Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/002409406775452104 by guest on 01 October 2021 From Méliès to Galaxy Quest: The Dark Matter of ART 2004 SPACE the Popular Imagination
ABSTRACT Michael Punt, The authors argue that an Martha Blassnigg interrogation of cinema can reveal the fragility of our knowl- edge and the underlying impera- and David Surman tives that the social construction of space responds to. A revi- sionist overview of the issue of professional interfaces in the popular arts is followed by a discussion of the influence of space technology and natural ICHAEL UNT NTRODUCTION Méliès is perhaps best known in space phenomena on human M P : I personal and collective belief This paper was stimulated by the film Galaxy Quest (Parisot, space research for making the first systems in order to open the 1999), which collapses the fictitious dimensions of space travel space movie (indebted no doubt way for an outline of the con- into the scientific perception of real space travel in order to to Jules Verne), and his career as a cept of participatory cultures shoemaker, conjuror, theater owner and the relationship between reveal some insights into the cultural construction of space. fiction and science. In this collaboration, the three authors [1] inquire into the and early film producer provides ev- metaphorical, metaphysical and metadiscursive aspects of tech- idence of the technological imagi- nology by integrating a range of scholarly activities and am- nation as it reveals the residues of plifying them through non-hierarchical collaboration within the very antagonistic energies that an institutional environment [2]. It combines the research of stimulated the enthusiasm for cinema. Méliès was not unique artists, filmmakers, photographers and designers with the aim in his fascination with the ecology of technology at the close of advancing our understanding of the history of technology of the 19th century. Perhaps less familiar is the British film- and exploring new modalities of academic and practical re- maker James Williamson, who made The Big Swallow in 1900, search. Consistent with this overarching concern, this paper a time when, for metropolitan audiences at least, moving pic- deals with the human imagination and regards it as a mir- tures were becoming familiar, and the sight of a cinematogra- ror image of space. Like space, the imagination is largely un- pher filming a busy street—or sometimes even the venue of a knowable, and all that we can ever say about it as an entity is forthcoming séance—was also becoming a commonplace. As based on conjecture drawn from our fragmentary perception the sales catalog note that accompanied the film at the time of the wake of its apparently infinite energy. We have chosen, tells us, we see an ordinary man become so irate at a ubiqui- as a methodology, to study the visible residue of the human tous photographer that he swallows him up, camera tripod and imagination in the arts, science and technology and to ex- all. After his mischief he backs off from the film camera, smack- trapolate the network forces that seem to intersect at their ing his lips, and hams up the joke for the audience in a ges- instantiation, aware all the time that we are describing a hu- ture of mutual conspiracy. It is a simple gag film manifesting man and cultural condition rather than explaining it. For this an antique humor, but it would be a mistake to see it simply as group of authors our common point of departure is cinema, a schoolboy joke, since, although there is a displacement from a technological anachronism that initially caught the public the cinematographe to the still camera, the film is nonethe- imagination in ways that no scientist, inventor, technologist, less suggestive of a certain unease—even antagonism—aris- entrepreneur or showman ever predicted. The 19th-century ing from the gap between a photographic technology that is conjuror and cinema pioneer Georges Méliès and a few British used to represent the world and those who look at its repre- eccentrics—mediums, showmen and instrument makers—are sentations. This particular disaffection is elegantly summed up possible exceptions. in the conspiratorial gesture Williamson’s actor makes as he digests the machine that represents him; he takes technology into the imagination of the interior body from which it was born as an invention. Re-assimilating the machine is a senti- Michael Punt (educator, researcher), Trans-technology Research, University of Plymouth, Newport, U.K. E-mail:
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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/002409406775452104 by guest on 01 October 2021 that as technology has turned wireless, an- gels have become wingless once again [5]. My own field research reveals that they can present themselves in contemporary
