Interdisciplinary
The Ocean-Mirror: Levels of Communication and Knowledge Across Different Versions of Solaris
Presenter(s): Cedric Bobro
Advisor(s): Dr. Kelli Fuery
Anthony Wilden formulates Jacques Lacan’s Symbolic and Imaginary to fit the dimension of communicational systems: where Wilden finds Imaginary identification as the prevailing mode of knowledge and exchange in dominant discourse is where he aims to introduce Symbolic difference. (Wilden 1972) Using the theory of logical types, which Gregory Bateson develops into levels of exchange within all systems, not just the logician’s, (Bateson 1954, 1972) Wilden demonstrates that the Imaginary discourse is one in which the self and other are reflected within the same logical type – as well as communication therein, leading to the impossibility of truly undermining the Imaginary relation from within. The Symbolic, then, is not merely a higher logical type in that it is able to account for levels of communication otherwise than the oppositional, but it is also capable of bringing out the difference within the very terms of the Imaginary opposition itself. I use the texts of Solaris to virtualize this move to a higher logical type through the idea that the Imaginary human/inhuman opposition can be articulated as different failures and in different media – and, consequently, as different logical types. In each instance, the ocean provides the lure of a mirror-like relation, whether for scientific discourse in general or for the human subject. Crucially, there is a moment in Solaris (Stanislaw Lem, 1961) Solaris (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1972), and Solaris (Steven Soderbergh, 2002) where this lure is pursued to such an excess that the ocean/human (or human/inhuman) opposition is no longer reflected as such, but becomes a single, formal term for a higher logical type.