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"The science fiction method is dissection and reconstruction. You look at the world around you, and take it apart into its components. Then you take some of those components, throw them away, and plug in different ones, start it up and see what happens."
- Frederik Pohl
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| Dimensino | ||
| An alien entertainment center that provides the ultimate in immersive experience. |
In the near-future of Time is the Simplest Thing interstellar explorers could project their minds to planets revolving around other stars. Upon their return, the travelers could bring back small samples or technological knowledge.
When this novel was written, there were fewer choices on television, and families were much more likely to watch a single television together - establishing the idea of an entertainment center in one room.
| And there was dimensino, and entertainment medium that had replaced all the standard human entertainment -- the movies, radio and TV. For in dimensino you did not merely see and hear; you participated. You became part of the portrayed situation. You identified yourself with one of the characters, or with more than one of them, and you lived out the action and the emotion. For a time you ceased to be yourself; you became the person of your choice in the drama dimensino created. Almost every home had its dimensino room, rigged with the apparatus which picked up the weird, alien impulses that made you someone else -- that lifted you out of the commonplace, out of the humdrum rut of your ordinary life and sent you off on wild adventures or on strange assignments or pitched you headlong into exotic places and fantastic situations. |
| From Time is the Simplest Thing,
by Clifford Simak. Published by Doubleday in 1961 Additional resources -
|
I'm fascinated by Simak's grasp over what people really need from their entertainment; they want to be "hauled into" the story. When this novel was written, mass entertainment was a purely passive form of entertainment; you sat and you watched.
In today's world, we are accustomed to being pulled into the world of the story. In hands-on museums, we are encouraged to try an experiment for ourselves. In amusement parks, like Disney's Animal Kingdom, we are drawn into a story about the animals we are seeing, rather than just sitting and looking.
Finally, the Internet itself is an interactive medium; we look and we make choices constantly about what to see or do next. Recent research shows that, in some age groups, television is actually losing audience share to the Internet, as people choose to surf or shop - creating their own experience with their choices - rather than sit passively and watch.
Be sure to look at Ray Bradbury's parlor wall from Fahrenheit 451, a story about the perils of mass media that is perhaps too attractive. Also, compare to peeper from Simak’s 1957 story Shadow World and to the Perky Pat layout from The Days of Perky Pat (1963) by Philip K. Dick. The immersive home video from Steven Spielberg's 2002 movie Minority Report is an impressive visualization of a similar idea.
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'THE red tennis robot scooted desperately across the court...'
'The Consul remembered his first glimpse of the kilometer-long treeship...'
'Do you know what window washing used to cost by the hour?'
'Once the target is confirmed, it uses an IR laser to send a coded signal back to the parent, clearing it to attack.'
'I filled your bullet hole with flesh putty and the lattice.'
'... it will be easy to form an alphabet which shall enable us to converse with the inhabitants of the moon.'
'From the tower's huge octagonal base radiate wide silvery strips...'
'It was about five feet long... a black bullet head and red camera eyes.'
'The Law Society has strict rules on the use of pseudo-intelligent software...'