SPACE ART 2004 SPACE clairvoyant perception as rather abstract light-beings similar to the Aurora Bore- alis. In this interrelation of spirit and technology, the angel can be seen as a symptomatic concept that exceeds its re- ligious connotations and, as we will see, can be turned into an intercultural, in- terconnecting, service-oriented, mobile, flexible, genderless and ubiquitous me- diator. Traveling through and beyond the material limits of time and space, the an- gel becomes an almost perfect compan- ion to the bytes and bits of contemporary communications technology. In comparison to the dominant ex- pressions of fear and destruction con- fronting alien space in most mainstream movies, more constructive imagination has been projected and reiterated in pop- ular subcultures since the technologi- cal venture of space travel in the 1950s. As we have seen, almost from its ear- liest beginnings, cinema incorporated popular and esoteric interpretations of metaphysics into its “imagination.” As a consequence, cinema can provide an ev- idential base in both its medium and con- tent for the exploration of the way space and time have been imagined and also how they have been understood scientif- ically. Edgar Morin, for example, reflect- ing upon the similarities between the cinematographic experience and human imagination [6], notes how cinema of- fers a symbiosis that integrates the spec- tator in the flux of the film, and the film into the psychical flux of the spectator [7]. Cinema, the dream machine or time machine, and “homo demens,” the pro- ducer of fantasies, myths, ideologies and Fig. 1. David Hurn, Untitled, 1967. (© David Hurn) dreams, both evoke magic as an interi- orized quality through affection. Robert D. Romanyshyn argues that when Alberti namics in a coherent reality provides our fect platform for imagination and fan- (1404–1472) invented the linear per- first piece of evidence that the imagina- tasy within popular culture and offers a spective of depth with a vanishing point, tion is dark matter manifest to our intel- plane for metaphysical and imaginative the inexplicable moved inside and be- ligence in its various instantiations as inquiry. In a spiritual context, this con- came an interior quality of imagination. complex, intersecting network forces be- cept of darkness and void apparently This new perception not only moved an- yond the reach of reason [3]. contradicts the prevalent imagination of gels and demons out of heaven and clouds divine light and the spiritual imaginary onto the same horizontal plane in paint- crowded with heavenly creatures, yet ings, but also prepared the imagination MARTHA BLASSNIGG: there are notions that relate invisible di- for space travel by liberating the figure ESIRE MAGINATION D , I vine light to darkness [4]. In the most from the base line of the image and situ- AND TECHNOLOGY: HOW profound realm of darkness, the space ating it in the middle of the frame [8]. TO LOVE (IN) SPACE craft and the angel both have conquered Cultural expressions in various me- This scientific idea of dark matter, and colonized outer space as part of our dia productions are indispensable both whether meant in reference to the still human attempts to overcome the mate- to illustrate and to justify scientific tech- unexplored mystery of the universe or rial limits of three dimensions by fusing nological ventures [9]. In this sense, used as a metaphor for our inexplicable the spiritual with technological media. many have argued for the important role human brain capacities, provides a per- Their histories have become fused, so played by the transmission of film images
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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/002409406775452104 by guest on 01 October 2021 of the 1969 moon landing in touching, concepts on the exploration of space or restoration of its functioning, and its involving and convincing a broad audi- (Color Plate B). In a transfer between wings are treated like a mechanical ex- ence of the actuality of the event [10]. technology, art, pop sensibility and ar- tension of its body [19]. The angel’s su- Unlimited outer space offers an open chitecture, the experimental projects on perhuman capacities not only are at the
platform to express our imaginations exhibit displayed a technological opti- service of Barbarella, but also seem to be ART 2004 SPACE and reflects like a 360˚, three- (or maybe mism in their futuristic visions. Event and under her control. more?) dimensional screen or plane, play temporarily modulated the meaning At first sight, the character Pygar rep- inviting us to experience not merely an of the body in urban spaces and pre- resents seeming opposition to technol- audiovisual performance, but also a sented constructed extensions of con- ogy in its traditional sense by virtue of the multi-sensorial event and engagement sciousness: “a space travel, like astronauts, angel’s human-like appearance and its that includes the body [11] and our con- but into inner space” [16]. incorporation of virtues such as love and sciousness as equal faculties. In what fol- These three contemporary examples empathy. But at the same time Pygar lows I discuss the idea of space travel as of the common practice of cultural reit- forms an analogy to the many erotically an instantiation where imagination, de- eration and simulation above (musical, shaped and attractive machines in the dé- sire and technology meet and interact coffee promotion and installation) show cor on Sogo, forming an organic part, [12] in one particular appearance that the complexity of interrelated references connecting technology with body shapes seems to have resisted historical change and a certain exoticism in the treatment and connoting physical desire. A com- in its various recent reiterations: the story of the subject of space travel. Displacing parison between the movie and the