Explosive Pluralisms

2019 ◽  
pp. 137-173
Author(s):  
Emily Richmond Pollock
Keyword(s):  
Spherical Shape ◽  
Formal Structure ◽  
Art Form ◽  
Archival Documents ◽  
Serial Construction ◽  
A Site

A specifically Germanic tradition of opera was renewed in Zimmermann’s Die Soldaten, an ambitious serial construction saddled with an antiwar moral. Zimmermann approached the problem of tradition by recasting opera as an inherently monstrous, pluralistic, and multivalent art form. Rather than steering around Wagner, Berg, and the modernists who had problematized opera, Zimmermann regarded them as a legacy worth confronting. He programmatically addressed modern music’s relationship to history, referring to old forms as Berg had done and incorporating new influences in an updated Gesamtkunstwerk. He positioned opera as a site for the serialist realization of his concept of the “spherical shape of time” (Kugelgestalt der Zeit). His allusions shaped the work’s formal structure and characterization, the rigidity of which in turn suggested an analogy to the inevitability of societal oppression. Archival documents show Zimmermann negotiating a balance between serialist control and Expressionist verve.

Video Space: A Site for Choreography

Leonardo ◽  
2000 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 275-280 ◽  
Author(s):  
Douglas Rosenberg
Keyword(s):  
Time And Space ◽  
Hybrid Form ◽  
Collaborative Process ◽  
Art Form ◽  
A Site

Since the advent of the film art form, the author finds, cinema and dance have engaged in an al-most unbroken courtship, each appropriating techniques and styles from the object of affec-tion. A hybrid form, video dance, has resulted; its recording me-dium may be thought of as its site. The architecture of this site provides a distinctive context for the critique of dances created for it. The collaborative process nec-essary to realize the potential of video dance is found to require a reconstruction of the dancing body as unencumbered by the re-straints of time and space.

Engaged Musicology, Political Action, and Social Justice

Black Opera ◽  
2018 ◽  
pp. 193-208
Author(s):  
Naomi André
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Political Activism ◽  
Cutting Edge ◽  
New Production ◽  
Art Form ◽  
Opera House ◽  
A Site

This chapter examines a new analytical paradigm called “Engaged Musicology” that allows for reading opera as an art form that has potential for being a site for critical inquiry, political activism, and social change. It is fleshed out in two real-life situations: a cutting-edge new production of Bizet’s Carmen (a Trans Carmen in prison) and a concert version performance of Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail. The potential of an engaged musicological practice allows old and new, standard and underrepresented narratives to be voiced in opera. Such a practice would both invite new audiences into the opera house and present traditional opera goers with new realities.

A Free Hand: The Art Film versus the Art of Documentary

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Claire Thomson
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Heritage ◽  
International Exchange ◽  
Site Specific ◽  
Institutional Practice ◽  
Plastic Arts ◽  
Art Form ◽  
Production And Distribution ◽  
Art Film ◽  
A Site ◽  
The Town

This chapter focuses on the short art film, a genre which emerged around 1950 to mediate the visual and plastic arts, often for international exchange. Danish films about national cultural heritage and the applied arts were the focus for state-sponsored film. These often circulated very widely: the production and distribution of Shaped by Danish Hands (Hagen Hasselbalch, 1948) and Thorvaldsen (Carl Th. Dreyer, 1949) are detailed as examples of Danish films seen by millions of international viewers. The chapter also highlights the artistry of the informational filmmakers themselves, as institutional practice: the principle that the director should have a ‘free hand’ to interpret the brief. An example of an alternative circuit for the screening of art films in Denmark is detailed: art film screening series at Thorvaldsen’s Museum. Debate about the extent to which state-sponsored filmmaking should pursue art and to what extent documentary itself was an art form marks the late 1950s, as changes in leadership and funding shift practice and priorities within Dansk Kulturfilm. The chapter ends with a discussion of one of the agency’s final productions, Herning 65, which captures a site-specific artwork in a factory in the town of Herning.

