Sunday, December 27, 2009

Architecture in Films


The Urban Uncanny


Long before the advent of films the human imagination invested both natural and built spaces with human feelings and emotions. In both literature and painting artists imbued landscapes and city scapes with emotions of hope and tranquility or despair and trauma.

With the industrial revolution and the age of mechanical reproduction came the new townships of the machine age as well as the new machine arts of photography and film.

Not only was the birth of film coincidental with the birth of the modern city – it was created in the city , by the city, and was of the city in every way. Together with newspapers and the radio film served as a means of interpreting the city to the thousands who flocked there daily, to become part of the new urban white collar or working class. But while newspapers and the radio were connected to the practical daily needs of city dwellers, film satisfied their newly awakened need for distraction, for mass entertainment….

The birth of film as an art form coincided with the theorizing of the modern industrial city as having the potential to produce a highly sophisticated urban environment. It was an environment which was the product of a new machine age architecture and new scientific systems of town planning. This was necessary. Between 1800 and 1910 the population in Berlin grew from 182,000 to 3,400,000. As new methods of industrial production came into being. factories dominating the city scape. Tenement housing mushroomed from city center to suburbia to house the growing population; The separation of people from their work spaces; the new work patterns based on exact time schedules, meant that roads and railways needed to crisscross the city providing unprecedented speed of travel. The newspapers, radio, telephone , telegraph made for instant communication. Scientific surveillance systems made new techniques of social regulation possible. All in all there was a complete overturning of regular patterns of living; and an undermining of enduring structures of perception .Established forms of perception were disordered and reconfigured.

Unending new sources of stimulation led to the saturation of sensory stimuli and distraction a continual crisis of attention became the accepted norm of modernity.

Insofar as it was a city centred art form, insofar as its primary role was to depict human beings in their daily interactions with the city; to depict the metropolis as fulfilling or betraying the hopes and fears of city dwellers; film makers used built forms, and the mise en scene of the city to project not only the reality of the city but also the imaginary of the city. From Eisenstein onwards the city in Cinema does not operate as a mere backdrop. Film rather, presents urban space as itself representational, as simultaneously sensory and symbolic.

How did film makers to meet the challenge of depicting the urban imaginary? The technique rested partly on the “double texturing” of the film. James Donald talks of the juxtaposition of panorama and myth. Of “the mis match between the transparent

abstraction of the concept city and its juxtaposition against the densely textured urban imaginary.”

Film theorists of the time believed that it was in the slippage between the familiar and the strange, that what they called “the urban uncanny” came into being. James Donald believes that “because of the fact that the strange was rooted in the familiar, individuals in the metropolis had to be made sense of not only in terms of identity, community, civic association; but also in terms of a dramaturgy of desire, fascination and terror.”

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

EVENT for December

This Saturday, 12 Dec '09,

Presentation and talk by Ms Ein Lal (filamaker)

Cinema and the City

Long before the advent of films the human imagination invested both natural and built spaces with with human emotions. Painting and literature often used landscapes and city scapes to resonate with hope; with tranquility; or with despair and trauma. With the industrial revolution and the age of mechanical reproduction came film. Not only was the birth of film coincidental with the birth of the modern city- it was born in the city, was made by the city and was of the city in every way. Together with newspapers and the radio film served as a means of interpreting the city to the thousands who flocked in there daily, to become part of the urban working class. But while newspapers and the radio were more connected to the practical daily needs of city dwellers, film satisfied their craving for distraction ; for mass entertainment; for communally experienced consumer gratification.
The birth of film as an art form coincided with the theorizing of the modern industrial city as having the potential to produce a highly sophisticated urban environment; a uniquely new industrial architecture. Insofar as it was a city centred art form; insofar as its primary role was to depict human beings in their daily interactions with the city; films began to use built forms as the mise en scene that projected not only the reality of the city as a lived space but also the surreality of the city as an imagined space. What were the ingredients of this urban imaginary? how did films make sense of the individual in the metropoplis not only in terms of identity, community, civic association but also in terms of "a dramaturgy of desire, fascination and terror"?
I would like the discussion to be based on extracts from two very different films that I will be screening. Both films were made in Berlin and belong to the decade 1927 - 1937.
Berlin: Symphony of a City.by Walter Ruttman
"M" by Fritz Lang.

RSVP
arch I camp
+91 11 41060083
+91 9899457174

Thursday, December 3, 2009

COMING UP THIS MONTH! - Sneak Peak


This is an advance notification for this month's event.

The second Saturday of this month, that is the 12th of December, at 4:00 PM, there will be a presentation followed by discussion at our camp (address mentioned below) by

Ms. Ein Lall (Film maker), on

"Architecture in Bombay films"

About the Artist
Ein Lall has used the video documentary to celebrate the unique strength and creativity of women. She has directed several films on women artists, which have participated in international film festivals in Mumbai, Tokyo, New York, Paris, Taipei, and Trivandreum.
"[She] tackles the dynamic of cultural differences and commonalties in the politically divided subcontinent. [Her installations] and video projects draw on popular entertainment and advertising. (the Contours of New Art in Pakistan: Quddus Mirza)"
She was a participant in the Skowhegan Artist Residency, Maine in 2000 and the Khoj Artist Residency, Delhi in 2001. Her work has been shown in various exhibitions and film festivals internationally. Her short video piece "Mangoes" was awarded the Best Short Film award at the Karafilm Festival, Karachi, 2001.

Please RSVP @ +91-11-41060083
arch I camp
150, second floor
Kailash Hills