OUGD501: Context of Practice - Cities and Film Lecture Notes

• Here is New York.
• Taken from 9/11
• Taken by professional an non professional photographers
• People watching the towers falling

The lecture looks at:

• The city in modernism
• The beginnings of an urban sociology
• The city as public and private space
• The city in postmodernism
• The relation of the individual to the crowd in the city

• Trade fair which celebrates the city at the start of the 20th century
• Leading up to the time when Freud's physcoanalysis theory

• There was a concern that the city might swallow up the person
• A worker engaged in the construction of the city
• The images are interesting in a contemporary point of view as there are no health and safety measures in place

• The rise of the city we know now
• The skyscraper was pioneered by architect Louis Sullivan
• Form follows function

• It is very decorative the way that the form follows function applies is the organisation of the building
• The mechanics of the building are unseen

• LS Influenced the city skyline
• Makes way for the new landscape
• Skyscrapers came to represent the power and strength of the commercial and industrial environment

• Silent movie illustrating the city

• Influenced by political and theoretical 
• The production line is designed and set up to use people to allow mass production
• De Grazia makes a comment that the workers will earn the wage but then spend it on the products which they are making - the money goes back to the employer

• Critique of the production line
• Typical Chaplin
• He suffers a mental breakdown because he is not very good at working in the factory and ruins the system
• Labelled as a communist

• MP's spied on Chaplin

• Juxtaposition of the people in the queue and the billboard 
• Questions the american dream

• Russian film maker

• Flaneur is the boirjous literally figure
• Walks around the city taking it in
• See it from a removed point of view
• He is expected to record what he sees

• Art should capture the city
• The image is of two men who are observing the social scene but not taking part

• Attempts to categorise and organise the planet
• Arcades which Benjamin investigates are undisturbed - Victorian
• They are unaffected by the weather etc
• Incorporate this into urban planning

• Presents the photographer as the flaneur
• Observing but not participating
• Being allowed to look

• Repeat of this motif grainy black and white experience of the city
• Started to look at it as a drunken flaneury
• Looking at a particular district of Tokyo
• Response to Americanisation

• Young boy in the streets of New York in the 1950's

• Often that the only type of figure of a female on a street is that the woman is either a bag lady or a prostitute
• It is strange to see a woman on her own in the streets

• The blackness around her body is heavier around her body
• Uncomfortable sense created
• Implication that there is some story attached to the image
• Something to reflect on, something happened before or something which is about to happen

• Photographer who constructs diaristic stories
• She writes a diary entry with every image
• She followed a man to Venice without his knowledge
• Keeps the story open ended

• Tells the story of a couple who go to Venice to recover from the loss a child
• They are haunted by a figure in a red cape
• Venice is used as a metaphor for the mind
• They are recalling the child's life
• They do not know what is real and what is fantasy

• She pays someone to follow her
• His diary is displayed in the final exhibit next to hers
• She tries to appear as if she is leading him around - love story

• The figure of the female in the city
• Played on stereotypes from films
• She is dwarfed by the city

• Shot at the base of the world trade centre
• Unidentifiable locations - she tried to take the city out of it

• Taken at 9/11

• Re-framed to look like Cindy Sherman

• Press photographer in the 1930's and 40's
• Reports the emergencies in the city
• WeeGee - people could not understand how he could get to these events before any of the other press
• He has a radio in his car which allowed him to have access to the events first
• Developed his films in the back of his car

• Book which was developed into a film

• Video game from 2011
• First video game to be shown at the Tribeca film festival
• Set in LA in 1947
• Play as the detective
• Sophisticated level of game play

• Skyscraper appearing

• Aesthetic is very post modern

• Investigates the individual
• Hides lights in the pavement and sets up a trip wire which highlights individuals and allows him to photograph them
• Sync flash a form of surveillance 

• She is not aware of his presence but she appears to be

• Came up in a law suit which was brought against him by this man
• His privacy was invaded
• The legal system backed him up
• Made for artists purposes not an advertising campaign he was allowed to use it
• Financial gain for commercial reasons

• People directly staring into the lens are actually unaware they are being watched

• Buildings can structure our behaviour

• Colour images which are very different from black and white images
• We are not told where to look
• The image is very busy with colour, action, text etc
• He does not tell us what to think

• Dark and dramatic image

• Being a detached observer
• The event is recorded endlessly on film
• But also through citizen journalism - the term was not coined until 2006
• The city and the observer become one

• Re-edits the films so it is backwards
• The footage of 9/11 was played so many times that the event became beyond experience
• She rewinds the film therefore she is re-building the towers
• The idea is child like and indulges the fantasy of turning back time

• Thomas Ruff re-works the images
• Purposely pixelates the images
• Existing imagery on google
• Photography is not able to reflect on the event