mu- of Barbarella. the idea of space research from the lab- sical Barbarella reveals this relationship in Barbarella, the 1968 science fiction oratory into a comedic framework creates the story’s crucial love scene: In the movie directed by Roger Vadim [13] (Ar- the opportunity for unlimited imagina- movie, Barbarella makes love to the an- ticle Frontispiece, Figs 1–3), is based on tion to expand and explore the desirable gel Pygar, who then regains its will to fly. a 1962 French comic strip by Jean Claude otherness of the unknown. In the exam- Here Pygar wears only feathered pants, Forest. The film launches desires and ple of Barbarella’s reiterations, the dis- whereas in the musical the angel is cov- imagination related to the liberational placement occurs by the projection of ered with an armor-like outfit, hiding its political agenda of the 1960s into a space human desires onto a particular scientific muscles. Apart from the angel’s more ma- comedy: sexy, playful, humorous, ironic, research project, so that the gap between chine-like appearance, the musical rather erotic, fantastic, political . . . However, popular culture and the scientific com- relates to the original comic strip in this alongside the film’s outspokenness and munity is seemingly decreased. As the respect. Barbarella does not make love to directness in matters concerning sexual popularity of the cult movie Barbarella Pygar but instead to the robot Victor: a desire and utopian technology, there is shows, audiences are still responding to metallic cyborg, a “love-machine.” also a rather concealed desire for a quest this mechanism and carrying it forward The 1960s film of Barbarella clearly ex- for innocence and restoration of an ideal into future imagination [17]. presses how, in popular culture, technol- world, bound into ecological, demo- ogy itself can serve as a medium for the cratic, left-wing concerns and dreams of The Angel and Technology in production of sensory experience. Du- 1960s social and political movements. Barbarella: A Brief Case Study ran Duran’s pleasure machine offers both In Vienna in March 2004, the story of The interior of Barbarella’s cozy space- pleasure and the potential to physically Barbarella celebrated its world premiere craft, where she performs her famous destroy Barbarella; in contrast to the ma- as a theatrical production [14], adver- striptease [18] at the beginning of the terial, eternal and Divine love is evoked tised as a sexy rock musical. In the musi- movie, presents an analogy with the an- by the angel Pygar, who finally embraces cal, Barbarella, the sexy space agent gel Pygar, whose feathered wings and both the hero Barbarella and the wicked traveling in outer space, has to save her cozy nest serve Barbarella’s pleasures. Dark Queen. Pygar wears wings, Bar- crew on planet Sogo and, with the help Both the spacecraft and Pygar are used barella is armored; together they incor- of the angel Pygar, she gains victory over in the film as agents to extend human porate forces that act on the desires the Black Queen, who tries to seduce her. travel through space and as amplifiers of projected on the imaginary of technol- In the reception room of the Raimund human physical and mental capacities: ogy and spirituality. It seems as if they Theatre in Vienna, where the musical was When Barbarella’s spacecraft malfunc- both need each other: humans and an- staged, the Italian coffee brand Lavazza tions, Pygar takes over and transports her gels and humans and technology, hand exhibited its “2004 Mission to Espresso” to her destiny, the palace of Sogo. Even in hand, even in love, in physical union calendar with photographs by Thierry Le though the angel Pygar is shown with an to explore dark matter, confront alteri- Guès. The promotional calendar refers anthropomorphic shape, attributed with ties and re-establish order in the universe directly to Barbarella [15]. Lavazza’s pub- an attractive, winged, masculine body, it [20]. When Barbarella curls into Pygar’s lic photo contest “Espresso, Space and is treated like an object by the inhabitants protecting arms at the film’s end, ac- Time” has produced a series of portfolios of the city of darkness. Consequently, cepting the union in this love together centered on coffee, space, desire and Pygar’s appearance and blindness are with the Black Queen, she seems to be imagination and reflects the public’s reminiscent of a machine, a hybrid form transformed into a child, a being beyond affinity for the subject of (outer) space. between cyborg and human in space, sex, regaining her own innocence. Sex Concurrent with the Barbarella mu- slightly like the character Data in the Star served as a medium to relate to the un- sical, the Architektur Zentrum Wien in Trek: The Next Generation series. In this known and alien environment and en- Vienna’s MuseumsQuartier presented view, Pygar is an angelic machine that counters, and now the universe and “The Austrian Phenomenon,” an exhibi- extends Barbarella’s capacities, being Barbarella’s body are reconciled and she tion of 1960s neo–avant garde architec- operated by her: Barbarella heals Pygar returns to Earth, where physical sex has ture that surpassed the limits of physical of its inability to fly by making love to long been transformed into a telepathic construction and became a medium for it, which could be read as a reparation orgiastic ritual.
