Herbert W. Franke

Herbert Werner Franke (born in 1927) is an Austrian author of Science-fiction.

Biographical note

Herbert Werner Franke was born with Vienna (Austria), on May 14th 1927. He studies physics, mathematics, chemistry, psychology and philosophy at the University of Vienna. In 1950, it obtains a doctorate in theoretical physics on electronic optics. Starting from 1957, it works as independent author. Between 1973 and 1997, it is in charge of the courses of “cybernetic esthetics” (computer graphics, arts computer-assisted) at the University of Munich in Germany. In 1979, he is the cofounder of “Ars Electronica”, a festival dedicated to numerical arts which proceeds in the town of Linz. Of 1979 with 1980, Herbert W. Franke is in charge of the courses of “Introduction to the psychology of perception” with the IUT ( Technische Hochschule ) of design of Bielefeld in Germany. This same year, he is elected member of “PEN club” and obtains his title of Professor of the Universities. In 1998, it takes part in SIGGRAPH of Orlando, a festival American of numerical arts, and belonged to the jury of the “VideoMath-Festival” of Berlin. Parallel to his career of author of Science fiction, Herbert W. Franke is very active in the fields of futurology, speleology, the computer graphics and numerical arts. The German weekly newspaper Die Zeit regards Herbert W. Franke as “most eminent of the authors of science fiction of German language”.

Literature and science fiction

“ What me fascine in the science fiction, it is what is called the " Judicious off Wonder" - the unexpected one, surprising it, the marvellous one which is described in this kind of stories. And for this reason, it is not need to resort to the fields of the unreal one: the new spaces opened by science using the technique in the fields of the human behavior and the lived experiments are much more extraordinary than all the witches, all the monsters and all the magicians of the tales and the myths. These new unknown territories of the real Utopia belong to the future, but the ways which lead to it are paved reverse, errors and dangers. The conflicts which result provide me the matter of the dramatic actions of my stories and my novels. But it is indeed the future of our real-world and often also of evolutions which are already in germ at our time and which we can still direct in the direction of our own interests. ” - Herbert W. Franke

Herbert W. Franke written in a clear and sober style. The recurrent theme of its novels and news is the question: “What reality”, a quesiton for which there does not exist any definitive answer. This question is implemented in a masterly way in the novel Das Gedankennetz ( the network of thoughts ), in which the hero, interned by the State, lives in virtual realities without never being able to distinguish what concerns reality or handling. The supporting characters are them also trained in spite of them in these slips of reality. The end of the novel shows with the reader that nothing is inevitably as it appears and than the starting situation of the novel was it even only one variation of the perception of reality. In its following works, the concepts of virtual reality go even further: in Transpluto ( Transpluton ), which we perceive as impossible to circumvent the space-time continuum reveals to be that a kind of cage of experimentation restricted inside a completely foreign multidimensional structure with our way of thinking.

Another recurrent theme of works of Herbert W. Franke is the dead end in which find themselves the individuals plunged in a world of the increasingly technical future, organized and totalitarian. Novels like Der Elfenbeinturm ( the ivory tower) or Ypsilon Minus ( Upsilon less ) describe dystopies as distressing as those of its prestigious predecessors Orwell or Huxley. This feeling of anguish is reinforced by the fact that the stories of Herbert W. Franke always have the air completely real, being often based on evolutions already in germ in our Western companies. Even in its novel Endzeit ( end of time ), whose action proceeds in an extremely remote future, the reader with the impression that our current society cannot evolve/move differently than in the way described in the book.

Philosophically, Herbert W. Franke tackles in each one of his works of science fiction the question of becoming civilizations in comparison with the possibility of satisfying the needs for the human beings by average techniques increasingly more powerful. One of its first novels, the cage with the orchises , draws the most depressing conclusions from them. The most famous novel certainly of Herbert W. Franke, Zone Zero , mixes, but in less radical manner, the recurrent themes of a brutal confrontation of the great powers in a East-West conflict (as in Stahlwüste and Papa, Joe & Co. ) and of a techno-science to the increased possibilities, but become completely meaningless (as in Tod eines Unsterblichen ). Following the example famous novel H.G. Wells entitled the machine to travel in time , Zone Zero describes the bipartition of the company in two classes, that of the idle people living in a state of passive happiness and that of the credits, which can be in last spring of the human beings modified biogénétiquement or many artificial intelligences.

Distinctions

1987 : Price of numerical arts of the Editor association German of software
1989: Price of the best fantastic novel of the town of Wetzlar
1992: Karl-Theodor-Vogel price of the best technical work.
2002 : Benno-Wolf price decreed by the Association of the German speleologists for its various contributions.

Works translated into French

The following bibliography was drawn up starting from the database of the site Index SF.

Romance

the Cage with the orchises , Denoël Editions, 1964;
Zone zero , Editions Robert Laffont, 1973.

New

the enclaves , news, in: Daniel Walther (ED.), German Science fiction. Foreigners with Utopolis , Pocket Presses, coll “the gold book of the science fiction”, 1980, pp. 121-129;
the army maneuvers , in COp cit. , pp. 161-174;
Copy nonin conformity ( Weiße Pupillen ), HORIZONS OF FANTASTIC the n°5, 1969;
the black Planet ( DER dunkle Planet ), in: Jörg Weigand (ED.), Tomorrow Germany… , Éditions Chose, special coll “Fiction”, n°29/296, 1978;
Heirs to Einstein ( Einsteins Erben ), ANTARES, coll Antares (fanzine) n°27, 1987;
a universe color of pink ( Das rosarote Universum ), ANTARES, coll Antares (fanzine) n°32, 1988;

Speleology

luminous Darkness , Kummerley and Frey, 1965.

