2001 – Upwards Compatible. Phony Sci-Fi

Phony Sci-Fi

Two monitor video installation. On the left side is shown System Inertia, and in the right side Open the Door.

 

Phony Sci-Fi / System Inertia

A term used to highlight the powerful influence that computer systems developed in the past have on what can be done today. This arises because new systems often have to use the same data files as existing systems, or fit into the same operating procedures. Because many old applications would be very costly to change and because information technology has advanced so rapidly, systems inertia has become a severe constraint on the information systems plans of many organisations.

Reediting of the final scene of Blade Runner (Ridley Scott 1982).
Running Time 3 min 20 sec.

Last scene of Blade Runner in which Roy the replicant (Rutger Hauer), about to die, reflects on life and death in front of a defeated and breathless Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford). It has been manipulated in such a way that instead of telling an epitaph he sings a song, Daisy, as HAL 9000, the computer in 2001 A Space Odyssey does right before being disconnected.

Phony Sci-Fi / Open the Door

An offence would be for the commentator of the command, who is also the addressee of the command, to say:

I have understood which phrase family Open the door belongs to, and I am by that fact therefore acquitted of this command.

This is the speculative, an in general the metalinguistic, offense.

Jean-François Lyotard, La différence.

Reediting of an scene of 2001 A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick 1968)

Running time 3 min 40 secs

In this scene Dave Bowman (Keir Dullea) is coming back to the space ship after an unsuccessful attempt of rescue his colleague Frank Poole (Gary Lockwood) but HAL 9000, the inboard computer, do not allow it. In this version HAL gives up right after the curses of Dave.