Science Fiction or Fantasy in the Southern Reach

The following contains limited spoilers about Vandermeer's Southern Reach trilogy.  It does not discuss details or plot points, but does discuss basic approach and possible themes.

For about a decade, I read SF (aka science fiction aka speculative fiction) at high speed and nearly constantly.   This would have been before, during and after college, when I was productively employed at the RAND Corporation and had a future.  That is, before I destroyed my life by going into the bogus field of computer graphics / animation.   At some point, I decided it was time to move on to the related fields of historical linguistics, computational biology and so forth and so stopped reading much fiction at all.

But I was very fond of the field that SF came from and so recently, the last year or two, I have started reading selected works in the field of SF and came across Greg VanderMeer's Southern Reach trilogy, a work I reviewed here) and which I think very highly of.   

So I recommended this work to a friend who currently does read nearly everything in SF and he read it and told me how much he hated it.   The reason was because he felt strongly that it was not SF but was fantasy.  I on the other hand had no doubt and have no doubt that it is SF and not fantasy.

The reader of this blog may or may not know that the distinction between SF and fantasy is a hotly debated topic in the field, by which I mean the authors, readers, editors, and publishers who deal with Fantasy and SF.   This discussion has been going on since before I started reading in this area, and it goes on today.

The fundamental distinction between the two fields is to what extent one violates the laws of physics and of what we know about reality and with what consistency one does so.   In classic SF one is allowed to make certain assumptions up front, for example faster-than-light travel or alien races with certain characteristics, but having made those assumptions then write a story that takes place in that world without taking additional liberties.   Fantasy, on the other hand, so someone from the world of SF would maintain, is permitted to not only take more liberties at the beginning, but is allowed to use magical belief systems at any time later in the work.    Thus, according to one school of thought, SF is a sub-genre of fantasy but with more constraints on what is and is not allowed.

A landscape in the Southern Reach 

The classic or canonical work of fantasy might be Tolkien's Lord of the Rings whereas the canonical work of SF might be Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.  Both are certainly works of fiction, and both are fantasy, but the latter has a more concise set of assumptions.

But another school of thought says that this distinction is perhaps not so clear as fantasy also has to abide by the rules and constraints of the assumptions that are made just as any good work of fiction must.   The difference between them may lie in the conventions of the specific topics that are chosen as assumptions.  In SF one may more properly assume technologies to go under water, but in fantasy one may assume the existence of a magical system available only to adepts, but in both cases one has constraints to live by in the execution of the story.

A metaphor-rich lighthouse lens plays a central role in the novels

But I think that the perception my friend had that the Southern Reach trilogy was fantasy did not come from that classic distinction between the two genres described above, but on another criteria sometimes discussed: what is the allowable amount of unexplained phenomena that is permitted?  If one exceeds this loosely defined limit would that make a piece of fiction fantasy and not SF?   

It is a premise of the Southern Reach trilogy that something very strange has happened to a part of the fictional, possibly parallel, world that the story is set in.   This region of the coast in a place very reminiscent of parts of Florida, is exhibiting a tremendous number of phenomena that are outside our normal understanding of how the world works.  It started to do so suddenly, with very little warning, and when it began, it put up a wall, or barrier, to separate the normal world from this very different place.   The plot and action of the story is for people from outside the area to try and figure out what is going on, what has happened, and what is the fate of the people who were in the area when the barrier came down, or who enter the area afterwards, or who remain outside the barrier in the normal world. 

Rampant ambiguity, or unexplained mysteries,  in the Southern Reach are part of the charm of the work. When the work is finished, many of these issues are still left unresolved although most of them, at least many of the important ones, are either somewhat resolved or we have a good working theory for what may be going on here.  But even at the end of the work there are still a lot of unexplained issues.  Some of this ambiguity is personal: what is the fate of this character or that one?  And some of the ambiguity is at a much larger level that involves the fate of many people, or the explanation for phenomena on a macro level.

The answer that is implied, but never conclusively pinned down in detail, is that we are seeing the work of an artifact or artifacts created by a very advanced and very different intelligence, one that is going about its work without much concern about us and may not even realize in some sense of the word that we are here.  But Arthur Clarke has famously pointed out that any truly advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.   So when we are through with this book one does not have everything explained, and one can choose to believe that what one is seeing is magic and not technology if one wants to.   The author is by design not going to tell you for certain what is going on, it is up to you to make your own judgment.

So on top of all the other ambiguity inherent in the Southern Reach trilogy, we have the potential of a new one, whether or not the works are properly categorized as science fiction or fantasy.

