The official showreel companion to framed familiarity in 4 acts : A defamiliarization of the tropes of architectural practice, through an expanded frame of view and frame rate

In the spirit of Resier and Umemoto’s Atlas of Novel Tectonics, this work does not propose solutions to a stated problem in the field of architecture. Instead it provokes an entry into subjects that are taken for granted, yet are in dire need of re-framing in a postdigital age of architecture. This proposal for speculative architectures that are only possible through animation, is antithesis to the format of the printed book. The format of this document assumes that it is not viewed alone but is treated as a behind the scenes companion to the 3 minute showreel “Framed Familiarity in 4 Acts” Animation is better than simulation. Animation unhinged my treatment of digital matter. It presented a far more curious and ambiguous vision of the ubiquitous objects of our digital interfaces

The Eye in Motion: Mid-Victorian Fiction and Moving-Image Technologies

This thesis reads selected works of fiction by three mid-Victorian writers (Charlotte Brontë, Charles Dickens, and George Eliot) alongside contemporaneous innovations and developments in moving-image technologies, or what have been referred to by historians of film as ‘pre-cinematic devices’. It looks specifically at the moving panorama, diorama, dissolving magic lantern slides, the kaleidoscope, and persistence of vision devices such as the phenakistiscope and zoetrope, and ranges across scientific writing, journalism, letters, and paintings to demonstrate the scope and popularity of visual motion devices. By exploring this history of optical technologies I show how their display, mechanism, and manual operation contributed to a broader cultural and literary interest in the phenomenological experience of animation, decades before the establishment of cinematography as an industry, technology, and viewing practice. Through a close reading of a range of mid-Victorian novels, this thesis identifies and analyses the literary use of language closely associated with moving-image technologies to argue that the Victorian literary imagination reflected upon, drew from, and incorporated reference to visual and technological animation many decades earlier than critics, focusing usually on early twentieth-century cinema and modernist literature, have allowed. It develops current scholarship on Victorian visual culture and optical technologies by a close reading of the language of moving-image devices—found in advertisements, reviews, and descriptions of their physiological operation and spectacle—alongside the choices Victorian authors made to describe precisely how their characters perceived, how they imagined, remembered, and mentally relived particular scenes and images, and how the readers of their texts were encouraged to imaginatively ‘see’ the animated unfolding of the plot and the material dimensionality of its world through a shared understanding of this language of moving images

Dashiell Hammett, life of a film noir character

Actas del Segundo Congreso Internacional de Historia y Cine organizado por el Instituto de Cultura y Tecnología Miguel de Unamuno y celebrado del 9 al 11 de septiembre de 2010 en la Universidad Carlos III de MadridAnálisis de la biografía de Dashiell Hammett (1894-1961), sus inicios como detective privado, su labor posterior como novelista y guionista, su relación con la escritora Lillian Hellman, su afiliación al Partido Comunista de los Estados Unidos de América y sus problemas con el Comité de Actividades Antiamericanas (HUAC), a través de las películas Julia (1977, Fred Zinnemann), Hammett (1982, Wim Wenders) y de los telefilmes The Case of Dashiell Hammett (1982, Stephen Talbot), Citizen Cohn (1992, Frank Pierson) y Dash & Lilly (1999, Kathy Bates).Revision of Dashiell Hammett's biography (1894-1961), that is, his first steps as a private detective, his later work as a novelist and scriptwriter, his relationship with the writer Lillian Hellman and his affiliation to the American Communist party together with his troubles with the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA); all of it analysed through the films Julia (1977, Fred Zinnemann), Hammett (1982, Wim Wenders) and the television films The Case of Dashiell Hammett (1982, Stephen Talbot), Citizen Cohn (1992, Frank Pierson) and Dash & Lilly (1999, Kathy Bates).Publicad

Stereoscopy On The Silver Screen: The Analyticon And Early Cinema In Edinburgh, Scotland

The Modern Marvel Company was incorporated in Edinburgh in 1897, with a remit to educate and entertainment. Building on the wider popularisation of science and radical changes in pedagogy, the company exploited various optical technologies to fulfil an ideal of universal education. The cinematograph and the Analyticon regularly shared the same bill; the latter was a stereoscopic technology built upon the principle of polarised light that depended upon a silver screen to work. Within the context of Edinburgh, stereoscopy directed shaped the ideological and aesthetic character of early cinema. This paper adopts tropes of traditional technological history by detailing the Analyticon’s technical workings, but it also adopts the principles of New Cinema History by situating this technology within a nuanced social context. In doing so, this paper offers a fuller understanding of early cinema’s aesthetic, social and cultural significance in Edinburgh, and its relationship with the wider visual culture of the 1890s