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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/002409406775452104 by guest on 01 October 2021 The contemporary reiteration of these Romantic period at the turn of the 19th of core principles in the theorization of attributes in cinema, and indeed the con- century demonstrated an embodiment space, popular culture and audience. The tinuing reincarnation of Barbarella’s im- of the senses and restoration of mythol- examples I take to illustrate my view ex- age-culture in the last 40 years, not only ogy in the appearance of angels in the press a particular involvement in the pop-
SPACE ART 2004 SPACE express the unchanged, profound human arts, as a contra movement against the ular. Little effort was needed on my part desire to explore the unknown, but also mechanization and rationalization of the to draw together the various instances evoke metaphors of the metaphysical world. A desire for love, eroticism and shown here to illustrate the popular (al- in scientific space and the desire to ex- sexuality infiltrates the longing to reach beit fictional) representation of space. plore experiences in a multi-sensory, the invisible, divine or transcendental. Imaginary “outer” space is everywhere. sensual environment instead of a purely Reviewing recent spiritualist movements As we have seen, in a large variety of virtual or scientific one. In this context, and the broad popularity of the subject cultural instances the expression of space the angel serves as a metaphysical model of angels, I join Apel in questioning if the exploration as a thematic, iconic or sym- that operates as a screen for projections beginning of the third millennium brings bolic referent diverts drastically from the of human desire and for the imagina- back a similar tendency, a desire to re- pioneer image of space exploration first tion of superhuman capacities. In Bar- store sacred spaces, esoteric knowledge popularized by Russian and American ef- barella, as discussed above, spirituality and, as he calls it, a Himmelssehnsucht (a forts. In the continuities and disconti- and technology are interrelated and in- “longing for heavenly realms” [21]). nuities of visual culture, it is reasonable terconnected. In a metaphysical view The myth of Barbarella suggests a con- to suggest that, while there has been lit- of technology, genderless angels relate structive look into the infinite, unknown tle modification of the image of space of- closely to genderless technology. Bar- and mysterious universe by applying love fered by popular science, the aesthetic barella and her persistent imagery, how- and awe, instead of fear, against deter- modalities of science fiction have—in ever, have gendered space: We have: (1) ministic, destructive visions of alienated a sustained dialogue with its various au- a sexy Barbie doll seduced by men in the extraterrestrial space. The symptomatic diences—developed a modus operandi 1960s, which has in our own time become reiteration and persistence of a cultural quite distinct from its rationalist coun- a feminist agent (in the musical, Bar- phenomenon, as in the case of Barbarella, terpart. barella enters erotic relationships only calls for strategies of synthesis in or- Of course, science-fictional represen- with women, the angel Pygar and the ro- der to reconfigure our understanding of tations of space precede any actual bot Victor); (2) a space traveler with the popular imagination and help find new human intervention into that domain. mission to explore the “Espresso planet”; portals and bridges between academic In imagining ourselves there, our ex- and (3) even an empowered blonde in discourse and the aspirations of contem- ploratory desires manifest in technolo- control as played by pop star Kylie Mi- porary popular culture. gies capable of achieving our original nogue in one of her music videos (as speculation. Imagination, technology and David Surman argues below). Through desire constitute an interdependent cy- AVID URMAN LAUSIBILITY the introduction of sex in relation to the D S : P cle that affects and sustains our techno- angel and technology, we see physical AND THE TECHNOLOGICAL logical development. It seems, however, pleasure and the subject of the body ap- IMAGINARY when looking at the popular representa- plied to metaphysical and technological I would like to conclude this collabora- tion of imagined technology, that such a ventures. Friedmar Apel argues that the tive presentation by proposing a number paradigm is more complex. Desire, a con- stituent part of our elusive consciousness, is never focused in its entirety upon any singular instance. Spiritual, technologi- cal and libidinal desires intermingle in Fig. 2. David Hurn, Untitled, the imaginary, and while rationalist sci- 1967. (© David Hurn) ence effaces the trace of such cross-polli- nations, the popular imaginary of science enjoys the product of this meta-combi- nation of influences. The plurality of desires manifest in sci- ence fiction ensures its continuity and accommodates a far larger range of in- terpretations than the rhetorical strat- egies of “popular” science, which still expresses a modernist conception of its audience. In science fiction, the specta- tor is always prepared to meet the creator halfway, permitting lapses of rational co- herence for the greater good of an affec- tive experience that is continuous with both contemporary and comparable ear- lier works. Consider the layered desires that com- bine in the cover image of the May 1951 issue of Marvel Science, a popular pulp magazine of 1940s and 1950s America: The sexuality of the Hollywood icon is