At the end of the day, when you reach the light at the top of lighthouse, it is up to you to decide whether there is magic or unexplained and advanced technology that is behind some of what you have just read about.

Which leads us to another question.  Can readers of classical science fiction accept work that has a high degree of ambiguity?

Experimental Uses of Analog Reflectance Mapping in the Pre-Digital Cinema

As we move into the new world of digital cinema is it time to embrace modern aesthetics and criteria of excellence and move away from the tired old notions of story, plot, character and dialog?  These latter elements served their purpose in their day but now hold us back, some would say.  Who cares about a story when you can have giant robots?   What is the point of having sympathy for a character when you can have 1200 effects shots instead?   The answer is there is no point.

If "new art requires new artists" then it also requires new criteria, new standards, which we can use to judge and appreciate this new work  Our modern cinema has clearly transcended these old ideas and moved ahead.  I believe it is time we moved analysis and criticism forward as well.

What are the new criteria that more properly embraces and embodies our new art form?   This is not yet known for certain.  We are feeling our way in a dark room filled with sharp edges.

I propose that one such new aesthetic will be an appreciation of the power and nuance of a well-placed "reflection map".   Consider how pointless it would be to try and appreciate a movie like Gravity (2013) without deconstructing its reflection maps that underlie its mere surface reality. 

For those of you who are not familiar with the terminology of the new cinema, let us review the basis and origins of the "reflectance map".   

A reflection map is subtlety incarnate. Just out of sight it informs the scene subliminally. It is the distorted lens through which we do not see this world, but another world, a world around the corner or above our heads, a world of light that fills the space between the objects.

The origins of the reflection map predates digital cinema, it predates all cinema. Its beginnings are in the history of theatrical lighting and set design of different cultures, both of narrative theatre as well as the religious and other cultural events of these earlier periods. It is in the history of theatrical lighting, the projector, the lime-light, the mirror, the torch, the well-placed pane of glass, the unscrolling panorama, and in the world of theatrical magic that we should seek the origins of the reflection map.  (1)

The reflection map is not new to the cinema, it is has been in the background, in the art form of the cinematographer since the beginning. There have also been some early examples, ahead of their time, that elevated the reflection map to a more prominent place in the structure of the film. There are four films that I describe here that demonstrate mastery of the reflection map, all of them classics of the traditional cinema. I think you will agree that all four films are recognizable at once merely by describing their use of reflection mapping, as analog as it may be.

That is right, in all four examples below, the maps (reflection, projection, etc) are all analog, which obviously could not be as good as digital, that goes without saying, but has value nevertheless.  

Film 1:

The film begins with a minute of solid black with white titles in a classic type. The audio fades up from silent to the background sound of people in a public space and, slowly after a minute and maybe twenty title cards, what appears at first glance to be a stylized impressionist painting appears. A very subdued color palette with unrecognizable shapes of what may be a cafe or group of people. The painting begins to move (it is actually in slow motion), it appears to be animated or abstract in some way. As color is faded into the picture, an orchestra becomes to warm up in the background audio and the painting is revealed to be a distorted mirror of a club in Berlin between the wars. The reflection map itself becomes an element of the scene as it is a backdrop to the stage which is slowly pulled up to the ceiling where it acts as a reflector of the stage beneath it.

Film 2:

A black and white film about a young man who is color blind. However, he became color blind as a young adult, in his early childhood he could perceive color. When he sees something that he saw as a child or which reminds him of his childhood, that element will be in color. This is particularly noticeable in a scene involving a dark room with a back-lit aquarium and the reflections it casts in the room. (2)

Film 3:

A 1960's film about space travel. We often do not see what the character sees directly, but only indirectly in the visor of his space suit, or the reflections on the wall or window. Even when we think we are seeing what he sees directly, we are not, as the imagery is created with an analog technique called slit scan, a technique that uses imagery in a motion control process to create new animated abstract imagery on film.

Film 4:

A black and white film about love and death, with death and death's mechanism personified in the character of a woman (4) and her male assistant. The boundary between the worlds of the dead and the living are mirrors. In an attempt to bring someone back from death, the assistant to death guides the protagonist into and through the world of the dead on his mission. The imagery is composited, either optical or rear projection, of photography at night moving through ruined cities.   The plates are then used as both backgrounds and projections on the characters.  

The four films are of course Cabaret (1972) by Fosse , Rumble Fish (1983) by Copolla, 2001: A Space Odyssey  (1968) by Kubrick and Orpheus (1950) by Cocteau.

