Triggering the monolith triggers: fictionalization and object-art in Kubrick’s cinematographic human metaphor throughout “Space Odyssey”

Abstract

This essay aims to reflect on the relationship of aesthetic effect caused by the monolith in 2001: a space odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke and the intricacies of its translation to the cinema by Stanley Kubrick. The reflection is based on the questioning of the possible representations and impacts that the artistic pole that this monolith, as a dark and opaque rectangular structure, can indicate us less of what its adjectivities, and more of a certain signical input tied to the mystery of what sustains the human need to fictionalize in the face of the void. This comes up as well as an imperative of realizing and pursuing deeds in their own anthropocentric narrative in progress, especially if registered by the formal means of the arts. Starting from an interdisciplinary look between the language and the contributions of Iser on the aesthetic effect, through its anthropological-literary standpoints from Eric Gans’ studies, more specifically on what they bring to light as the central role of fictionalization and of the acts of pretending – looking forward to linking to our proposal a meanwhile meaning intertwined by our main hermeneutic emphasis –, we seek to come in terms with a reading about the monolith that is undertaken by means of the articulation of voids, which is the result and route of this very present speculation on aesthetics.