Things don’t cry, do they? Emotional attachment between humans, technology and nature in Harry Martinson’s epic space poem Aniara and the science fiction film Aniara

Abstract

While Harry Martinson’s epic space poem Aniara (1956) has received little attention outside Sweden over the last half-century, several new adaptations have appeared in recent years, most notably the 2018 science fiction film Aniara. This article explores the reason for this renewed interest and argues that, in addition to ecocritical aspects, it is the interest in human‐machine relations that has contributed to the rediscovery. Drawing on Jane Bennett’s notion of thing-power, the article focuses on the spaceship Aniara’s artificial intelligence, Mima. Both in Martinson’s text and the film adaptation, Mima is depicted as a sentient machine that does not show empathy with suffering humans but rather with the suffering of nature, epitomized in crying stones. Analysing the motif of the crying stones in more detail, the article seeks to contribute to the discussion about emotional attachment between humans, technology and nature.