I am a fan of science fiction and fantasy as a reader. I am not knowledgeable about the current
issues in the science fiction community; if you’re interested in that, go read
John Scalzi’s blog, Whatever or Mary-Anne Mohanraj (who also writes on many
other things). The title of this entry is also meant to raise traditional questions about how we classify genres--high vs. low, select vs. popular. Science fiction as a literary genre struggles with this as much as visual arts have.
In a recent conversation with my husband, we discussed how
the biggest award in science fiction, the Hugo, has categories for several
visual forms (Best Graphic Story, Best Professional Artist, and Best Fan Artist). I’ll relinquish the graphic story category
here as well since there is an interplay with text that the graphic story
relies on that I think moves it into a writer’s purview. I’m omitting the
categories for dramatic presentations, which because they include film and
television could be considered visual forms.
The nominations for best professional artist tend to cluster: “During the 61 nomination years, 59 artists
have been nominated; 20 of these have won, including co-winners and Retro
Hugos. Michael Whelan has received the most awards, with 13 wins out of 24
nominations. Frank Kelly Freas has 11 wins and 28 nominations, the most
nominations of any artist. Other artists with large numbers of wins or
nominations include Bob Eggleton with 8 wins out of 23 nominations, Ed
Emshwiller with 4 out of 8, and Don Maitz with 2 out of 17. David A. Cherry and
Thomas Canty are tied for the most nominations without an award at 10 each.”
(Wikipedia) The works (both professional and fan) tend too to be ones that
cluster with written forms—book covers, illustrations in science fiction
magazines, comics (printed and web), and text based games (like Dungeons and
Dragons). I (like many of the Hugo
concerned community) seem to be a little unclear on the professional/amateur status
distinction.
But for this blog, I’m not going to be able to read enough quickly and
thoroughly to bring myself up to date in the history of the Hugos and their
disputes beyond the basic outline. I do want to address science
fiction as a matter of subject in the works of many contemporary artists. I
tend to think that the Hugo committee could benefit from widening their field
of exploration beyond works which are connected to the printed word BUT I also
see the benefit to them of defining their categories as specifically connected
to writing (I myself am NOT a member of
the voting group so I don’t really have a car in this race).
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And this is the interlude, where after a few folks have read it and pointed out in other venues errors with my understanding of the Hugo awarding, I feel a bit of a fool. Blogosphere prerogative, right? However, I stand by my general feeling that the Hugos are generally still strongly connecting their visual and text forms and that the forum for popular science fiction does not strongly overlap with the venues for visual artists who are not working with text.
For the record, my friend Jed Hartman who is far more involved in this community than I, as a writer and editor, corrected me: "wanted to note in passing that there's no Hugo committee per se defining this stuff. The voters could, if so inclined, nominate and vote for any kind of artist in the fan artist category--and potentially in the pro artist category too, though that might require some flexibility of interpretation about what constitutes a "professional publication" and how seriously to take the word "illustrator." But Hugo administrators tend to be flexible when nominators make their will known.
The categories themselves can be changed by WorldCon attendees who attend meetings, but changing a category is very hard and requires a lot of work over multiple years, including overcoming resistance. But the artist categories don't specify the medium of the art as such.
Your basic point about the Hugos is well taken: it's unfortunate that the categories are described using terms that focus on illustrations of textual material, and it's unfortunate that Hugo nominators aren't generally aware of other kinds of relevant art. I'm just saying that it isn't quite a matter of a committee casting a wider net."
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_______________________________________________________________________________
And this is the interlude, where after a few folks have read it and pointed out in other venues errors with my understanding of the Hugo awarding, I feel a bit of a fool. Blogosphere prerogative, right? However, I stand by my general feeling that the Hugos are generally still strongly connecting their visual and text forms and that the forum for popular science fiction does not strongly overlap with the venues for visual artists who are not working with text.
For the record, my friend Jed Hartman who is far more involved in this community than I, as a writer and editor, corrected me: "wanted to note in passing that there's no Hugo committee per se defining this stuff. The voters could, if so inclined, nominate and vote for any kind of artist in the fan artist category--and potentially in the pro artist category too, though that might require some flexibility of interpretation about what constitutes a "professional publication" and how seriously to take the word "illustrator." But Hugo administrators tend to be flexible when nominators make their will known.
