TSWAING CRATER, SOSHANGUVE, PRETORIA
LOELOERAAI’S COURTROOM, OUDTSHOORN MAGISTRATE, WESTERN CAPE (FROM LOELOERAAI, 1923, CJ LANGENHOVEN)
ANNA VAN WYK, MIRROR, SUTHERLAND (FROM SWART STER OOR DIE KAROO)
PLANTS AND POLLUTION #4, CARNARVON, NORTHERN CAPE
WOUTER RENS (FROM “SWART STER OOR DIE KAROO, JAN RABIE 1957). NIC GROBLER, TABLE MOUNTAIN, CAPE TOWN, WESTERN CAPE
"Follow me," said Eva Stellaris quietly, and stepped forward, through the milky wall. "Goodness me!” whispered Jos. "It's going to open just like intelligent glue!"
Photograph inspired by ‘Swart ster oor die Karoo’ (Black star over the Karoo) by Jan Rabie, 1957. In the novel future humans are living inside Table Mountain as it is too cold outside. There are no doors, but mirror like walls that you can walk through - but only if you are calm. Wouter ended up forgetting this and ran angrily towards someone, straight into the wall like you would run into a closed glass door, coming face to face with himself.
Read MoreIBART JANSE VEN RENSBURG, SALPETERKOP, NORTHERN CAPE
PROF. MERTYN (FROM "SWART STER OOR DIE KAROO, JAN RABIE 1957). RALPH BORLAND, ZEITZ MOCAA, CAPE TOWN
‘…“No,” the professor murmurs disdainfully. “No, I believe it comes in peace. No, the lines are too harmonious to be designed by devils.”
…Then the automatic outer door closes quickly behind him. While groups of men in the glass dome stares out anxiously into the ice night where the flying saucer with an unearthly glow sits dead still on the runway, and dr. Eva Stellaris also stands without motion in front if the foot thick window, the lonely figure of professor Mertyn moved closer to the cosmic visitor.’
Photograph inspired by ‘Swart ster oor die Karoo’ (Black star over the Karoo) by Jan Rabie, 1957. Translated from the original Afrikaans. The characters encounter a constant tension between the expectation of fear and violence and peaceful curiosity towards their visitors.
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”…we know that have lost contact with the Earth, and that the Sun became invisible behind us. But just in this moment lieutenant Viljee’s observations proved that we are not at the height of Uranus - but that of Jupiter! Still at 140,000km but it is so big that we can observe it’s horizon, even the famous red circle on it’s surface. This means we are busy flying inwards into the solar system - in other words, back to the Earth.“
Series inspired by ‘Swart ster oor die Karoo’ (Black star over the Karoo) by Jan Rabie, 1957. Sci-fi Novel about a future human race that has to live in a solar system where the Sun has gone dark. Translated from Afrikaans to English.
7 SKIES # 3, N1 NEAR MATJiESFONTEIN, WESTERN CAPE
”…we know that have lost contact with the Earth, and that the Sun became invisible behind us. But just in this moment lieutenant Viljee’s observations proved that we are not at the height of Uranus - but that of Jupiter! Still at 140,000km but it is so big that we can observe it’s horizon, even the famous red circle on it’s surface. This means we are busy flying inwards into the solar system - in other words, back to the Earth.“
Series inspired by ‘Swart ster oor die Karoo’ (Black star over the Karoo) by Jan Rabie, 1957. Sci-fi Novel about a future human race that has to live in a solar system where the Sun has gone dark. Translated from Afrikaans to English.
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7 SKIES # 5, N1 NEAR MATJiESFONTEIN, WESTERN CAPE
”…we know that have lost contact with the Earth, and that the Sun became invisible behind us. But just in this moment lieutenant Viljee’s observations proved that we are not at the height of Uranus - but that of Jupiter! Still at 140,000km but it is so big that we can observe it’s horizon, even the famous red circle on it’s surface. This means we are busy flying inwards into the solar system - in other words, back to the Earth.“
Series inspired by ‘Swart ster oor die Karoo’ (Black star over the Karoo) by Jan Rabie, 1957. Sci-fi Novel about a future human race that has to live in a solar system where the Sun has gone dark. Translated from Afrikaans to English.
