Sex in the city: the rise of soft-erotic film culture in Cinema Leopold, Ghent, 1945-1954

Since the 1990s, film studies saw a disciplinary shift from approaches favoring a textual and ideological analysis of films to a broader understanding of the socio-cultural history of cinema under the banner of new cinema history. This turn not only allowed for ‘niche’ research domains to flourish such as film economics or cinema memory research, or for new empirical and critical methodologies to be applied to film and cinema history. This change in researching and writing film/cinema history also shed light on previously marginalized, neglected or uncharted film cultures and histories, burgeoning scholarship in for instance (s)exploitation cinema. This contribution examines a peculiar part of post-war local film culture in the Belgian city of Ghent, more precisely the one around the city-center soft-erotic cinema Cinema Leopold (1945-54). The research is based on a programming and box-office database compiled from archival sources and contextualized by other data (internal and external correspondence, posters,…) coming from the business archive of Octave Bonnevalle, Cinema Leopold’s founding pater familias (material kept in the State Archives of Belgium; RAB/B70/1928-1977). The database now contains information on 625 film titles shown between 1945 and 1954, out of which 233 were unidentified (due to lack of information). Although the database is at times crippled by source inconsistencies, it is extremely rich in documenting the everyday practices of a cinema that gradually turned into a soft-erotic movie theater. The database allows for some remarkable findings concerning shifts in the origin of films, their production years, genres, censorship and popularity. The key finding is that Cinema Leopold started out after the Second World War with a child-friendly, mainstream Hollywood-oriented film program, as did most cinemas in Ghent, but its profile slowly tilted towards more mature audiences and provocative film genres. These included French ‘risqué’ feature films containing some forms of nudity like Perfectionist/Un Grand Patron (Ciampi, 1951) and documentaries on venereal diseases like the successful Austrian Creeping Poison/Schleichendes Gift (Wallbrück, 1946), but also auteur movies such as Bergman’s Port of Call/Hamnstad (1948) were shown. It is interesting how Leopold walked a fine line between innovative, bold European art-house cinema, soft-erotic ‘didactic’ movies and flat-out commercial soft-porn. By 1954, Leopold had gathered a loyal crowd, which kept the cinema alive until 1981 despite the several law suits and trials. This micro-history offers a remarkable example of the post-war flourishing of alternative, yet profit-driven cinema circuits, riddled with media controversies and censorship

System analysis of a Peer-to-Peer Video-on-Demand architecture : Kangaroo

Architectural design and deployment of Peer-to-Peer Video-on-Demand (P2PVoD) systems which support VCR functionalities is attracting the interest of an increasing number of research groups within the scientific community; especially due to the intrinsic characteristics of such systems and the benefits that peers could provide at reducing the server load. This work focuses on the performance analysis of a P2P-VoD system considering user behaviors obtained from real traces together with other synthetic user patterns. The experiments performed show that it is feasible to achieve a performance close to the best possible. Future work will consider monitoring the physical characteristics of the network in order to improve the design of different aspects of a VoD system.El disseny arquitectònic i el desplegament de sistemes de Vídeo sota Demanda "Peer-to-Peer" que soporten funcionalitats VCR està captant l'interès d'un nombre creixent de grups de recerca a la comunitat científica, degut especialment a les característiques intrínsiques dels mencionats sistemes i als beneficis que els peers podrien proporcionar a la reducció de la càrrega en el servidor. Aquest treball tracta l'anàlisi del rendiment d'un sistema P2P-VoD considerant el comportament d'usuaris obtingut amb traçes reals i amb patrons sintètics. Els experiments realitzats mostren que és viable assolir un rendiment proper al cas més óptim. Com treball futur es considerarà la monitorització de les característiques físiques de la xarxa per a poder millorar el disseny dels diferents aspectes que formen un sistema de VoD.El diseño arquitectónico y el despliegue de sistemas de Video bajo Demanda "Peer-to-Peer" que soportan funcionalidades VCR está captando el interés de un número creciente de grupos de investigación dentro de la comunidad científica; especialmente debido a las características intrínsecas de tales sistemas y a los beneficios que los peers podrían proporcionar en la reducción de la carga en el servidor. Este trabajo se enfoca en el análisis de rendimiento de un sistema P2PVoD considerando el comportamiento de usuarios obtenido de trazas reales, junto a otros patrones sintéticos. Los experimentos realizados muestran que es viable lograr un rendimiento cercano al caso más óptimo. El trabajo futuro considerará la monitorización de las características físicas de la red para poder mejorar el diseño de los diferentes aspectos que conforman un sistema de VoD

