Urban, Historical, and Musical Loops: László Moholy-Nagy, Alexander Kluge, and the City Symphony Film

2020 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-103
Author(s):  
Sabine Haenni
Keyword(s):  
Time Lapse ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Short Film ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Moving Images ◽  
New Form ◽  
Alexander Kluge ◽  
The City ◽  
Techno Music

Abstract Focusing on Alexander Kluge’s short film Chicago im Zeitraffer (Chicago in Time Lapse), this article inserts his work with moving images into a larger genealogy of the city symphony film. Elucidating his relationship with the historical cinematic avant-garde, as Kluge borrows and departs from both László Moholy-Nagy’s urban vision and Bertolt Brecht’s conception of urban capitalist modernity, the article shows that Kluge’s film reorients time-lapse cinematography and opens up a new form of perception. By incorporating transnational techno music, the film suggests a concept of body and subjectivity that appears as a consequence of an increasingly voracious capitalist modernity while embedding a sense of obstinacy and self-propulsion. Nonetheless, the film’s reliance on transatlantic techno risks excluding the Black musical and social contexts that inspired it. Throughout the article the “loop,” or the traffic circle (Kreisverkehr), is understood as a governing metaphor that helps explain Kluge’s vision of contemporary urbanity, historical connectivity, and musical influence.

Intersectional Avant-Garde: Paul Leni’s Rebus-Film Series and the Confluence of Experimental Visual Styles

2021 ◽  
pp. 97-115
Author(s):  
Erica Tortolani
Keyword(s):  
Modern Art ◽  
Short Film ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Short Films ◽  
Film Series ◽  
Magazine Articles ◽  
The City

This chapter focuses on Leni’s eight-part short film series, Rebus-Film (1925-26), and the ways that it relates to various avant-garde art movements of the 1910s and 1920s. Using Rebus-Film Nr. 1 as a starting point, the essay analyses the series’ connections to contemporaneous artistic movements such as Cubism, Futurism, and Dada and to cinematic styles and genres of the time, including Soviet montage and the ‘City Symphony’ films. To supplement this analysis, the essay draws upon reviews, trade magazine articles, and other written records from the period. This chapter sheds light on the ways that critics and audiences received the films and regarded Leni’s use of experimental aesthetic styles. While it is debatable as to whether Leni considered himself a modern art practitioner, a close reading of these short films shows that they are in dialogue with the visual avant-garde. This chapter also discusses the ways that the series fits into, and extends, Leni’s German and American careers.

Subverting Cartography: The Situationists and Maps of the City

1996 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 405-427 ◽  
Author(s):  
D Pinder
Keyword(s):  
Urban Space ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Main Part ◽  
Situationist International ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Political Group ◽  
New Form ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
The City

It is increasingly recognised that cartography is a contested practice, embedded within particular sets of power relations, and that maps are bound up with the production and reproduction of social life. The author begins by emphasising the importance of these issues for considering how the city has been mapped and represented through cartographic schemes, and draws on debates around the power and politics of mapping, and contentions that maps are ‘preeminently a language of power, not of protest’. However, it is argued that maps and mapping have not been entirely the preserve of the powerful, and the main part of the paper is devoted to examining some specific challenges to ‘official’ cartographies of the city. The author focuses on the radical art and political group, the Situationist International, and its avant-garde predecessors of the Lettrist International, who sought to appropriate urban maps and cartographic discourses and to develop a new form of ‘psychogeographical mapping’ during the 1950s and 1960s. The paper provides an account of their subversions, and an assessment of how their concerns might inform contemporary discussions on cartography and the mapping of urban space.

scholarly journals Re-presenting histories

2021 ◽  
pp. 13-34
Author(s):  
Frances Guerin
Keyword(s):  
Short Film ◽  
Historical Narratives ◽  
German History ◽  
The Past ◽  
Critical Awareness ◽  
Moving Images ◽  
Alexander Kluge ◽  
Nazi Past ◽  
Historical Moment ◽  
The Relationship

