My interest in science fiction actually came from history. Whether in modern countries, medieval churches or ancient tribes, the foundation of all kinds of massive human cooperation exists only in collective fictions. There exists no God, no country, no money, no human right, no law or justice outside collective human imagination. The contracts we sign nowadays are essentially the same with sorcerer rituals in tribes - once we sign it, all magic works from that moment. Human civilization has developed for such a long time, we have been accustomed to those fictions and we trust the value that they brought to us. I began to realize that my motive for creation weakened because of the weakened curiosity. In The Story of Art, the author E.H. Gombrich compared the presentation of artists’ talents to the growing of a pearl - its core was only a dust, impure and probably for religion, money or war, but artists’ talents developed on this core. Without economic interests, all these supports for my motive were interest and curiosity. When history looked back on its origin, I began to jump out of all the familiar fictions and reconsidered everything to rebuild the new curiosity. And this curiosity is extremely obvious in science fiction field, so to speak, science fiction seems to be based on history. Science fiction is now the highlight of my practice. Based on China’s circumstances, this essay expounds the connection between science fiction and science, literature and art and their significance from angles like science fiction novels, films and paintings.

In the 1950s in China, science fiction novels were simply for the popularization of science and were once categorized as children’s literature. In 1980s, science fiction encountered a debate about whether it belonged to science or literature. The faction of popularization of science led by Hsue-Shen Tsien deemed it to be science that it needed accuracy or it would turn out harmful for science. For example, in The Miracle of World’s Highest Peak, the theory that fossil of dinosaur egg can revive dinosaurs is pseudoscience which will mislead the audience. However, writers believed that science fiction belonged to literature, popularization of science was not its purpose. Like Du Jian, a famous Chinese science fiction writer said: Science fiction novels are not aimed at popularizing science, and historical novels are not history books, the rule is the same with kung fu stories and war novels. Britain science fiction writer Brian Aldiss also holds the similar point of view, when he visited China in 1979 he said : “Science Fiction is a literary form whose foothold is still reality and it reflects the conflicts and problems in reality. The aim of science fiction is not to popularize science or foresee the future, but it’s about future imagination and description which can enlighten people and inspire their minds.” Based on the viewpoints above, I think it one-sided to simply categorize science fiction works into science or entertaining literature. Li-Hua Ye (1998) believes science fiction works are made up with both science and fiction, not a single one can be omitted. With science, it will be nothing but a fantasy; without fiction, it will be just real science. To balance the scientificity and literariness, Peter Schuyler Miller came up with a concept of hard science fiction in 1957, the core idea was respect and praise for scientific spirit. The technique was pursuing scientific detail and accuracy and aimed at natural scientific and technical development. The corresponding concept is soft science fiction, compared with hard science fiction, its plots and themes focus on philosophy, psychology, politics, sociology, thereinto, the importance of scientific technology and physical laws are reduced.

I would argue that nowadays science fiction works’ function of popularizing has been reduced, the development of Internet has diversified the popularization of science. The accuracy in science fiction is not necessary for people . Hard and soft science fiction mitigate the conflict of scientificity and literariness in science fiction works, however, as far as I can see, their boundary is blurred in modern science fiction works, there’s no need to distinguish them and most of time, these two kinds coexist and can be unscrambled at different angles. Moreover, the forms of science fiction can be not only novel, cartoon, film but also sculpture or device. As to motifs, there are generally two kinds of motifs, one is about the universe, expanding to outer space; the other is about vital intelligence, exploring the meaning of life itself. Initially, they are both about mankind. Their description for the universe is built on the logic of development of human civilization, even a little bit politically realistic, but the core is still “mankind”, the discuss about value will finally return to “mankind”.

Built on the limited rationality in our narrow conception of history, the imagination about the immense universe and the description of human’s position in the universe develop a giant well-organized world, different from ours, with wider horizon and more universal rules and orders on one hand, but on the other hand, it’s so to our world, for they share the same humanistic motif, whether the tininess and powerlessness under fate or beautiful values like love and connection in the immense nothingness. Its imagination is totally the magnified realistic plots in human society, it sometimes appears even a bit cute and childish.

Ursula Kroeber LeGuin added the discussion of feminism into science fiction novels to show their investigation into human social science. ‘The Left Hand of Darkness’ pre-installs a world without sexual difference to discuss the sexual distinction in our world and the social relationship, habitudes and the absurd ideas that it brings to us. In her setting, every individual is androgyne, its sexual cycle is divided into two stages: sommer and kemmer. Sommer lasts about 22 days, meanwhile there’s no sexual difference between two individuals, they are neither male nor female; Kemmer lasts about 4 days, and the individual, influenced by the sexual change of other individuals around it, will become random male or female. Once pregnant, pregnancy and lactation will lengthen feminine period. She began to use the background with fuzzification of gender and self-identification to discuss some anthropologic motifs, including human combats brought by departmental selfishness, evolved military battles, identification of one’s position, political tendency and the significance of all these struggles. Donna Haraway wrote in her essay A Cyborg Manifesto (in it，the concept of the cyborg is a rejection of rigid boundaries, notably those separating "human" from "animal" and "human" from "machine." She writes: "The cyborg does not dream of community on the model of the organic family, this time without the oedipal project. The cyborg would not recognize the Garden of Eden; it is not made of mud and cannot dream of returning to dust."

