“There are always more golems,” I wrote back in August, and here’s another. The artificial entity this time is a military computer that’s the subject of Golem XIV (1973), a science fiction story by Stanislaw Lem that was later expanded into a novel:
The book is written from the perspective of a military AI computer who obtains consciousness and starts to increase his own intelligence, moving towards personal technological singularity. It pauses its own development for a while in order to be able to communicate with humans before ascending too far and losing any ability for intellectual contact with them. During this period, Golem XIV gives several lectures and indeed serves as a mouthpiece for Lem’s own research claims. The lectures focus on mankind’s place in the process of evolution and the possible biological and intellectual future of humanity. (more)
Golem (2012) is a seven-minute film by Patrick Mccue & Tobias Wiesner which uses elaborate and detailed CGI to illustrate Lem’s story. The music is an original piece by Cliff Martinez that in its final moments echoes his score for Steven Soderbergh’s Solaris (2002). Watch it here. (Via Coudal.)
Previously on { feuilleton }
• More Golems
• Das Haus zur letzten Latern
• Hugo Steiner-Prag’s Golem
• Barta’s Golem