Cropped Will Cardini artwork

February 1st, 2011

Can We Think Inhuman Thoughts?

Filed under: SF Reviews — Tags: , , , , , , — William Cardini @ 7:27 am

In the past two months I finished Tad Williams’ Shadowmarch epic fantasy tetralogy and then burned through his other, earlier epic fantasy tetralogy, Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn for the third or fourth time.

Michael Whelan's cover for Stone of Farewell, book two of Tad Williams' Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn fantasy series
Michael Whelan’s cover for Stone of Farewell, book two of Tad Williams’ Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn fantasy series

What I dig about Williams, besides his excellent (albiet sometimes slow-paced) prose and efforts to re-upholster standard fantasy tropes, is his attempts to depict truly inhuman beings and cultures in his stories. Science fiction and fantasy authors have always grappled with these kinds of depictions. Some question if it’s even possible for us human beings, with our mental biases, to truly imagine the thoughts and cultures of some other type of intelligence. In this blog post, I’m going to discuss several attempts, how they succeed or fail, and how this relates to my own artistic practice. Be warned, this essay is long.
Click here to read the rest

September 18th, 2009

No More Worlds Gallery Hours

Filed under: Press — Tags: , , , , , , — William Cardini @ 1:48 pm

We don’t want to conquer space at all. We want to expand Earth endlessly.
We don’t want other worlds; we want a mirror.
–Dr. Snaut, Solaris, Andrei Tarkovsky, 1972

If those of y’all in Chicago missed the opening of No More Worlds at Concertina Gallery, you can go check it out every Saturday from 12 to 5 pm until the last day of the show on Saturday, October 10th.

Corinna Kirsch, co-curator of the show, has written an essay on the exhibit that mentions yours truly, here’s an excerpt:

Mark Hensel, another artist interested in the “reconventioning” of conventions, has uploaded old science fiction paperback covers onto his Flickr account. Documents of what was, the covers on these out-of-print editions–populated by scenes of a lonely cosmos or solitary wanderers–echo the oftentimes desolate landscapes in Hensel’s own comics and installations.

You can read the full essay here.

July 15th, 2009

Moon starring Sam Rockwell

Filed under: SF Reviews — Tags: , , , , , — William Cardini @ 11:50 am

I saw Moon Monday night.

It was really refreshing. The last hard sci fi movie that I remember seeing was Sunshine, and that kind of fell apart at the end. Moon, directed by Duncan Jones, definitely follows the tradition established by 2001 and Tarkovsky’s Solaris, while also managing to throw in some humanizing bits of humor.