This article rereads Alexander Kluge and Peter Schamoni’s short film Brutality in Stone (1961) in light of more contemporary scholarly interest in the architectural ruin. This leads to an analysis that challenges, or recasts cinematic assumptions about the past. I begin my analysis through attention to Brutality in Stone’s radical strategies of montage, marriage of archival stills and newly-shot documentary moving images, merging of real and imagined, past and present, sound and image. These formal strategies are observed through the lens of theories of ruin, Kluge’s own writings on cinema and history, the references to the historiography of Nazi architecture, and contemporary theories of ruination in architecture. I then reveal the film as a type of counter-memory, promoting a critical awareness of, rather than espousing an ideologically motivated enthusiasm for the histories and memories of the past as they have been represented in architectural monuments, cinematic and historical narratives. Specifically, a contemporary reconsideration of Brutality in Stone contributes to rethinking the relationship to the ongoing lessons of German history and its cinematic representation in the contemporary moment. Keeping alive the memories of the past has never been more urgent as we move into an historical moment when memories of the Nazi past are becoming ever dimmer.

The Theatrical Memory of Space: from Piscator and Brecht to Belgrade

2005 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 358-366 ◽  
Author(s):  
Silvija Jestrovic
Keyword(s):  
Postdoctoral Fellow ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Cultural Spaces ◽  
Theatre Studies ◽  
The University ◽  
The City

In this article, Silvija Jestrovic introduces the notion of spatial inter-performativity to discuss theatre's relationship to actual political and cultural spaces. Focusing on the Berlin of the 1920s in performances of Brecht and Piscator, then on a street procession of the Générik Vapeur troupe that took place in Belgrade in 1994, she examines how theatrical and political spaces refer to and transform one another. Silvija Jestrovic was a SSHRC postdoctoral fellow at York University in Toronto, and has recently taken up an appointment in the School of Theatre Studies at the University of Warwick. She is currently working on a book-length project entitled Avant-Garde and the City.

Kharkiv Scenography School of O. Khvostenko-Khvostov: The Experience of Professionalization

2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 (02) ◽  
pp. 85-95
Author(s):  
V. Chechyk ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Teaching Practice ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Music And Literature ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Theatrical Design ◽  
Outstanding Teachers ◽  
History Of ◽  
Compulsory Subject ◽  
The City

The article is devoted to the early years of formation of Kharkiv scenography school and to the creative and pedagogical activities of Olexander Khvostenko-Khvostov (1895–1967). It was reported that the bold experiments of this artist, in the field of theatrical design of 1918–1922, made him one of the central figures of Kharkiv avant-garde scene (“Mystery Buff”; “The Army in the City”; “Lilyuli”, etc), strengthening the reputation of an innovator and causing the beginning of pedagogical activity at the Kharkiv Art College in 1921. The theatrical and decorative workshop was opened at the faculty of painting at the Kharkiv Art College in 1922, it was headed by A. Khvostenko-Khvostov. Among the first graduates were such bright alumni as A. Volnenko, P. Suponin, V. Ryftin, A. Bosulaev, B. Chernyshov, and others. Fundamental provisions of the educational program, which A. Khvostenko borrowed from the teaching practice of A. Exter (Kyiv Studio, 1918–1920), reflected the formation idea of future theater artist’s synthetic thinking. It is known that the education program of the Theater and Scenery Workshop of KAC, equally with the Studio of A. Exter, in addition to the subjects common to all students of painting and drawing faculty as special subjects (theatrical scenery, technique and technology of the stage, etc.) included also the history of theater (I. Turkeltaub), material culture, costume, music and literature (A. Beletsky). O. Khvostenko paid special attention to theoretical and practical issues of composition. He introduced the course of fundamentals of directing (V. Vasilko) as a compulsory subject. Much of what the students mastered at the Workshop was tested on the professional stages of Kharkiv theaters. Associated with the Kharkiv Art School for a quarter of a century (1921–1946), O. Khvostenko-Khvostov has not still been included in the pantheon of its outstanding teachers.