These are all analog films of course, and all but one of them, 2001, can only tease us with the promise of reflection mapping.  It will take the advent of digital techniques for the tsunami of reflection mapping to truly find its voice.

2001: A Space Odyssey

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062622/

Rumble Fish

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086216/

Orpheus

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0041719/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

Cabaret

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068327/

_________________________________________

1. For those who think that reflectance mapping was invented in 1982, sadly I must disagree.  At most it was demonstrated in digital form in that year.  Reflectance mapping has been with us since long before.   Anyone writing a renderer in that period, as I was, was well aware of its promise and possibilities.

2. Rumble Fish also used projected time-lapse photography which is another example of the use of reflections for narrative purpose.

3. Story has become the victim of the new economy.   By economizing on a writer, the total film budget may be lowered by many thousands of dollars.  This allows them to spend more on what is important, to bring value to the film, such as more visual effects.

4. Yes, death is portrayed as a woman in this film.  I do not know what the gender issues are, but they must exist.

A More Personal and Analog Approach to Computer Art

Those of us who worked to create a new art form(s) with computers have been gratified by some of the progress in the creation of computer generated art. But we must also acknowledge that the process of exploration has been uneven, with some areas going from triumph to triumph, and others lying neglected and underappreciated. Sure, it is easy to be enthusiastic about vast expense paid to create impossibly stupid movies with computers which are sequels to impossibly stupid movies that make a half a billion dollars.   Indeed, how could we not celebrate them as clearly they are the very highest form of art that our society could aspire to. And this is shown in the most sincere way we prove these things: by success at generating commerce. Without commerce, some would say, there is no real art.

It is easy to celebrate a film and a director who publically dismisses as irrelevant the technologists and artists who made his lead character of his film, in this case a tiger. A director who laughs at them in their misery and impoverishment. It is the fate of these so-called digital artists to suffer as they are worthless scum and anyone can be hired off the street and be trained to do their job. In fact governments spend hundreds of millions of dollars to impoverish and destroy their places of employment so that they may have the glamour of computer animation facilities in their own country. That is only natural and correct. (1)

Since we must acknowledge that doing computer animation as it was traditionally performed is a failure in this country, with a few exceptions, it is time I think to reexamine our roots and look at other forms of expression with computers. For example, a friend of mine, Tom Brigham, sent me an interesting youtube video of an unknown artist (unknown to me) doing an art experiment by applying the power of a neon sign transformer to a former LCD television. Thus the artist experiments with the interface between the analog represented by the voltage from the transformer, with the digital, as represented by the cracked LCD display, in unexpected and creative ways.

All potential practitioners of this process are reminded to be very careful with those high voltage logic probes.

Although the final work is not a success, the process demonstrated by the artist clearly has potential and I hope that many will also experiment with creating new art in this way. Of course, I hope they are very careful with the power transformers, and avoid death by electrocution, which would be unpleasant.

LCD TV vs Neon Sign Transformer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4VypcXwHLg

Ed Systems on Youtube

http://www.youtube.com/user/Aussie50/featured

________________________________________

1. Examples of such countries include Canada, the UK, Taiwan, the People's Republic of China and New Zealand.

modified 12/5/2013

The Noble But Futile Gesture of Paul Rand

As part of our passive aggressive effort here at Global Wahrman to educate youth, we feature today one of the greatest American graphic designers, Paul Rand (1914-1996). You have seen his work all your life.

In 1992, Paul Rand, resigned from the faculty of Yale University as part of a protest against postmodernist theory. Exactly what good his resignation could possibly accomplish is a mystery to me, but no doubt it was a noble gesture.   When he resigned, he wrote an essay, "Chaos and Confusion: The Seduction of Comtemporary Graphic Design". (See http://www.paul-rand.com/foundation/thoughts_confusionChaos/#.UO0TS-Sw-Gk)

Complaining about postmodern criticism, which is truly worst case academic drivel, is like complaining that we live in a shallow society: of course we do.   In the case of postmodern criticism we just have that manifestation of shallowness that comes from a self-entitled community of elitist shallow people in contrast to the other types.  And this particular type of shallow people have the career imperative to publish, and furthermore to publish in journals that encourage that kind of shallowness.  Its a positive feedback loop, some would argue, the arts criticism equivalent of the peacocks tail feathers leading to preferential selection by sex-crazed peahens leading to an even more flamboyant set of tail feathers in the next generation.   One day it may disappear in a puff of smoke and itself become the topic of PhD thesis trying to explain the phenomenon.

Since we at Global Wahrman wish to honor the noble and futile sacrifice of one's career in order to make an ethical stand, here is a paragraph or two from this essay.