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”…we know that have lost contact with the Earth, and that the Sun became invisible behind us. But just in this moment lieutenant Viljee’s observations proved that we are not at the height of Uranus - but that of Jupiter! Still at 140,000km but it is so big that we can observe it’s horizon, even the famous red circle on it’s surface. This means we are busy flying inwards into the solar system - in other words, back to the Earth.“
Series inspired by ‘Swart ster oor die Karoo’ (Black star over the Karoo) by Jan Rabie, 1957. Sci-fi Novel about a future human race that has to live in a solar system where the Sun has gone dark. Translated from Afrikaans to English.
7 SKIES # 1, N1 NEAR MATJiESFONTEIN, WESTERN CAPE
”…we know that have lost contact with the Earth, and that the Sun became invisible behind us. But just in this moment lieutenant Viljee’s observations proved that we are not at the height of Uranus - but that of Jupiter! Still at 140,000km but it is so big that we can observe it’s horizon, even the famous red circle on it’s surface. This means we are busy flying inwards into the solar system - in other words, back to the Earth.“
Series inspired by ‘Swart ster oor die Karoo’ (Black star over the Karoo) by Jan Rabie, 1957. Sci-fi Novel about a future human race that has to live in a solar system where the Sun has gone dark. Translated from Afrikaans to English.
Read More
”…we know that have lost contact with the Earth, and that the Sun became invisible behind us. But just in this moment lieutenant Viljee’s observations proved that we are not at the height of Uranus - but that of Jupiter! Still at 140,000km but it is so big that we can observe it’s horizon, even the famous red circle on it’s surface. This means we are busy flying inwards into the solar system - in other words, back to the Earth.“
Series inspired by ‘Swart ster oor die Karoo’ (Black star over the Karoo) by Jan Rabie, 1957. Sci-fi Novel about a future human race that has to live in a solar system where the Sun has gone dark. Translated from Afrikaans to English.
7 SKIES # 2, N1 NEAR MATJiESFONTEIN, WESTERN CAPE
”…we know that have lost contact with the Earth, and that the Sun became invisible behind us. But just in this moment lieutenant Viljee’s observations proved that we are not at the height of Uranus - but that of Jupiter! Still at 140,000km but it is so big that we can observe it’s horizon, even the famous red circle on it’s surface. This means we are busy flying inwards into the solar system - in other words, back to the Earth.“
Series inspired by ‘Swart ster oor die Karoo’ (Black star over the Karoo) by Jan Rabie, 1957. Sci-fi Novel about a future human race that has to live in a solar system where the Sun has gone dark. Translated from Afrikaans to English.
Read More
7 SKIES # 4, N1 NEAR MATJiESFONTEIN, WESTERN CAPE
”…we know that have lost contact with the Earth, and that the Sun became invisible behind us. But just in this moment lieutenant Viljee’s observations proved that we are not at the height of Uranus - but that of Jupiter! Still at 140,000km but it is so big that we can observe it’s horizon, even the famous red circle on it’s surface. This means we are busy flying inwards into the solar system - in other words, back to the Earth.“
Series inspired by ‘Swart ster oor die Karoo’ (Black star over the Karoo) by Jan Rabie, 1957. Sci-fi Novel about a future human race that has to live in a solar system where the Sun has gone dark. Translated from Afrikaans to English.
Read MorePROF. MERTYN #2 (FROM "SWART STER OOR DIE KAROO, JAN RABIE 1957). RALPH BORLAND, ZEITZ MOCAA, CAPE TOWN
‘…“No,” the professor murmurs disdainfully. “No, I believe it comes in peace. No, the lines are too harmonious to be designed by devils.”
…Then the automatic outer door closes quickly behind him. While groups of men in the glass dome stares out anxiously into the ice night where the flying saucer with an unearthly glow sits dead still on the runway, and dr. Eva Stellaris also stands without motion in front if the foot thick window, the lonely figure of professor Mertyn moved closer to the cosmic visitor.’
Photograph inspired by ‘Swart ster oor die Karoo’ (Black star over the Karoo) by Jan Rabie, 1957. Translated from the original Afrikaans. The characters encounter a constant tension between the expectation of fear and violence and peaceful curiosity towards their visitors.
