To pay tribute to the big visionary, often compared to Orwell and Asimov, ARTE organizes a tryptic exploration of the Dick’s existence, with a special programmation gathering a documentary, a video game and a short movie filmed in 360° around Philip K. Dick. Twelve years old, that’s the age when Philip Kindred Dick is discovering a love for science-fiction, by reading the magazine Stirring Science Stories, during a quiet afternoon in his city, Chicago. He purges and exteriorizes his fears by escaping in the writings of two masters of the genre : Edgar Allan Poe and H. P. Lovecraft.


Illustration by Olivier Bonhomme.

Born in 1928 next to his twin sister named Jane (who died a few weeks after she was born), her parents would never think that, at this time, this child would be an eminent American author of 40 novels and 120 short stories (among Ubik, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, The Man in the High Castle and Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said), awarded and recognized, who will see most of his books adapted on screen. In these posthume cinema adaptations, we count Blade Runner (by Ridley Scott), Total Recall (by Paul Verhoeven) and Minority Report (by Steven Spielberg). This great man died on the 2nd March 1982, taking with him his imaginary worlds but letting us a big work, with the smart quote : « If you find this world bad, you should see some others ».

Channel ARTE will broadcast on the 2nd March the documentary Les mondes de Philip K. Dick, directed by Yann Coquart and co-written by Ariel Kyrou, where we get into the unique universe of this XXth century author who anticipate our digital world and our technologic society as no one.

In its side, website ARTE Creative published on the 16th February the free video game version Californium, created by Brice Roy, under the art direction of Olivier Bonhomme and whose scenarios are signed by Thibaut de Corday and Stéphane Beauverger. It’s an immersive experience, psychedelic and narrative, with perfect graphics, in which the player gets into the skin of Elvin Green, a writer without any inspiration, living in Berkeley, in the 60’s. Being a character trapped into multiple realities, the mission of the player will be to detect anomalies in the decor : each anomaly would represent a door towards a new universe, between reality and a parallel world, directly inspired by the works and themes of Philip K. Dick.


Californium.

Furthermore, ARTE Creative will post online on the 22nd February I, Philip, a fiction filmed in 360° and in relief, directed by Pierre Zandrowicz (Okio Studio) and co-written by Rémi Giordano. This video will be available on the website ARTE Creative, on the application, on the augmented reality platforms of Samsung and Oculus, and on the application ARTE 360°.

I, Philip.

I, Philip.