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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/002409406775452104 by guest on 01 October 2021 idealized in the image of a woman who is The irrationality of images such as through the articulation of types, and yet being carried into a space ship by two those of the above-mentioned pulp mag- the representation of the human in the suited astronauts, dually representative azine covers is not simply the expression space of popular science has been woe- of both science fact and fiction. All the of uneducated comic artists. It represents fully devoid of difference, choosing in-
while, the woman seems not to need a the most persistent means of creating stead to recall tenuous continuities to the ART 2004 SPACE space suit in outer space. A similar ex- space as a plausible phenomenon, to the (now distant) moon landing. ample of this surreal image of difference extent that it is even rendered domestic, For popular science to plausibly rep- can also be seen on the cover of the June as in Solaris. On the magazine covers, the resent our ongoing role in space, it must 1941 issue of Thrilling Wonder Stories, in men, protected in their space suits, are necessarily engage with a more sophisti- which women again do not seem to re- accompanied by a woman who appar- cated representational approach to space, quire special clothing for outer space. ently has no need for such technological one that locates difference at the core of Representations of space in the cinema baggage. She is in her element. This prin- the scientific imaginary. Modernist ac- are characteristically divided between ciple of sexual difference is maintained counts of the audience no longer account those that sustain the scientific rhetoric in the representation of extraterrestrials for the heterogeneity and complexity of of technological development (Apollo 13 in a host of varied instances, most notably mass culture. The realization that the vast [Howard, 1995], The Right Stuff [Kauf- in recent blockbuster franchises such as majority of space is unknowable echoes man, 1983]) and those that utilize the Alien, with the female alien seducing/de- the topography of the popular imaginary, environment of outer space to play stroying the human as astronaut-ex- whose complexity has evaded scholarship out distinctly “earthly” preoccupations. plorer-imperialist. In any sign system, since the 1960s. It is, however, possible to Steven Soderbergh’s recent remake of meaning—it is argued—is the product of observe the continuities and discontinu- Solaris (2003) uses the master signifier a regulated system of differences, and in ities, what is permitted to rehearse its of the space station to illustrate the tragic developed systems certain signifiers be- codes of representation and what is dis- fragility of earthly memory. Drawing a come invested with paradigmatic differ- avowed. In Metz’s terms, the most plau- parallel between lost memory and the ential significance. From a feminist sible of images, primarily those that recall frustration of an unknowable region position it is argued that the sexualized our foundational experiences of differ- of space, Soderbergh’s feature film uses woman becomes the sign for anything that ence, will presumably be those toward the image of space as a potential fu- is other, including aliens, and conse- which popular science may move if it is ture into which domestic frustrations are quently retains its signifying power de- to articulate its message in the vocabulary sustained. spite changes in cultural styles. Jane of the popular imaginary. How are these images culturally legiti- Fonda’s striptease at the beginning of mated, when their irrationality seems so the movie Barbarella was recently imitated explicit as to debunk the value of their by the pop star Kylie Minogue in the References and Notes narrative content? And secondly, why are video for “put your self in my place.” 