Read More
TOM LEARMONT #2, SCI-FI WRITER, GHOST WRITER, ILLOVO, JOHANNESBURG, GAUTENG
‘My three books are all about time, in them time becomes plastic, malleable, time becomes a thing which people can use as a weapon, time becomes a thing like where you can play a leapfrog war, you leap ahead in time, you get there earlier than the guy you are trying to destroy, you wait and when he pops out of sub metric space into metric space you zap him! That is where time becomes a theatre of war. Also, I love time. Everyone knows this story, about the two young fish. They are swimming along one morning, and they say ‘o what a lovely morning’. And they meet the old fish, he comes past and he says ‘hey, hallo boys’, he says ‘the water is nice this morning hey’. The young fish says, ‘what’s he mean by water?’. That’s like weird, like us saying - what do you mean by time? Is time granular, I don’t know. I think they worked out something like there is a Planck length for time, I’m not sure, don’t quote me on that. One of my characters says ‘time and space are granular they inhabit each others intestines, give them a shake and they come apart’. But this is all bullshit, all science-fiction. A real physicist would laugh, mind you I do have a physicist friend who read my books. He said ‘ja I enjoyed it’, he said ‘Jesus Tom you know, you come up with all this absolute nonsense and made up bullshit and it is so plausible!’. Which is a big compliment.’
NEELSIE AND JAKHALS # 3 (FROM LOELOERAAI BY LANGENHOVEN, 1923) KLAASTROOM, WESTERN CAPE
'To whom shall I dedicate this book? It is about a being who is not human, who is higher than man - an unattainable superior.
I think I will go to the opposite - and then I will not have to look very far. I lost a friend a long time ago - a friend that I loved and who loved me. I will never see him again forever; but forever I will never forget him. Now, after all these years, there is not a day that passes without his image coming before me and I'm grieving about him. To him I was the higher being - a Loeloeraai of a higher existence. To me he was the ultimate perfection I found on earth, of love and faithfulness and virtue. And I lost him, and I miss him dearly. . .
I dedicate this work:
To the memory of
MY FRIEND AND DOG, JAKHALS’
From the dedication of Loeloeraai, CJ Langenhoven, 4th Edition 1929, First published 1923. Translated from original Afrikaans by Nic Grobler.
Photograph inspired by Loeloeraai, CJ Langenhoven. Loeloeraai is a visitor from Venus, who spends about two weeks with a family in Oudtshoorn. They end up going on a small trip to the moon before Loeloeraai returns to Venus.
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MARWA'S CAVE, CEDERBERG, WESTERN CAPE
'For real, that is not a shadow, but an upright being squeezed up against the edge. Kind of like a human form with two arms and legs, a narrow, oval face framed by a cap looking like a bare skull, clothed in a blue overall that they only had a glimpse of previously. Dead quiet. Francois lowers the torch, lifts it again. One thing is for sure: this being is just as afraid as they are.'
From Die Hemelblom (The Heavenly Flower) by Jan Rabie, 2nd edition 1974, Tafelberg, first published 1971. Translated from the original Afrikaans by Nic Grobler.
The first encounter with Marwa, the main alien character in Die Hemelblom takes place in a collapsed cave near the Cederberg - she hold hands with the humans to make it out alive.
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NEW PETROL STATION, CARNARVON, NORTHERN CAPE
The lights are left on through the night at this new petrol station building site - mainly for safety. The manager of the building project, who also slept on site, was eager to show visitors around - clearly dedicated to building a place that everyone can be proud of. He also explained that the station will be named after the owner's daughter, who, as she grew up, really took a liking to the energy of the people working at stations of this kind.
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DIE HEMELBLOM # 2 (FROM "DIE HEMELBLOM" BY JAN RABIE, 1971), CARNARVON, NORTHERN CAPE
'Only in the morning, when the daylight crossed over the highland rocks and fynbos, they saw how strange and otherworldly the hemelblom was. The seeds that fell the previous afternoon shot up incredibly fast, each on a lump of roots that didn't enter the ground, but just gripped the ground from above. In one single night each plant became fully grown and was spreading seeds so that new plants would shoot up. In one night the hemelblomme multiplied a hundredfold. For now it was just strange. Only later it would become frightening.'
From Die Hemelblom (The Heaven Flower) by Jan Rabie, 2nd edition 1974, Tafelberg, first published 1971. Translated from the original Afrikaans by Nic Grobler.
Photographed inspired by Die Hemelblom, Jan Rabie. The Hemelblom was sent to the earth by a concerned galactic council to ensure the survival of life on earth in the face of a new world war. The plant was specifically grown to remove the poisonous elements introduced by humans - feeding on pollution it would rapidly cover the earth and wipe out most of humankind but leave a new earth covered with fresh fertile soil.