The Manifesto criticizes traditional notions of feminism, particularly feminist focuses on identity politics, and encouraging instead coalition through affinity. She uses the metaphor of a cyborg to urge feminists to move beyond the limitations of traditional gender, feminism, and politics; consequently, the "Manifesto" is considered one of the milestones in the development of feminist posthumanist theory.) We can say that science fiction doesn’t lack thoughts and reflect on social reality, and it offers a new expressive mean to social science.

The classic science fiction film 2001 Space Odyssey carries more possibilities, it shows foreseeability, enlightenment and caution. At the same time, it raises a series of philosophical thoughts about human, civilization and existence. It can be read at multi-angle, it’s so hard to define whether it belongs to hard or soft science fiction that it’s still worth discussion after half a century, we still speak highly of this film. At first, we can see prehistoric times, It was when a group of orangutans find a monument in front of their lair. This monument then transformed into a space when the orangutan threw the bone. After that, human find the second monument on the moon as well and the monument is sending signal to Jupiter. Then the third monument is discovered on the pathway of Jupiter. When the astronaut finally arrives in Jupiter, the monument drags him into a fantasy space. At last he gets into a room similar to that on the earth. His life rapidly steps into senium from middle age and then he embraces death. The black monument is a materialized form of advanced civilization, it seems to inspire human civilization, lead human to the space and surpass the concept of space-time. The plots of film are clear but we can unscramble it at different angles. The reason is like what the director said in an interview: Now the horizon of human civilization is still limited on the earth, if we use it as reference, it will be quite unbelievable when mankind and intelligent creatures on other planets meet each other. So it’s not hard to understand why the audience reactions to this film include some philosophical and even metaphysical elements, even these elements have nothing to do with the film itself. The author Clark also said, if someone thinks he totally get what 2001 Space Odyssey was talking about, then Kubrick and me must have mistaken. Despite the plots, we can see that it has foreseeability and enlightenment to science. For example, the concept of space station, voiceprint system, videophone, mosaic TV tablet, artificial intelligence and so on, they are all realized in the future. Besides, in the film, that the AI robot killed human is also a warning to the future. Another science fiction writer Isaac Asimov also mentioned in Three Laws of Robotics in 1942 to warn human of the AI disaster in the future. The inspiration that science fiction gives to reality reflects not only on technology but also on popular culture. For example, Philip Wylie told a story in novel Gladiator in 1930: Professor Abednego Danner invented a new serum that can help people posses special abilities of insects, it inspired lots of superhero stories. In this story, the professor used this serum on an unborn child Hugo, so the child had the strength like ants, jumping ability like locust, super speed and bulletproof skin. Hugo didn’t wear the suit of superman to save the world but this short novel did effected the popular culture in 20th century, it almost predicted the origin of superman.

Artist Christ Hawtin said in an interview,”i thought that is we were going to address this technological age then we needed to get involved in it somehow.” It proves that science fiction is a mark of this science and technology age, we cannot avoid it and should try to use science fiction into our works. Science fiction offers motive and background to painting, and painting also enriches the expressive forms.

His works bring in a lot of different things like music, literature, computer games, media, architecture, art history and science fiction. That means his works absorb a lot of cultural phenomena。In his painting Hygiene Unit Ten, the subject is a twisted mechanical object, basically black with yellow and white details. It floats in a dim yellow landscape. The painting conveys a sense of emptiness and mystery。It’s difficult to define which is temporary and which is eternal between the subject and the landscape, it seems that the subject has been there the whole time. Like Chris said :”I wanted something that could denote another presence within the scene- a kind of shadowy presence-something that’s there and not there, and i was thinking of something that would act as a counterpoint to the large dynamic form. The subject in the painting has the same function as the black monument in 2001 Space Odyssey.

This essay has discussed the relationship between science fiction, science and literature and draws forth the meaning of science fiction to real society, it also illustrated my viewpoint from three aspects: science fiction novels, science fiction films and science fiction paintings. It lists novel The Left Hand of Darkness of Ursula Kroeber LeGuin, film 2001: Space Odyssey of Stanley Kubrick and painting of Chris Hawtin. It also explained that science fiction work is a mean to reflect real society and has foreseeability and enlightenment as well as caution to human society. In sum, science fiction is an inevitable mark of this age which can create motive for the development of this era.