<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p> The article uses and revises to some extent Vivian Sobchack’s categorization of (basically) American science-fiction output as “optimistic big-budget,” “wondrous middle-ground” and “pessimistic low-budget” seen as such in relation to what Sobchack calls the “double view” of alien beings in filmic diegesis (Screening Space, 2001). The argument is advanced that based on how diegetic encounters are constructed between “genetically classical” human agents and beings only partially “genetically classical” and/or human (due to genetic diseases, mutations, splicing, and cloning), we may differentiate between various methods of visualization (nicknamed “the museum,” “the lookalike,” and “incest”) that are correlated to Sobchack’s mentioned categories, while also displaying changes in tone. Possibilities of revision appear thanks to the later timeframe (the late 1990s/2000s) and the different national-canonical belongings (American, Icelandic-German- Danish, Hungarian-German, Canadian-French-American, and Australian) that characterize filmic and artistic examples chosen for analysis as compared to Sobchack’s work in Screening Space.1 </p></abstract>

The article uses and revises to some extent Vivian Sobchack’s categorization of (basically) American science-fiction output as “optimistic big-budget,” “wondrous middle-ground” and “pessimistic low-budget” seen as such in relation to what Sobchack calls the “double view” of alien beings in filmic diegesis (Screening Space, 2001). The argument is advanced that based on how diegetic encounters are constructed between “genetically classical” human agents and beings only partially “genetically classical” and/or human (due to genetic diseases, mutations, splicing, and cloning), we may differentiate between various methods of visualization (nicknamed “the museum,” “the lookalike,” and “incest”) that are correlated to Sobchack’s mentioned categories, while also displaying changes in tone. Possibilities of revision appear thanks to the later timeframe (the late 1990s/2000s) and the different national-canonical belongings (American, Icelandic-German- Danish, Hungarian-German, Canadian-French-American, and Australian) that characterize filmic and artistic examples chosen for analysis as compared to Sobchack’s work in Screening Space.1

Embodied Genetics in Science-Fiction, Big-Budget to Low-Budget: from Jeunet’s Alien: Resurrection (1997) to Piccinini’s Workshop (2011)

Sapientia Hungarian University of Transylvania (Cluj-Napoca, Romania)

Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Film and Media Studies

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

The article uses and revises to some extent Vivian Sobchack’s categorization of (basically) American science-fiction output as “optimistic big-budget,”...

Embodied Genetics in Science-Fiction, Big-Budget to Low-Budget: from Jeunet’s Alien: Resurrection (1997) to Piccinini’s Workshop (2011)

Published Online: Sep 25, 2014

Page range: 149 - 166

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/ausfm-2014-0031

Keywords
science-fiction, genetic mutations, aliens, Vivian Sobchack

© 2014

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Embodied Genetics in Science-Fiction, Big-Budget to Low-Budget: from Jeunet’s Alien: Resurrection (1997) to Piccinini’s Workshop (2011)

Published Online: Sep 25, 2014

Page range: 149 - 166

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/ausfm-2014-0031

Keywordsscience-fiction, genetic mutations, aliens, Vivian Sobchack

© 2014

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Keywords
science-fiction, genetic mutations, aliens, Vivian Sobchack