pataphysics n 1 a 'science of imaginary solutions' conceived by the French writer Alfred Jarry (1873-1907) whose faux-scientific articles and essays mixed real and imaginary science in such a way as to obscure their underlying absurdity and thus appear plausible 2 science fiction disguised as science fact.


Following the panic of '68, Penguin's new art director for fiction, David Pelham, commissioned the Italian graphic designer, Franco Grignani, to produce a set of sixteen covers for an sf mini-series which appeared in 1969-70.

Grignani was a leading figure in the field of experimental photography, with a career stretching back some forty years to his early work with photograms. From this he progressed to a range of techniques based on standard photography which he then projected and distorted using lenses, shards of glass, pieces of broken mirror, or liquids such as oil and water.

The images such techniques produce are beautifully represented by Grignani's designs for the sf series, which reinstated the black covers Alan Aldridge had introduced in '66, along with the sf label which the panic tops of '68 had overlooked.

Grignani's black covers and single-colour images form a kaleidoscope of shimmering dreams and shattered nightmares. They are like a free association of thoughts mapped out in watery reflections that briefly coalesce and then disperse, leaving memories of figures trapped in the fragments of a looking-glass. They hint at other dimensions and warped worlds where space swims and time shudders. Viewed as a set they would not look out of place if framed and hung on the walls of an art gallery. The thought of sixteen black spines lined up on a bookshelf seems somewhat prosaic by comparison.

Grignani also collaborated with fellow Italian Francesco Saroglia on the design of the black-and-white Woolmark logo, an Op Art-inspired image of a ball of wool which on closer inspection is a threefold Möbius strip. The logo was launched in 1964 and remains one of the world's most recognisable trademarks to this day.

Not long after Penguin published The Traps of Time, the editor of the anthology, Michael Moorcock, began collaborating and sometimes performing with the English space-rock band Hawkwind. Moorcock may have lent the anthology to band member Robert Calvert, for it was around this time that Calvert read Alfred Jarry's pataphysical essay, How to Construct a Time Machine, and claimed to have noticed what no one else had, namely that Jarry was describing his bicycle.

According to Calvert, Jarry was "the kind of bloke who'd think it was a good joke to write this very informed-sounding piece.....describing how to build a time machine, which is actually about how to build a bicycle, buried under this smoke- screen of physics that sounds authentic". It is an intriguing idea since Jarry was very fond of his bicycle, and cycling features prominently elsewhere in his fiction, notably The Passion Considered as an Uphill Bicycle Race and a chapter in The Supermale describing a 10,000-mile race between an express train and the crew of a five-man bicycle at speeds of over 300 kilometres per hour. So had Calvert cracked the secret of temporal displacement, or had he just cracked?

Either way, it was Jarry's essay that inspired Calvert to write the lyrics for Hawkwind's 1972 hit single, Silver Machine, as Calvert himself explained: "At that time there were a lot of songs about space travel" and "NASA was actually, really doing it. They'd put a man on the moon and were planning to put parking lots and hamburger stalls and everything up there" so naturally everyone assumed the song was about "some sort of cosmic space travel machine" whereas all it was really saying was "I've got a silver bicycle".