FORGETTING APARTHEID: HISTORY, CULTURE AND THE BODY OF A NUN

Africa ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 86 (3) ◽  
pp. 472-503 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leslie J. Bank ◽  
Benedict Carton
Keyword(s):  
Civil Disobedience ◽  
Political Mobilization ◽  
African National Congress ◽  
The Body ◽  
Archival Documents ◽  
National Congress ◽  
White Person ◽  
Fatal Attack ◽  
A Site ◽  
The City

ABSTRACTIn 1952, the African National Congress (ANC) initiated its Defiance Campaign, opposing apartheid laws through organized civil disobedience and African nationalism. On Sunday 9 November, the city of East London became a site of political mobilization when 1,500 Xhosa-speaking ANC sympathizers peacefully protested in Bantu Square, the hub of a township named Duncan Village. Police arrived and fired on the crowd, igniting ‘spontaneous riots’. An Afrikaner salesman and an Irish nun were killed in the ensuing unrest. Rumours circulated that a mob ate the white woman; troop reinforcements then fanned into the township to wage a retaliatory war, shooting and bayoneting their victims. Upwards of 200 Africans may have died but only nine fatalities were recorded. If the revised toll is credible, the bloodshed exceeds that of Sharpeville, the worst one-day massacre in apartheid South Africa. Oral sources explain why the slaughter in Duncan Village is not widely known. Township residents secretly carted the dead to rural graves, fearing to report their losses as people mourned the tragic slaying of the nun named Sister Aidan. Today, ANC rulers of East London seem content to silence the memory of a mass killing reputedly spawned by chaos and cannibalism. At the centre of this incident is Sr Aidan's mutilation for the purpose of makingmuthi, a shocking incident that dominates the story of violence on Black Sunday. Using archival documents and oral histories, and incorporating the methodologies of Jennifer Cole, Donald Donham and Veena Das, this article reconstructs a narrative of ‘critical events’ surrounding the nun'smuthimurder. The scrutinized witness testimonies relay how township residents framed their fierce encounters with a symbolic (white person) and ubiquitous (militarized police) enemy. Oral sources reject the notion that an aimless ‘riot’ occurred on 9 November. Instead, they reflect on cultural enactments of purposeful violence through scripted assaults andmuthiritual. Ultimately, they view the fatal attack on Sr Aidan as an evolving customary act of defensive retribution and symbolic warning, submerging truths in apartheid and hindering reconciliations in democracy.

scholarly journals Ilyushin Il-2 in Archival and Architectural Manifestation of Historical Memory of the Great Patriotic War of 1941–45

2021 ◽  
pp. 1245-1256
Author(s):  
Anna V. Andreeva ◽  
◽  
Ludmila M. Artamonova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Historical Memory ◽  
State Archive ◽  
Russian State ◽  
Great Patriotic War ◽  
Archival Documents ◽  
History Of ◽  
On Line ◽  
Cultural Code ◽  
A Site

The article examines and compares archival documents from the Russian State Archive in Samara (RGA v g. Samara) and Monument to the Ilyushin Il-2 as components of the “site of commemoration,” which has become a part of historical and cultural code of the city. The example of perception of this national and local symbol of the war reveals features of and prospects for constructing historical memory; detailed written evidences, vivid visual images, large-scale architectural and urban planning solutions are used. The theoretical basis for the research is Maurice Halbwachs’ concept of “historical memory” and Pierre Nora’s “lieux de m?moire.” Russian and foreign scientists are developing these concepts within the frameworks of interdisciplinary “memory studies.” The important role in these studies belongs to historians. Victory in the Great Patriotic War of 1941–45 became a backbone idea for our country. It gives meaning to the historical process in the 20th century, manifesting in numerous and various empirical data, events, and artifacts. The Ilyushin Il-2 became a significant “site of memory” in Samara for two reasons. Firstly, many documents on its creation are stored in the Russian State Archive in Samara and are available to researchers and constantly exhibited (on-line as well as real). Secondly, the Ilyushin Il-2 visually symbolizes Samara’s contribution to the Great Victory, as the aircraft, manufactured and restored here, became a center of the composition of the monument to military and labour glory of the citizens in the days of the Great Patriotic War. This monument was opened in 1973. Its last reconstruction was carried out in 2015–17 in order to preserve this unique historical relic. The aircraft-monument and written evidence on the history of its creation, destinies of inventors, production organizers, engineers, workers are situated not far from one other. The Constructor Ilyushin Square and the Memory Square, where the monument and the archive building stand, are connected by Moscow Avenue. It is not just a transport artery, but a pivot of historical memory uniting its documentary, material, and artistic incarnations into general cultural space, in which the Il-2 plays its important role as a "site of memory."

