Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Monday, December 12, 2011
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Project 2.2 - Film References
Site
The proposed site for the project is Hanbury Street and adjacent areas. This area links Spitalfields market to the new Truman Brewery commercial area and Brick Lane.
In addition, the area lies in the convergence of the different zones of the site, which have been chosen for the site analysis case study, as examples of the different levels of historic preservation in the area: Spitalfields; the historical areas of Princelet and Fournier Streets; the popular north side of Brick Lane; and the area of Banglatown to the south of Brick Lane.
Brief
Commodified Authenticity
The project explores the idea that, the more we select the physical evidence of our past, the more we distance ourselves from the possibility to discover an authenticity, which has not yet been commodified.
In the meantime, we begin to realise that the effortless and ever-updating technology, which we gladly welcome into our lives, provides us with everything, except the individuality that we crave for.
Will Spitalfields in the future become an open-air museum, where every element is meticulously recreated to the image of an idealised past, and where authenticity-hungry visitors will be able to purchase their unique artefacts?
References
Pierre Bourdieu: Distinction: A social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, 1979
Jean Baudrillard: Simulacra and Science Fiction, 1991
Joshua Glenn: Fake Authenticity: An Introduction, 2010 (in Hermenaut 5, 22 Dec 2010)
Mark Greif: The Hipster in the Mirror, 2010 (in New York Times 12 Nov 2010)
Selective Nostalgia
This image used in the previous film explores the idea that, on the one hand we cherish the authentic and character-rich relics of the past, but on the other we are able to unsee the disappearance of historical and culturally rich places within our cities.
This is evident in the Banglatown-Spitalfields site: there is a clear fabrication of an authentic historical character together with a trend towards the worn antique and simultaneously there is a clear annihilation of the character of valuable historical areas.
Saturday, November 19, 2011
Shatter effect test
This is a test of shatter effect using footage from the previous films. I am exploring the use of this effect for the next film, as a transition between real and fabricated realities.
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Project 2.1 AE Test II
Project 2.1 AE Test I
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Chungking Express (Wong Kar-Wai 1994)
The film tells us two love stories that happen in the Chungking Mansions in Hong Kong.
What interests me in this film is, on the one side the idea of voyerism and search for authentic love and on the other, the way in which the visual language is achieved, using high contrasted and high saturated images and a dream-like quality achieved with the use of a contrast between fast forwarding and slow motion.
The idea of the love story was inspiring in the way that the short film project can be narrated.
In addition the film is mainly shot in the street and it shows a great contrast between the traditional elements of Hong Kong and the modern urban.
Dark City (Alex Proyas, 1998)
A man wakes up in a state of amnesia, or so he thinks. Through a strange sequence of events he soon realises that he is living in a city controlled by an external force, and that his reality is no more than an experiment to these outsiders.
The city and its inhabitants are rearranged, repositioned and rebuilt every night, though there is only night in this city.
This film is a reference to the project mainly in regards to the idea of a constructed reality.
The Greatest Television show on earth (J G Ballard, 1972)
“ During their visits to the battle the producers found that there were fewer combatants actually present than described by the historians of the day. Whatever the immense political consequences of the defeat of Napoleonic France, the battle itself was a disappointing affair, a few thousand march-wearied troops egaged in sporadic rifle and artillery duels.
(...) Rather than sit back helplessly behind their cameras, the Time Vision companies should step in themselves, lending their vast expertise and resources to heightening the drama of the battle. ‘History,’ [the producer] concluded, ‘is just a first draft screenplay.’
(...) Equipped with a lavish supply of gold coinage, agents of the television companies moved across the Belgian and North German plains, hiring thousands of mercenaries (at the standard rate for TV extras of fifty dollars per day on location, regardless of rank, seventy-five dollars for a speaking part). The relief column of the Prussian General Blücher, reputed by historians to be many thousand strong and to have decisively turned the battle against Napoleon, was in fact found to be a puny force of brigade strength. Within a few days thousand of eager recruits flocked to the colours, antibiotics secretly administered to polluted water supplies cured a squadron of cavalry hunters suffering from anthrax, and a complete artillery brigade threatened with typhus was put on its feet by a massive dose of chloromycetin.
The Battle of Waterloo, when finally transmitted to an audience of over one billion viewers, was a brilliant spectacle more than equal to its advance publicity of the past two hundred years.”
This short story explores the idea that our expectations are much higher than the real thing might be and that we believe that something is authentic when it meets these expectations - even if what was actually authentic has been tampered with and overly exaggerated.
