| Text from Igor Arih | |  | | Sir Arthur C. Clarke with Arih's Mars calendar, Sri Lanka, Colombo, May 2001, photo: Bojana Humar | | 27.03.2008 | | Arthur CC | | | Not long ago, Arthur C. Clarke died. He was one of the greatest creative minds of all time. I first read his work in my early childhood - his comments in a popular science book called Mysterious World. It was a collection of fascinating stories about the known, and the lesser known secrets of our world.
It was sometime later that I discovered that he was also an excellent science fiction writer. His short story The Sentinel formed the basis of the legendary film 2001: A Space Odyssey made by the director Stanley Kubrick, which by today's standards is a very long and slow-paced film. However, this does not prevent one from enjoying the film's each and every detail even today. The film's tone is confessional from its beginning until its end. The surprising accuracy of Arthur C. Clarke's predictions become more impressive with each year that has passed since the time the scenario and the film were written.
Despite his great originality I saw him as a creative dreamer - someone with an extremely rich imagination: an artist. That is, until I saw an original sketch of his in the Science Museum, London, which depicted geostationary satellites. "Using these, man shall command the entire world from one single point," was written beside it, the artist's visionary thought. It was a fascinating vision which sparked an evolutionary leap in just a few decades! From that moment on, Arthur C. Clarke became an icon for me. The man had been transformed in my young head from a great science fiction writer into a truly realistic visionary, from an artist into an inventor and from a dreamer into an important revolutionary. He made me realise that the secret of genuine creativity is never isolated to a particular chosen sphere. The secret lies in combining the apparently impossible, in constantly discovering new spaces and as a result - views, and also in understanding the world comprehensively. At that moment, being creative became my guiding principle and challenge in life. Since then, I respect all forms of creative thinking, regardless of the field or industry in which it appears. Everyone should act creatively in their environment. There is no other path for progress.
Creating new worlds is in the domain of creative minds. The introduction of the element of creativity into the data processing methods of supercomputers represents a giant leap in their development. Clarke explained in one of his interviews that the desire to discover new things was what prompted one particular type of fish several billions of years ago to pop out of the ocean and to start conquering land. "Imagine the traditionalist fish of that time, imagine how it is explaining to its descendants that it is not possible to live on land and that the ocean already provides everything they need. We are now walking on land, flying in aeroplanes and conquering space, but those fish are still just fish," he concluded, adding that colonising space will be the next step in our evolution.
New discoveries are not always the result of curiosity stemming from boredom. New discoveries are a necessity. In the film 2001: A Space Odyssey, man's distant ancestor is a weak ape that is about to become extinct. Before this happens however, it picks up a bone and in doing so boosts its own strength by several times. Surprised and fascinated by this discovery, it does not know exactly what to do with it. It is creative though, and will think of something along the way! According to Clarke, this is the point when the technological revolution began allowing man to become the master of this world. 2001: A Space Odyssey is a film dedicated to mankind's evolution from the prehistoric times to the near and distant future. The spaceship in the film is slowly taken over by a computer, HAL 9000, into which man had entered a great deal of historical data - including data on wars, hatred, egotism and misery. This information leads the supercomputer to the logical conclusion that it has to take control of the mission as its importance is too great to be left to man. HAL had no emotions though. At least that is what it leads us to believe until the end of the story.
Pictured is Arthur C. Clarke with my Mars calendar. It was created under the assumption that man will colonise Mars within this century. The terraforming process will begin relatively soon and man will be able to walk and sleep on the planet Mars where current methods of measuring time will be useless. A Mars calendar and time will be needed. I created this in 1999 to mark the historic break of the millennium. It is not the only Mars calendar, but it is one of the first. The year is divided into months and days in a manner not unlike Clarke's. I sent copies of it all over the world and one ended its pilgrimage at the visionary guru's address.
Dear Arthur, the photograph has really made me proud although you probably do not know who the author of the calendar is.
Igor Arih | | | | | | | | |
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1. Bremza said
04.04.2008 20:13:59
priznam, Clarka sem nekaj časa zeeeelo oboževal...naj dodam, da sem se pred nekaj meseci povsem slučajno srečal z drugim velikim Clarkovim oboževalcem, Michaelom Bensonom, ki je nekoč živel v Ljubljani, zdaj pa biva v NY ZDA. Naključno sva se srečala kje drugje kot v Science Museumu v Londonu. Naključno? Ja, zihr. Nič ni naključnega, tudi ta komentar ne.
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2. Gigio said
06.04.2008 20:36:21
Slučaj je izgovor za bedake.
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3. Sandra said
10.04.2008 15:35:16
Izjava o tradicionalistični ribi je huda in še kako resnična.
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4. Jetson said
11.04.2011 02:22:34
xol1EJ AFAICT you've covered all the bases with this answer!
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5. Keiffer said
08.06.2011 07:56:06
It's spooky how celevr some ppl are. Thanks!
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6. Jahlin said
08.06.2011 20:51:42
What a joy to find soomene else who thinks this way.
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