Book Review: “Animated Landscapes: History, Form and Function, edited by ChrisPallant”

Animation is pervasive. As Suzanne Buchan has observed, “[i]t is transforming cinema, is the basis for computer games, is used throughout the web, and advertising and propaganda learned early on its power to astonish, influence and coerce” (1). Animated landscape, therefore, cannot be simply understood as a background for films or a decorative image that moves; instead, it should be considered in broader artistic, technological, philosophical, cultural and political contexts. Arising from the Society for Animation Studies International Conference held in 2013 in Los Angeles, California, and edited by Chris Pallant, Animated Landscapes: History, Form and Function aims to address such issues and explore the rich and challenging terrain of animated landscape. Divided into five parts, the collection is organised according to a logical categorisation and order, bringing together fifteen essays that investigate various aspects of animated landscape, from histories to forms and functions

Perceptual alchemy

The farther we peer into the depths of human consciousness, the subatomic realm of quantum physics or the vast expanse of the observable universe, the more our notion of an objective physical reality or a predetermined, public, external world is challenged. With each new door we open, an entirely new set of questions is revealed. The world we perceive is never a direct representation, but even knowing how constructed our perception of an external reality is, are we capable of letting go of it? Through perceptual alchemy, my work probes the threshold between our constructed reality and the ‘external world’, refocusing the viewer on the internal aspects of visual perception as it is mediated through our senses. By presenting a series of visual phenomena such as a cloud of pixelated light, static objects that appear to move in our peripheral vision, immaterial materials, and physical holograms, the viewer is encouraged to confront the impossibility of the situation and come to terms with their framed interpretation

New York: the animated city

The urban landscape of New York City is one that is familiar to many, but, through the medium of animation, this familiarity has been consistently challenged. Often metamorphic, and always meticulously constructed, animated imagery encourages reflective thinking. Focusing on the themes of construction, destruction, and interactivity, this article seeks to cast critical light upon the animated double life that New York City has lived through the following moving image texts: Disney’s Fantasia 2000 (1999), Patrick Jean’s computer-generated short Pixels (2009), and Rockstar Games’ open-world blockbuster Grand Theft Auto IV (2008)

Psychedelic soldiers and tragic surfers: John Milius’ “Apocalypse Now” (1969)

This article examines John Milius’ 1969, first draft, screenplay of Apocalypse Now. Submitted by American Zoetrope to Warner Brothers as part of their development deal aimed at creating films for the ‘youth market,’ Milius’ screenplay explores the Californian counterculture from an alternative perspective to that of his contemporaries. Pitching the countercultural thinking of hippies as a dangerous deviancy from American post-war values, the writer instead contrasts this attitude with the sanctioned rebellion afforded to the preceding generation of Californian youth: the surfers. This intergenerational conflict plays out in the milieu of the Vietnam war, where the savagery of Colonel Kurtz and his cult of psychedelic soldiers functions to reflect contemporary fears around the hippie culture as the sixties would come to a close. This article further provides an extended critical reflection on the study of the screenplay as an autonomous work of art

The Quest for Stereoscopic Movement: Was the First Film ever in 3-D?

THE QUEST FOR STEREOSCOPIC MOVEMENT: WAS THE FIRST FILM EVER IN 3-D?    DENIS PELLERIN - London Stereoscopic Compan

a wheel inside a wheel

Getting lost in nature, I can sense the unfixity of its countless forms and processes. Recurring patterns at micro and macro scale arise from creative and destructive forces in space and time; reality appears simultaneously constant and impermanent. My thesis work, a wheel inside a wheel, explores the self in relation to contemporary conceptions of reality. I look at static and dynamic representations of stripped-down patterns modeled from nature, like circular bursts, splintering branches, or the meander of a wave. The action-based works on paper and cloth leverage invisible forces and signal permanency and physical embodiment, deepened through an engagement with archetypal materials. Time-based media renders an altogether separate point of view. Presenting documentary footage alongside artifacts of this abstraction practice, I speculate on the role sensing and recording technologies have in altering perceptions and observations of reality