Doodle, czyli Lem cyfrowo odczytywany w poszerzonym polu literackim

Abstract

The article analyses how Stanisław Lem’s writing is used in the doodle meant to honour the 60th anniversary of the publication of The Astronauts by this author (1951–2011). Nevertheless, it is the heroes of The Cyberiad that are employed in the game. The grotesque character of these stories corresponds to the aesthetics of the game, viewed not only in terms of a literary adaptation, but also as an illustration of the manner in which digital culture reaches for literary works. What can be seen is the lack of linguistic invention typical of Lem’s stories: it is impossible to translate the writer’s neologisms into a picture. This is the cultural price for converting literature into the language of images. The currently prevailing digital and audiovisual cultural paradigm undoubtedly affects the ways of reading texts which function within it. Yet at the same time, paradoxically, the traditional form of literature is still observable and thus new possibilities for its interpretation emerge. The pragmatic context signalled here is, however, only sketched on the margin of considerations about the somatic relations between the doodle and Lem’s stories, to which the authors of the game refer.