scholarly journals THE ELEPHANT SHOOTING: COLONIAL LAW AND INDIRECT RULE IN KAOKO, NORTHWESTERN NAMIBIA, IN THE 1920s AND 1930s

2007 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
pp. 245-266 ◽  
Author(s):  
LORENA RIZZO
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
Criminal Case ◽  
The South ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
Sociopolitical Control ◽  
Archival Documents ◽  
Central Argument ◽  
A Site ◽  
Indirect Rule

ABSTRACTThe law as a means of sociopolitical control in colonial states has gained significance as an issue in the recent historiography of Africa. This article discusses the making of a criminal case in colonial Kaoko, northwestern Namibia in the 1920s and 30s. It focuses on the problem of African voice and narrative and the ways in which they have been transformed into written evidence in the course of legal investigation. It demonstrates that the archival documents which emerged from this case require careful methodological scrutiny if they are to be used for the reconstruction of the region's past. It goes beyond colonial law as constituting a particular discourse to conceive colonial law as a space for intervention and agency for both colonized and colonizers. The central argument raised in the article is that while the South African administration in northwestern Namibia allegedly aimed at prosecuting culprits and securing evidence for their transgressions, men and women in Kaoko used colonial law as an arena for the negotiation of social and political issues. Concerned with the case's impact on the configuration of gender, the article shows how colonial law became both a site of male representation and power, and a space for female contestation of male claims to sociopolitical mastery.

designing sound in public space in australia: a comparative study based on the australian sound design project's online gallery and database

2005 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 129-140
Author(s):  
ros bandt
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Interactive Media ◽  
Sound Art ◽  
Sound Design ◽  
Design Processes ◽  
Current Trends ◽  
Art Form ◽  
The Right ◽  
A Site ◽  
Hybrid Art

the purpose of this paper is to articulate some of the ways in which australian sound practitioners are already designing sound in the public domain so that current trends and practices can be examined, compared and contrasted. this paper interrogates the new hybrid art form, public sound art, and the design processes associated with it as it occurs in public space in australia. the right to quiet has been defined as a public commons (franklin 1993). public space in australia is becoming increasingly sound designed. this article investigates the variety of approaches by sound artists and practitioners who have installed in public space through a representative sample of works drawn from the australian sound design project's online gallery and article, http://www.sounddesign.unimelb.edu.au, a site dedicated to the multimedia publishing of diverse sound designs installed in public space in australia, as well as its international outreach hearing place. works include permanent public and ephemeral sculptures, time-dense computerised sound installations, museum designs, exhibits in airports, art galleries, car parks, digital and interactive media exhibitions, and real-time virtual habitats on and off the web. the degree of interactivity in the sound-designed artworks varies greatly from work to work. stylistic features and design processes are identified in each work and compared and contrasted as a basis for examining the characteristics of the genre as a whole and its impact on the soundscape now and in the future.

Exploiting excavation archives: Herculaneum from 1927 to 1961 as a case-study

2016 ◽  
Vol 29 ◽  
pp. 423-437
Author(s):  
Nicolas Monteix
Keyword(s):  
Subjective Perception ◽  
The Past ◽  
Archival Documents ◽  
Archival Documentation ◽  
A Site ◽  
Wooden Furniture ◽  
The City ◽  
The Town ◽  
Source Of Information

