Thursday, 7 November 2013

OUGD501. Context of Practice 2. Lecture - Cities and Film.

lecture is about:

photographs about 9/11 - people looking at the towers falling.
the city starts to feature as a figure of investigation in modernism - urban sociology.
contrasts between public and private.
the city in postmodernism


georg simmel-
a german sociologist. writing influenced the frankfurt school of thinkers.
was part of dresden exhibition - talked about the controversial role of the city on the individual. at a time leading up to freuds writing on psycho analysis.

urban sociology -
was looking at how the individual might escape the city and not be swallowed up. this resistance was captured by lewis hine.

louis sullivan -
creator of modern skyscraper. influential to the chicago school, mentor to frank lloyd wright.
coined the phrase ''form (ever) follows function''.
built guaranty building - divided into four levels considered for practical use.
chicago fire made way for his new buildings like carson pririe scott store in chicago.

saw clips from manhatta

charles scheeler -
fordism - gramsci from americanism and fordism - the human becoming the machine and a continuous cycle of consumption and waste.
modern times - charlie chaplin. typical farce.
the factory makes use of the man not the other way.
wall street crash helped this and lead to great depression

the man with a movie camera - 1929. uses new and interesting techniques and angles.

flaneur - a gentleman who strolls - posh person.

charles baudelaire -0
19th cent french poet says flaneur someone able to see the city.

walter benjamin -
adopts the concept of the urban observer as an analytical tool and as a lifestyle.

susan sontag -
photographer a type of flaneur whos involved but removed from society looking in on it.

then was introduced the concept of flaneuse - female flaneur

sophie calle - follows people on the street and takes photos of them.

cindy sherman - untitled film stills protray a film noir style stills with her in dramatised poses.

weegee (arthur felig) - press photogropher reporting on emercencies in the city. thought he had a weegee board becuase he was always there exactly when it happened. actually he had a police radio to find out wt was goin on.
a link to this and those sort of films with l.a.noire - semi film video game that allows user to create own film through gameplay.

lorca di corcia - heads - looks at the idea of the individual and their relation to the crowd - an experience within the city. he hides lights on the pavement and then photograhs them in a smal light - he is removed from the scene. photos look  like film stills but subjects dont actually know theyre being photographed.

walker evans - many are called
takes photos that look like subject aware of camera but actualy are unaware so fully natuaral photogrphs.

postmodern city in photography -
joel meyerowitz looks at broadway in all its brieght colour and doesnt have a focus - its busy and theres nothing telling us where to look. mimics the overwhelming info in a city without the unity we need to understand the photograph.

events of 9/11 mark the end of the existence on a flaneur becuase there is no way to be detatched as a recorder because everything constantly monitored and recorded and the fact that everyone can record everything and be their own independent journalisty/photographer.

thomas ruff - looks at images of twin towers and messes with them like pixelating it saying that docc photography isnt enough to represent/portray an event.

surveillance city - since 9/11 everythin recorded and so no room for the individual photographer. 'we now seek machines to look at picutres on our behalf'.

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