The categories themselves can be changed by WorldCon attendees who attend meetings, but changing a category is very hard and requires a lot of work over multiple years, including overcoming resistance. But the artist categories don't specify the medium of the art as such.
Your basic point about the Hugos is well taken: it's unfortunate that the categories are described using terms that focus on illustrations of textual material, and it's unfortunate that Hugo nominators aren't generally aware of other kinds of relevant art. I'm just saying that it isn't quite a matter of a committee casting a wider net."
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Science fiction and science fact are part of our
contemporary existence. We live in a
world of gene sequencing, global climate change, and paleo-biology. The advantage of science fiction has always
been the ability to use science fact as a jumping off point for imaginative
speculation, for exploration beyond our current knowledge. To suggest the questions of “what if?”. Science fiction has always allowed us to stretch
beyond our physical limitations to consider what we might do if we were not
hampered by our material bodies or Newtonian or Einsteinian physics. Science fiction has allowed us to imagine
worlds where microbes exhale methane to evolve a whole new range of creatures,
where bilateral symmetry is highly overrated, where our extraordinary human
sense of intuition becomes a mundane shared practice of telepathy. MOST importantly, in my mind, it gives us a
forum where we can explore our feelings about our limitations and boundaries,
creating stories where we reinforce our social strictures about race, gender or
sexuality and stories where we are freed from those social strictures (both for
good and ill).
As a starting point here, I thought I’d try to regularly (or at least as regularly as I do any writing) showcase
the work of an artist or two really exploring the boundaries of science from a
visual point of view.
Jennifer Allora and
Guillermo Calzadilla are two collaborating Puerto-Rican artists whose work
intersects science and politics. I first
noticed their work, Growth
(2006). It features a number of grafted
cactus plants. About the work, they have
said: “We also like the idea of the
monstrous. What’s interesting is that it’s a deviation that’s still part of
nature, or part of culture or humanity, but it stands as a kind of distorted
mirror against it. It becomes an active point from which to understand what a
society or culture views as its norms and boundaries, and to show the limits of
one’s own thinking or a set of cultural values.” (Art21; there's lots of great stuff on them here, including interviews and videos)
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| Allora and Calzadilla, Growth, 2006 |
Human Legacy (2010), seen at FIAC 2010, also suggests so much to me in the realm of science, fantasy and fiction. The leg comes forth from the tree—our Western
Greek myth heritage of tree nymphs has always bespoke our hope for human
communion with nature. But the grotesque
element of the tree birthing a form that is not fully human, that looks human
but is wooden, a whole different material.
Could we could be that in our evolutionary future/science fiction
parallel?
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| Allora and Calzadilla, Human Legacy, 2010 |
In its minimalism, Solar
Catastrophe (2011) is a beautiful repetition of color and form; it is only
when we know that it is made from fragments of solar panels that we can feel
the sinister elements: failure of energy policies, global climate change, and
the anxiety over our adaptabilities.
Works like Nature of Conflict (2004) also hit at this with the beauty created by spilled oil on water. Even more pointedly, a work like the sculpture, Petrified Petrol Pump (2010) uses fossil-filled limestone to draw attention to the organic history and the stultifying effects of oil/gas production.
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| Allora and Calzadilla, Solar Catastrophe, 2011 |
Works like Nature of Conflict (2004) also hit at this with the beauty created by spilled oil on water. Even more pointedly, a work like the sculpture, Petrified Petrol Pump (2010) uses fossil-filled limestone to draw attention to the organic history and the stultifying effects of oil/gas production.
 |
| Allora and Calzadilla, Nature of Conflict, 2004 |
There is always a political point here—these artists are
pointing often not just to the science of climate change but the politics that
keep it in place. They are also
Puerto-Rican so there is a fraught history coming forward in works like Vieques
that addresses US naval use as a bombing range as a colonial connection as well
as an environmental issue. Vieques as a
place is the fusion of extraordinary beauty in the water and lush growth,
vibrant life in the turtle breeding grounds, and harsh destruction in the bomb
craters. To pull one parallel work, look
at a piece from the Fault Lines installation—a bird made from technology
and weaponry. For Allora and Calzadilla, our Western heritage is a story we tell ourselves, taming our wildness with technology, even while it consumes our very nature. It is impossible to turn
away—science fiction as our fascination with the fantastic.
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| Allora and Calzadilla, The Bird of Hermes is my name.., 2010 |