La cittŕ degli espressionisti: scenografie cinematografiche

STORIA URBANA ◽  
2009 ◽  
pp. 47-67
Author(s):  
Claudia Lamberti
Keyword(s):  
Urban Atmosphere ◽  
Set Design ◽  
Urban Settings ◽  
Use Of Space ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Film Studios ◽  
The City

- The essay compares the images of the city defined by the Expressionist movement and the city images in the films of the time. Expressionist architects discovered that film-set design gave them a chance to experiment with their artistic skills. At the same time, film studios could not shoot outdoors easily and so were forced to rely on constructed sets. All this worked out as an incentive for architectural invention. Sets became an apt proving ground for the new expressiveness of the architects as well as a way to experiment with the use of space without limits and constraints. This essay examines the cases of 6 films whose elements are specifically and directly attributable to the Expressionist culture. Here the case of the city encompasses both set design and the urban atmosphere in films linked with the avant-garde movements. The essay also provides a filmography of the most important films with urban settings shot by German artists in the 1920s and 1930s.

scholarly journals Katherine Mansfield and Periodical Culture

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris Mourant
Keyword(s):  
Social Contexts ◽  
Woman Writer ◽  
The Political ◽  
Katherine Mansfield ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Literary Journal ◽  
Depth Study ◽  
New Perspective ◽  
Story Writer ◽  
The Many

Katherine Mansfield’s contemporaries knew her primarily as a contributor to magazines and periodicals. In 1922, for instance, Wyndham Lewis described her as ‘the famous New Zealand Mag.-story writer’. This book provides the first in-depth study of Mansfield’s engagement in periodical culture, examining her contributions to the political weekly The New Age, the avant-garde little magazine Rhythm and the literary journal The Athenaeum. Reading these writings against the editorial strategies and professional cultures of each periodical, Chris Mourant situates Mansfield’s work within networks of production and uncovers the many ways in which she engaged with the writings of others and responded to the political, aesthetic and social contexts of early twentieth-century periodical culture. By examining Mansfield’s ambivalent position as a colonial woman writer working both within and against the London literary establishment, in particular, this book provides a new perspective on Mansfield as a ‘colonial-metropolitan modernist’ and proto-postcolonial writer.

scholarly journals The illustrative concept of the production of “City” by V.Pidmohylnuy

2018 ◽  
pp. 46-54
Author(s):  
N. Ivanova ◽  
А. Mykhailova
Keyword(s):  
Publishing House ◽  
Marketing Strategies ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Modern City ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
New Meanings ◽  
Publishing Policy ◽  
Visual Text ◽  
Publishing Strategy ◽  
The City

The research is devoted to the analysis of the editorial and publishing policy of “Solomiia Pavlychko’s Publishing House “Osnovy”. One of the important tools of “Osnovy” publishing strategy at the present stage is the modernization of its product, which consists of the original visualization of the artistic text. In accordance with the new publishing policy, “Osnovy” launches the “Alternative Series of Ukrainian Classics” with the illustrations of young Ukrainian artists.The scientific novelty of our research is the conceptual comprehension of the publishing project “Alternative Series of Ukrainian Classics”. The visual version of the novel “The City” by V. Pidmohylnyi is of special attention. In the study, we suggest that the name “Alternative Series ...” is a successful marketing technique, as for many readers, classics is related to the official ones, sometimes boring and formalized “school” ideas about literature. So, it was planned that the concept “alternative” would become a modern slogan for the project and expand the audience of potential readers. Thus, the works of Ukrainian classics received an entirely new illustration for a modern Ukrainian.The analysis of the illustrative presentation of novel “The City” by V. Pidmohylnyi, published in “Osnovy” in 2017, affords the ground for the suggestion that the work became a truly alternative in the sense of avant-garde design. The article emphasises the idea that “The City” (2017), which is being investigated by us, is especially distinguished among other reprints of classical Ukrainian literature by the collision and dialogue of the verbal urban text of V. Pidmohylnyi (1927) with the avant-garde, postmodern, comic visual text of modern city by M. Pavliuk (2017). New meanings of the verbal text are born on the collision of two urban discourses. Thus, through the illustrative material, the modern city, described in the novel by V. Pidmohylnyi 90 years ago, becomes relevant and modern for the citizens of 2017. So, we are dealing with the postmodern illustrative design of the classical edition, which through the latest forms of visualization, creates new visions and contexts.The offered study states that “Osnovy” is not only a publishing house, creating a quality publishing product concerning the latest news, but also uses modern marketing strategies to implement its products.

