CELEBRATED IN WORDS AND DIGITAL GRAPHICS BY

HELEN BOND

A literary production "Solaris" written by Stanislaw Lem is in front of our eyes.

Today, turning my eyes towards this familiar-to-us masterpiece, but already as an artistic reader, I want to discover in it something peculiarly related to me, something that has not yet been noticed by anybody else.
 

The letters of the title symbolically link two worlds, two living organisms - the human mind and the thinking Ocean.  These two worlds are separated with the title exactly as with a mirror. A feeling of depth and spacious immensity appears.  The Ocean is not only functioning simply as a background creating a feeling of spaciousness, but also it is an inseparable part of the design-composition, and at the same time, along with a woman-guest and a brain of a human being, the Ocean constitutes a basis of the composition.

The mystical Ocean is mysterious and unpredictable. From a psychological point of view the Ocean is attacking a human being and "drilling" a human brain intruding into subconsciousness. The Ocean has become a grave for those who killed in themselves the agonizing and excruciating recollections related to the past.  The Ocean is sentencing its visitors to be convicted and doomed persons, baring and exacerbating their memories' anguish. A diseased Kevin's wife became his visitor, a woman who has been his torments of conscience, pain, suffering, and love. In the design-composition she is swimming out from the enigmatic deep of the Ocean and approaching to a spectator. A tender pale skin, elegant composition of the face, sensuality in the eyes - all of this creates an earthly impression. But the visitor is not a real woman, being a product of the Ocean and, at the same time, inseparable from it. She is becoming a reality as she begins feeling Kevin's pain and suffering and sharing his guilt and love. The strength of love defeats the element of the Ocean. The mysterious Ocean with its enormous energy is getting calm and resigning itself to people, and it begins to create islands and to establish contacts with them.

We hear this silent "dialogue" of the mysterious Ocean and a human brain. A massive human brain occupying the lower part of the design-composition radiates a flow of light that is illuminating the Ocean. The light is turning into a color. And this human brain combines in itself these colors as a symbol of the interaction of the Ocean's intellect and a human being. A dark blue color of the Ocean's water is being intensified by a flow of bright yellow and orange light beams suddenly flashing up in darkness. Like the sun's disk, the yellow background is expanding and filling the space of the defeated Ocean.

The blue color is beginning to melt, dissolve, brighten and, finally, is becoming animated, turning into the island created by the Ocean and the fantasy of the author of the masterpiece "Solaris". The patches of light are being reflected in the letters "Stanislaw Lem", creating a visual sensation of streaming light.

Like particles of the sun, the letters "Solaris" are also shining from the inside. And the sun is a symbol of life, a symbol of joy and happiness. Islands in the Ocean are symbolizing not only the established contact with the Ocean and the uneasy way of people to the light, but also reflecting the realization of the author's dream of a judicious and wise world where people will live under the sign of Love and Sun.