Rosalind Krauss, in her article “Grids” (1979), defines the grid as “unnatural, antimimetic, antireal.” The grid as a visual structure rejects any type of narrative or sequential reading. However, Krauss suggests that it is possible to find a relationship between the sequential structure of the grid and the narrative structure of myths, overlaying the dual condition of the grid as both a spatial support and a temporal structure.

Years before this analysis, Kubrick explored the dual nature of the grid in a very similar way, using it as a narrative support and transforming it into the driving element between sequences. The objects, ordered in the space of the grid, become self-referential elements. They are the ones that carry the semantic content of the sequences, generating their own contexts. The grid reinforces its status as an autonomous support for universal order, representing a machinic and post-human vision.

This visual hypothesis launched by Kubrick of an isotropic, continuous plane of energy and information resonated within the architectural collective, being explored in the years immediately following the release of the film. However, against the isotropy of the architectural graphic fictions, Kubrick introduces deformations into the Euclidean two-dimensionality of the grid to approach the concept of hyperspace. (Fig.4, Fig.5) Through the curvature of the plane, one of the most interesting implications of this distortion emerges: the difficulty of firmly locating ourselves in space, reinforcing the idea of weightlessness. Through these distortions, a new representation of space-time, the fourth dimension, and universal space arises. If the Cartesian grid creates a recognizable, identical, and universal frame that acts as the narrative thread, its deformation transforms it into the fundamental support for anticipating new realities regarding the construction of a new type of humanity.

Corporatism as a model of work organization has a direct translation into spatial organization. Architecture acts as a means to construct a system of images that constitute the ideal of the American Way of Life, creating the “space of a new symbolism.” The film industry also participates in constructing this set of images, and Kubrick’s film is no exception. (Fig.6) “The corporate” is inseparable from the images it produces.

A cultural stereotype is generated that produces an identification between the subject and their work environment. (Fig.1) Eero Saarinen, a former member of the OSS (Office of Strategic Services, the precursor to the CIA), is one of the principal figures responsible for creating this “new symbolism” through the design of workspaces in the military-industrial complex. (Fig.5) The grid aesthetic is present in the headquarters of major corporations. (Fig.7) The representation of a continuous floor or ceiling plan, technologized and homogenized, is constant. The grid, modulation, and the implied flexibility in systematization transform into “the image—and the instrument—of the ‘organizational complex’.” The grid does not appear as an element of universal ordering but as one of universal homogenization. It is the inner logic of space in the information age.

It is evident the reproduction of this “new symbolism” of corporate space in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey through the constant use of the grid. However, applying Rosalind Krauss’s concept of myth as a set of sequential characteristics reorganized to form a spatial organization, the film also allows a complementary reading as a “corporate myth.” Kubrick introduces a sequential narrative through “traces of meaning.” In the film, there is a constant drip of names, corporate colors, and logos of major American companies. It happens quietly, surreptitiously. (Fig.4, Fig.6) The objects are not recognizable, as they were prototypes designed ad hoc for the film production. In Kubrick’s futuristic hypothesis, what is recognizable is corporate identity constructed through image, establishing a narrative through this set of “abstract information.” The global interior and the workspaces as a frame are unified through a discontinuous set of messages to form a single story: the technological advances of the future come from the industrial-military apparatus.

The geopolitical scenario of collaboration—under the rules of American corporatism—presented in 2001: A Space Odyssey is part of the “information war” identified by McLuhan. In the hypothetical and hyper-realistic future presented by Kubrick, the military-industrial apparatus stands not only as the victor but also as the evolutionary engine of humanity. This information war is contained in Martin’s “organizational complex,” and thus in the system of images it produces, generating a “dynamic equilibrium” of constant information exchange between the individual and the medium. The ordering of the image of work interiors, produced in the media and reproduced in the film, “is not the bearer of the message, but the message itself.” Architecture and its representation transform into a display of manipulated information.

McLuhan’s influence on Kubrick’s work is not merely theoretical speculation. In an interview with the director published in Playboy magazine in September 1968, shortly after the release of 2001: A Space Odyssey, Kubrick avoided directly answering questions about the meaning of his film by appealing to McLuhan. The director stated that “in 2001, the medium is the message.” With these words, he sought to protect the subjectivity of interpretations, avoiding “establishing a barrier between the conception of the work and the individual perception of it.”

McLuhan argues that the appearance of new transmission techniques for information inevitably leads to a change in the methods of representing reality, and therefore, in our cognitive abilities. Based on this premise, he identifies a direct relationship between the invention of the printing press and the appearance of the Cartesian grid with a single vanishing point as a tool of representation. Analogously, he anticipates that the emergence of cybernetics and electronic media will affect not only the representation of space but also our perception. Electronics bring us closer to a type of “multidimensional spatial orientation,” which allows generating simultaneous readings.

While the distribution of information occurs homogenously through network infrastructures following the spatial logic of the grid, access to information happens relationally, allowing multiple parallel readings following the narrative structure of myths. These two approaches to the multidimensionality of cybernetics are present in Kubrick’s film. On one hand, through the representation of the Cartesian grid and its distortion. On the other, through the representation of corporate identity—and therefore the military-industrial apparatus—through the overlaying of abstract information. From this relationship, it can be deduced that Kubrick uses McLuhan’s theory in constructing the images of his film. He not only relies on representation through the Cartesian grid but distorts it, provoking a new type of spatial perception. These alterations would reflect the advances in information media present in 2001: A Space Odyssey and, consequently, a demonstration of the evolution in the cognitive abilities of a new type of humanity.