svoltasi l’11 dicembre 1968, Ca’ Foscari organizza un simposio su uno dei film che hanno cambiato la storia del cinema e, forse, la nostra stessa percezione del mondo. 2001: Odissea nello spazio ha infatti anticipato le trasformazioni tecnologiche nella corsa spaziale, ampliato la capacità del cinema di rappresentare l’immaginario e produrre pensiero (Gilles Deleuze diceva di 2001 che quel «viaggio nel mondo è un’esplorazione del cervello»), ridefinito radicalmente il genere fantascientifico, influenzato artisti e studiosi, e contaminato il quotidiano degli oggetti, suoni, luci, evocazioni presenti nel film. Il convegno si propone di capire se il capolavoro di Kubrick - a 50 anni dalla sua prima proiezione e già a 17 anni da quel ‘futuro’ 2001- continui ancora a parlarci del passato, del presente e dell’avvenire della nostra specie.

Dass in der umfangreich vorliegenden Literatur zu Kubrick dem Thema Licht in 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY wenig Aufmerksamkeit zuteilwird, verwundert angesichts der zentralen Gewichtung dieses Sujets: Die basale Funktion des Filmlichts, eine Szene auszuleuchten, erscheint geradezu zweitrangig im Vergleich dazu, wie konsequent das Licht als Motiv und konstitutiver Faktor der Bildorganisation von Kubrick „in Szene“ gesetzt wird. Die alte Rede vom Film als Lichtmalerei wird hierbei auf ein neues Level visueller Möglichkeiten gehoben. Nicht nur erlangt das Licht eine plastische Qualität: Es wird zur ästhetischen Waffe des Films, die die Wahrnehmung in neue Dimensionen führt, und zum bevorzugten Medium einer Überschreitung kinematografischer Darstellungs- und Wahrnehmungskonventionen.