The post modern city in film and photography,
The figure of the individual in the crowd, how is the figure formed by place and time
Urban sociology, metropolis and mental life - influences other thinkers. In this essay he talks about the affect of the city on the individual, how the body functions in a space which is new, that is involved with dealing with traffic for example, how you negotiate other people and the environments and how this impacts upon us on as an individual
Surrealists influenced by the subject and there surrounded within the landscape of the city/ Lonely metropolitan painting here
Lewis Hine: documentary photography, picturing a vulnerable body in relation to the vastness of the city, relationship of the body to the city, imbalance of the risk to body in the construction of the city, artist is thinking about the resistance and being swallowed up by the city, how can the individual survive or change with the experience?
Louis Sullivan he coined the phrase form follows function,architect of the modern sky scraper, creator of the Guaranty Building, organic decoration influenced by the arts and crafts movement but than applies form follows function to the layout of the building rather than the external aesthetic. Building split into four areas are reflect and organizing of how the body, the building distracting a person moves and interacts though a space
A fire damages many buildings, this allowed Louis Sullivan to have a blank canvas to create the city he wanted, a city that is the american dream and place for work and commercialization, migration and immigration into the city for the reasons of work and commercialization the city provides and new life
Charles Scheeler, works for the ford company, photograph the ford motor company plant, have a modernist aesthetic, a celebration of the steel forms and shapes in space.how the factory environment works and how it affects the people that work there, the body becomes a part of the machinery in the factory, the movements are repetitive and machine like, coming together of the body and the machine, gaining maximum productivity, produce the most amount of good possible, process of production and consumption, affordable goods that are then brought by the workers of the factories
Modern Times - Charlie Chaplin, writes, directs and stars in the film, he struggles becoming part of the machine, causes havoc as a result, making a comment on this aspect of modernity, from a critical view, about the body being swallowed by the machine
Stock market crash of 1929, unemployment up dramatically, leads to the great depression, difficult social time, expansion of industry to contrast this at the time of mass depression
The Flaneur how appears in art and literature, a stroller, lounger or loafer, an upperclass gentlemen, has to upper class needs to have the time to wonder around the city, idleness put forward as creativity, A person how walks the city in order to experience it. Working class way of experiencing the city then the upper class version of strolling, observing the city, discussing and commenting on it but always being slightly removed from the city unlike working class who live as a part of the city
The flaneur - Walter Benjamin, observing the cafe society, an important figure in architecture and urban planner, how the city is used and arranged to maximized this experience, the arcade created to experience the city but inside and outside, the weather not ruining this experience
The photography as a flaneur, instead of making notes they use the camera to document the experience of the city, stealing images from the city, moments seen w within the crowd. Beautiful moments in the city, street photography, emerges through modernism.
The photographer is an armed version of the solitary walker reconnoitering, stalking, cruising the urban inferno, the voyeuristic stroller who discovers the city as a landscape of voluptuous extremes. Adept of the joys of watching, connoisseur of empathy, the flâneur finds the world 'picturesque.'
Feminist explore the ideas of a flaneuse, life in the city for a woman. The figure of the flaneur is male because women didn’t have the experience to do what a flanuer does, it was frowned upon with society of this time.
Susan Buck-morss, the only possible figure of woman on the street is a prostitute or a bag lady, lots of films and photographs us this stereotype, as well as in art. The woman isolated and dwarfed by the environment. Alone female figure in the city, a sense of forebode created, heavy use of black to represent an impending gloom.
Sophie Calle, uses the same principles, photographs maps the move of a man through the city, in an spying like style. Venice as the location for her work but also the location of the film ‘Don’t Look Now’ 1973, Nicolas Roeg. In venice the labyrinth of alleyways, get lost but always be in a space which is defined. Deals with grief and loss and trauma.
The motif of a detective also comes up in some other pieces of Sophie Calles works, she has someone film/photograph her while she does the same to the person photographing her
Cindy Sherman, an isolated figure in the urban environment, presents a film noir characters, the city and environment modern but the clothes of the model in the photo.
We project our experience in the photos but of the anonymity created by the photos and the buildings
Here is new york book, photographs of September 11, a collection of photos by civilians and by photographs, it’s referred to as a democracy of photos
Life imitating art, art imitating life? An uncomfortable experience of the woman in the city
Weegee, 1930’s and 1940’s a press photographer, style was to always appear at the scene of an emergency, the original crime photographer, work collected in a book called the naked city.
LA Noire video game, uses the setting of the 1940’s and 1930’s the time of film noire, uses the city as the landscape for the game.
Blade runner, mixing up now and the future 1982 and 2019, the retro feel of the 60’s and the future in 2019, representation of post modernism in film
The representation of public and private in the city, Lorca di Corcia, a trip wire triggers a flash, the camera uses a surveillance tool, a comment on how you are alone in the crowd, don’t know your neighbors and the people in the city. In his photography people not aware of the process and that they are being photographs, creates human expressions that can’t be labelled.
Walker Evans photographing with a concealed camera, and interesting exposure of internal city life, a haunting quality created by the picture, people but along and together within the city,
Joel Meyerowitz, the city as a bombardment of information, an image that doesn’t tell us where to look, intense saturated colour, no focus to the images, not asking us to look at person in the image, no part prioritized other another. Replicates being in a city, an unfamiliarity you feel in the city, unnerving not knowing where you are how to navigate the space and environment.
9/11 citizen journalism, is the end of the flaneur, the availability of photographic images, especially in times are crisis, we are all photographs, we are all going to be documenting something in this way, democratization of the photographic process.
Surveillance city, surveillance camera images used to convict the bombers, 19th century saw the invention of automated picture making, now in the 21st century the greatest invention is machines reading the images that we take and identifying them.
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