Works

News (selection)

DER grüne Komet , Goldmann 1960 green comet ''
Einsteins Erben , Insel 1972 heirs to Einstein ''
Paradies 3000 , Suhrkamp 1981 3000 ''
Der Atem DER Sounds , Suhrkamp 1986 blows of the sun ''
Spiegel der Gedanken , Suhrkamp 1990 mirror of the thoughts ''

Novels

Das Gedankennetz , 1961 network of the thoughts ''
Der Orchideenkäfig , 1961 ( the Cage with the orchises )
Die Glasfalle , 1962 traps glass ''
Die Stahlwüste , 1962 steel desert ''
Der Elfenbeinturm , 1965 Null ivory tower ''
Zone , 1970 ( Zone zero )
Ypsilon washout , 1976 less ''
Sirius Transit , 1979 Transit ''
Schule für Übermenschen , 1980 school for the supermen ''
Tod eines Unsterblichen , 1982 of immortal a ''
Transpluto , 1982 * Die Kälte of Weltraums , 1984 coldness of space ''
Endzeit , 1985 end of time ''
Dea Alba (with Michael Weisser), 1988 Alba ''
Hiobs Stern', 1988 of Job ''

Zentrum der Milchstraße', 1990 centers lacteous voice ''
Sphinx_2 , 2004 * Cyber City Southern , 2005 Southern City ''
Auf der Spur of Engels , 2006 traces of the angel ''

Radiophonic parts

Joe Dad & Co (Bayerischer Rundfunk 1976)
Zarathustra kehrt zurück (1977) returns ''

Technical works

Phänomen Kunst , Heinz Moos Verlag, München 1967 phenomenon of art ''
Computergraphik - Computerkunst , Bruckmann, München 1971 and numerical art ''
Apparative Kunst. Vom Kaleidoskop zum Computer (gemeinsam put G. Jäger), DuMont Schauberg, Köln, München 1973
Ästhetische Information (with H.G. Frank), I.F. Kybernetik-Verlag, Berlin, Paderborn 1997 esthetics ''
Animation spent Mathematica , Springer, 2002 with Mathematica ''
Wildnis unter der Erde , Brockhaus, Wiesbaden 1956 world wild and underground ''
Kunst und Konstruktion , Bruckmann 1957 and construction ''
Magie der Moleküle , Brockhaus 1958 magic of the molecules ''
Wohin kein Auge reicht , Brockhaus 1959 of visible the ''
… nichts bleibt ones als das Staunen , Wilhelm Goldmann, München 1959 and it remains nothing any more but the astonishment ''
Vorstoß ins Unbegreifliche , Brockhaus 1960 of inintelligible the ''
Phänomen Technik , Brockhaus 1962 phenomenon of the technique ''
Die Sprache der Vergangenheit , Verlag Union, Stuttgart 1962 language of last the ''
Neuland of Wissens , Union 1964 new territories of the knowledge ''
DER manipulierte Mensch , Brockhaus 1964 modified ''
Kunststoffe erobern die Welt , Spectrum Verlag, Stuttgart 1966 plastics conquer the world ''
Der Mensch stammt doch vom Affen ab , Kindler Verlag, München 1966 goes down well from the monkey ''
Leuchtende Finsternis , (with A. Bögli), Kümmerli und Frey, Bern 1967 luminous''
Sinnbild der Chemie , Basilius Presses, Basel 1967, und Moos 1968 of chemistry ''
Methoden der Geochronologie , Springer 1969 of geochronology ''
Die unbewältigte Zukunft , (with E.H. Graul), Kindler 1970 untamed future ''
Geheimnisvolle Höhlenwelt , dva, Stuttgart 1974 underground world ''
Kunst will kontra Technik , Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt 1978 against the technique ''
In den Höhlen dieser Erde , Hoffmann & Campe, Hamburg the 1978 caves of our Ground ''
Die Atome , Ullstein, Berlin 1980 atoms ''
Die Moleküle , Ullstein 1980 molecules ''
Die geheime Nachricht , Umschau, Frankfurt/Hand 1982 secret message ''
Computergrafik-Gallery. Bilder nach Programm - Kunst im elektronischen Zeitalter , numerical DuMont 1984 of art. Images resulting from digital art at the electronic era ''
Siliziumwelt (with Mr. P. Kage), IBM Deutschland GMBH, Stuttgart 1985 world of silica ''
Leonardo 2000 , (New altered edition of " Kunst will kontra Technik"), Suhrkamp Frankfurt amndt Hand 1987 200 ''
Die Welt der Mathematik (with H. Helbig), Computergrafik zwischen Wissenschaft und Kunst, VDI-Verlag, Düsseldorf 1988 world of mathematics ''
Digital Visionen , IBM Deutschland GMBH, 1989 numerical ''
Das P-Prinzip. Naturgesetze im Rechnenden Raum , Insel Verlag, Frankfurt/Hand 1995 principle P. natural laws in the calculation gap ''
Wege zur Computerkunst , Edition “die Donau hinunter”, Wien, St Peter amndt Wimberg 1995 of numerical art ''
Vorstoß in die Unterwelt , Bruckmann, München 2003 of the underground world ''

Internal bonds

Science fiction of German language
German Price of science fiction
Price Kurd-Laßwitz
Price Curt-Siodmak

External bonds

Official site of Herbert W. Franke
" Herausgeber - Autor - Wissenschaftler" Interview of Herbert W. Franke
AVA-Autorenrubrik Herbert W. Franke

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