1. We are grateful to Annick Bureaud, Roger Malina such desire-driven images so persistent In the video, Kylie similarly strips off a and David Raitt for comments on this paper. We are also grateful to David Hurn for his cooperation with in our visual culture? The film scholar pink astronaut’s suit from the relative the rights for the pictures of Jane Fonda. Christian Metz developed a critical defi- confines of her space station. Empow- nition of “plausibility” with which we may ered by her technology, she blocks the 2. This research project began at Metatechnology Re- search, which was founded at the University of Wales account for those images that persist in gaze of the gray-suited male astronauts College Newport in February 2002 by Michael Punt. culture, compared with those that do not. outside of her spaceship with a plume of In January 2005, he reformed it as Trans-technology He writes, smoke. The video is rendered “plausible” Research at the University of Plymouth, where he is now a Reader in Art and Technology. by its continuity with Barbarella and the The Plausible . . . is an arbitrary and cul- broader trends of science fiction. Differ- 3. For further discussion of the relationship between space exploration and cinema, see Michael Punt, tural restriction of real possibles; it is in ence articulates the desirability of the fact censorship; among all the possibles “Digital Media, Artificial Life and Postclassical Cin- protagonist and provides a means to per- ema: Condition, Symptom, or a Rhetoric of Fund- of figurative fiction, only those autho- ing?” Leonardo 31, No. 5, 349–356 (1998). rised by the previous discourse will be mit identification between audience and chosen [22]. moving-image text. 4. Among others, the Syrian monk Dionysius the Are- I would like to suggest that “differ- opagite (6th century), a pagan philosopher, and the German abbess Hildegard of Bingen (1098–1179) There is much to extract from this. The ence,” that everyday determinant against have perceived visions filled with endless choirs and representation of space, in the early cin- which we develop our identity, is needed hierarchies of angels, beings of light. An old Jewish ema of Méliès at the turn of the 20th cen- in the representation of space in popu- notion in the Bible mentions that God dwelt in in- effable darkness, a “truly mystical darkness of un- tury and, even earlier, the humorous lar science. The role of gender, sexual- knowing” (Exodus 20:21). And Dionysius the cartoons of 19th-century caricaturist ity, race, class, physical ability, even hair Areopagite wrote in a letter: “The divine darkness is Rodolphe Töpffer, preceded the actual- color, is necessary to the future plausi- that ‘unapproachable light’ where God is said to live,” in John Gage, Colour and Culture: Practice and Mean- ity of space exploration. bility of represented space. ing from Antiquity to Abstraction (London: Thames and The moon landing and its subsequent Identification is a fiercely contested Hudson, 1993) p. 60. realm of representation is scientifically principle in the humanities, and there 5. Since the first half of the fifth century, winged plausible. And yet, should we set the cul- are vast tracts devoted to often-opposing angels have been populating space throughout art tural presence of this particular mode of theories of how identification functions. history. Fritz Saxl suggests that the wings of Chris- tianity’s angels go back to such Greek mythological representing space against that which we Be it cognitive, psychoanalytic, phenom- figures as Mercury and Iris, but mainly Victory, who may broadly term “science fiction,” there enological or narratological, all theories also played a crucial role in Roman art. This pagan image has infiltrated Christian mythology to an ex- is an unarguable predominance of fan- of identification, and specifically those in tent that it even contradicts the original writings of tastical imagery in our everyday domes- film studies, locate difference as the core the Bible, in which angels had to announce them- tic culture. The lure of the rational is principle through which audience par- selves for who they were, as they otherwise were not recognizable, being human in their appearance. In nothing compared with the refined ar- ticipants relate to the world of repre- Fritz Saxl, A Heritage of Images (Middlesex, U.K.: Pere- ticulations of the imagined. sentation. All representation functions grine, 1970) p. 22f.
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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/002409406775452104 by guest on 01 October 2021 6. Gilles Deleuze writes in this respect: “The whole technology-desire-imagination, three faculties that 18. Domestic issues about living in space have been of cinema can be assessed in terms of the cerebral are interrelated and contingent: “The imagination addressed by the European Space Agency in its fea- circuits it establishes, simply because it’s a moving im- is prompted by human desire to modify the world ture “Daily Life” at
7. Edgar Morin has stressed the importance of 13. Directed by Dino de Laurentis, alias Roger Vadim, 19. Inhabitants of the planet pluck Pygar’s wing feath- processes of projection and identification, “cosmo- married at the time to actress Jane Fonda, who plays ers as if they were merely a costume, and Barbarella morphism” and “anthropomorphism,” which per- Barbarella. reanimates Pygar by moving its wings, rather than petually inoculate humanity to the exterior world and following the Dark Queen’s advice to do a “mouth to vice versa. Edgar Morin, Le cinema ou l’homme imagi- 14. Directed by Kim Duddy; music by Dave Stewart. mouth.” This does not seem to bother Pygar, whereas naire: essay d’anthropologie (Paris: Les Editions de Mi- See
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