“Questi giornali di scavo di Ercolano sono una miseria di forma e di sostanza”“The only source of information for most of the finds of the site [Pompeii] remains the pages of the Giornali degli Scavi”With the multiplication of excavations, archaeological research (and even rescue archaeology) increasingly faces sites previously explored and thereby has to deal with documentation made with different methods and of different scopes than those of today. Beyond the historiographical issues and differences in ways of describing the past as viewed from the present, such an archival documentation is generally fragmentary, often scattered between various institutions or in private archives. The aim of this paper is to contribute to a debate on an important issue: how might we best make use of previous material, from archival documents to publications?Herculaneum can exemplify the main processes one might face while studying a site excavated in the past. Initially explored through tunnels, it was excavated in open-area excavations in four periods (1828-55; 1869-75; 1927-61; 1996-98). Most of the city as we know it was uncovered by A. Maiuri (1886-1963) while he was Soprintendente and director of the Museum of Naples (1924-61). He managed to pass himself off as the only excavator of Herculaneum, and such a view was consolidated by the (incomplete) publication of his excavations in 1958. Up until the late 1990s, anything written about Herculaneum relied on his synthesis, with only a few re-interpretations based on observations made on a site that had been restored and presented by him. S. Mols was the first to use other sources to understand better the context of the wooden furniture discovered throughout the town, namely the daybooks (Giornale degli scavi di Ercolano [henceforth GSE]) composed during the excavation. Since then, slowly but surely, many of those involved in the study of Herculaneum started using those diaries, hoping to have a more complete and less subjective perception of the excavation — at least, one less influenced by Maiuri.

scholarly journals Glenn Gould, Spliced

2016 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Garreth P. Broesche
Keyword(s):  
Walter Benjamin ◽  
Original Research ◽  
Technology Support ◽  
Similar Relationship ◽  
Ontological Status ◽  
Audio Analysis ◽  
Extant Literature ◽  
Art Form ◽  
Archival Documents ◽  
Historical Truth

Glenn Gould often drew an analogy: live theater is to film as concert performance is to studio recording. In his writings, Gould cites one finished “performance” created by splicing together two contrasting interpretations of a piece; through editing, the finished version somehow becomes more than the sum of its parts. Here Gould’s use of editing appears to invoke montage technique in a manner similar to one of its uses in film: contrasting images (interpretations) are juxtaposed, bequeathing responsibility to the viewer (listener) to infer meaning not explicitly present in either. To paraphrase Walter Benjamin, the use of montage technique separates filmmaking from live theater, altering the ontological status of the former and elevating it to an independent art form. Do the ways in which Gould employs technology support the claim that there is a similar relationship between live and studio music?For all the extant literature on Gould, there is little that discusses—in detail—his actual studio process. Scholars have tended to take Gould at his word. However, I believe that only by placing the focus squarely on the historical truth may we evaluate his recording/filmmaking analogy. This paper centers on a detailed audio analysis of one Gould performance: his 1981 recording of a Brahms Ballade. I will present original research into archival documents and clips of studio outtakes, and I will discuss my own re-creation of Gould’s splicing scheme.My research allows me to make two claims regarding Gould’s studio process. First, Gould’s understanding of the function of studio recording is quite different from the commonplace notion that that recording studio is a means to create a simulacrum of the live event. And, second, his use of montage technique is quite a bit “weaker” than his own words on the recording/filmmaking analogy might lead one to believe.

Dumps

Site Reading ◽  
2018 ◽  
pp. 51-72
Author(s):  
David J. Alworth
Keyword(s):  
Human Subjects ◽  
Literary Form ◽  
Formal Structure ◽  
The Novel ◽  
A Site ◽  
Work And Life

This chapter considers the work and life of William S. Burroughs, and proposes that Naked Lunch (1959) constructs something like a nightmare image of Latourian sociality: a collective of human subjects and nonhuman objects governed by the logic of putrefaction, or “translation” run amok. The novel not only visualizes a welter of “literal garbage” decomposing in a dumpsite, which Burroughs names the “junk world,” but also assumes the formal structure of a landfill, a site governed by the logic of putrefaction. In other words, rather than simply representing the dump, Burroughs enacts a mimetic relation to it, thereby converting spatial into literary form.

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