Remembering Virtual Arthur C. Clarke in Hollywood

"I have great faith in the power of optimism as a guiding principle, if only because it allows us to create a self fulfilling prophesy."
-Arthur C. Clarke, 90th Birthday Video Address


I was very fortunate to be a guest at a space/Hollywood Arthur C. Clarke Gala and dinner at the Playboy Mansion in 2001.
Jim Cameron and his brothers had arranged for a holographic dinner address by Sir Arthur. A transparent, but quite recognizable, real-time holographic projection shimmered above a podium on the stage. He spoke and joked with the assembled. Arthur had a live monitor on his end in Sri Lanka, and traded quips with the glitterati about their tux jackets, or how that last space movie was doing at the box office.

I recall glancing over at Morgan Freeman, who was sitting a few tables away from us. He appeared absolutely riveted. Just as enraptured at the rest of us, as we interacted with a virtual version of Sir Arthur.
It was such a Clarke moment. And it changed my view of the possible notions of selves, being, location.

The first time I encountered another version of the prolific Clarke was as a catholic school girl in a small cowboy town in my home state of Washington. The nuns took us to only two movies during my entire 8 years there. Understandably one was a happy little day off to see The Sound of Music. The unexpected field trip was a serious matter. It had been decided that we were to be allowed to see Space Odyssey 2001.

The urgency with which the good sisters loaded us into the bus and theater and shssssed us as 2001 started to roll in the dark movie house was remarkable to us.
It was clear to me that this unfathomable future was something the teachers thought it was their duty to inform us about. They also wanted to get some spin in play, as they had determined that the black obelisk could only be God himself. (I was not so sure, and wanted more data points. My vote on that question is still out.)
I had no idea then, that in Earth Year 2001, I would encounter the virtual version and creative genius behind this strange, life altering and magnificent space film, in a swank Hollywood setting.

So with a Clarkesque twist, allow me to suggest that Arthur has only moved to the next stage of the carbon cycle, and he is in fact not gone at all, but alive and well in all shapes and forms where ever we turn.