scholarly journals A razão agoniza em uma casa vazia: modernismo arquitetônico no filme O Desafio

Revista Prumo ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (8) ◽  
pp. 22-31
Author(s):  
Carlos Eduardo Pinto
Keyword(s):  
Military Coup ◽  
The Political ◽  
Urban Representation ◽  
Brazilian Cinema ◽  
New Form ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The City

Paulo César Saraceni’s The dare (1965) is a milestone of the Brazilian Cinema Novo. Considered the first cinematographic movie to openly address the 1964 civil-military coup, it also inaugurated a lineage of intimate Rio films, committed to reading beyond the representation of the city through postcard images. The film pays special attention to the scenarios, especially houses and apartments, defining the political and psychological contours of the characters through their interaction with the environments. In this article I make explicit the impact caused by this new form of urban representation and, finally, I make the analysis of two sequences, in which an almost empty modernist house is set against a burning, ruined pension. The aim is to demonstrate that, while the contours of these scenarios define the protagonists’ conflicts, the actions taken in each environment add meaning to the architecture.

scholarly journals Interweaving Realities: Spoken Language and Moving Images in the Sonne halt!, Experimental Film by Ferry Radax

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luka Bešlagić
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Context ◽  
Narrative Structure ◽  
Spoken Language ◽  
Experimental Film ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Moving Image ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Moving Images ◽  
Narrative Cinema ◽  
Movie Script

This paper analyses the experimental film Sonne halt! by Ferry Radax, an Austrian filmmaker renowned for his unconventional approach to cinematic practice. Filmed and edited between the end of the 1950s and early 1960s, the film at first may appear to be a belated homage to the previous European experiments in avant-garde cinema, already carried out a few decades earlier. However, since there have been no great ‘historical avant-garde’ movements in Vienna in the period between the two world wars – according to the novel argument made by Klaus Kastberger – it was already the middle of the 20th century when the ‘original’ avant-garde strategies were finally acknowledged in Austria, and simultaneously appropriated by the ‘neo-avant-garde’. In this peculiar historico-cultural context Sonne halt!, in its fragmentary non-narrative structure which resembles Dadaist or Surrealist playfulness and openness, innovatively and radically interweaved two disparate film registers: moving image and spoken language. Various sentences arbitrarily enounced throughout the film – which have their origin in Konrad Bayer’s unfinished experimental, pseudo-autobiographical, montage novel der sechste sinn – do not constitute dialogues or narration of a traditional movie script but rather a random collection of fictional and philosophical statements. At certain moments there is a lack of rapport between moving image and speech – an experimental attempt by Ferry Radax to challenge one of the most common principles of sound and narrative cinema. By deconstructing Sonne halt! to its linguistic and cinematic aspects, this article particularly focuses on the role of verbal commentaries within the film. Article received: December 28, 2017; Article accepted: January 10, 2018; Published online: April 15, 2018; Original scholarly paper How to cite this article: Bešlagić, Luka. "Interweaving Realities: Spoken Language and Moving Images in the Sonne halt!, Experimental Film by Ferry Radax." AM Journal of Art and Media Studies 15 (2018): . doi: 10.25038/am.v0i15.228

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