Home Movie as Process: Developing a Reading of the Moving Image in the Home Mode

The home movie remains an object of study far under-theorized and under-researched in the discipline of film and media studies, in part, because of the very nature of its unique qualities as a moving image produced and exhibited in the home mode. It is the goal of this thesis to develop a theoretical framework with which to appropriately approach a reading of the home movie in consideration of the contextual factors which surround, inform, and influence its interpretations. Specifically, it will be argued that the home movie should be read as a form of process. In developing this model, the thesis will initially proceed to define the notion of 'process' in terms of visual analysis, then apply this definition to the social practices of the home movie according Richard Chalfen's concept of the 'home mode' of image-making and image-viewing. Finally, interactions involved in the process of the home movie will be explored through relative notions of aesthetics and memory as they apply to the experience of the home mode

Place, Space, And Form Captured Through Photographic Meditation

Inspired by Buddhist philosophy, the photographic series Architectural Zen attempts to beautify banal and pragmatic architecture through limiting and preexisting artificial light conditions. The selective illumination of artificial light eliminates the non-essential details and enhances the pure forms and saturated color presented by the camera lens. This encourages the photographer and the viewer to enter a state of meditation. The resulting process is similar to a Zen approach to image making. The ancient Zen artist\u27s compositions are strengthened by a meditation on form and subsequent elimination of the non-essential elements of the subject. Through embracing this Zen mentality and mindfulness,aspects of Eastern aesthetic and balance also appear through the work. The warm glow of artificial lights, long recessed shadows, and surreal colors contribute to the feeling of rest, contemplation, isolation, and solitude. Although the work in Architectural Zen is not directly about Buddhist doctrines, the process of creating the art parallels the ideas and practices of Zen Buddhism and meditation, finding the Buddha nature of typically unappealing architectural forms during a different time of day

Metamorphosis of Content in Indian Cinema: A Critical Analysis

The story of Indian Cinema from the mookie to the multiplexes is a saga of success.Indian cinema always had a hypnotic effect on the masses. The acceptance of the Indian cinema at the global level is very powerful that the history of international cinema would be incomplete without references to it. It is observed that every Indian media is interdependent on Cinema. Cinema was considered as the medium of entertainment and the amount of transformation which cinema could have brought-in did not happen. The scope of the study lies in exploring the inter-relations between the content of Cinema and the people. The objectives of the study were to analyze the changing content along with the trends and tastes among its consumers. The study also explored the causes, effects, challenges and opportunities underlying the content changes seen through the decades of film production and intends to see the metamorphic change– subject wise and technically.Since Indian cinema virtually dictates the cultural fabric of the entire sub-continent, its content has a strong bearing on the bonding of inter-nation relations- emotionally or otherwise. Hence the study assumes significance in enhancing the strength of South Asian region at the global arena

Narrative, history, and fiction: history games as boundary works

This work arises from the reflections generated by a post-doctoral study that investigates how history games can contribute to the production and dissemination of representations, pictures, and imaginaries of the past. We understand history games to be digital electronic games whose structure contains narratives or simulations of historical elements (Neves, 2010). The term notion of “border works” is used by Glezer and Albieri (2009) to discuss the role of literary and artistic works that, standing outside the historiographical field and having a fictional character, are forms of the dissemination of historical knowledge and approximation with the past. We want to show how, under the impact of the linguistic turn, the boundaries between history and fiction have been blurred. Authors such as White (1995) and Veyne (2008) found both a convergence with and identification between historical narrative and literary narrative that interrogates the epistemological status of history as a science. These critiques result in an appreciation of fictional works as both knowledge and the dissemination of historical knowledge of the past. We then examine the elements of the audiovisual narratives of electronic games (Calleja, 2013; Frasca, 1999; Jull, 2001; Murray, 2003; Zagalo, 2009) in an attempt to understand their specificity. Next, we investigate the place of the narrative and historical simulations of electronic games in contemporary culture (Fogu, 2009). Finally, we discuss how historical knowledge is appropriated and represented by history games (Arruda, 2009; Kusiak, 2002) and analyze their impact on the production of a historical consciousness or an imaginary about the past

Immersion vs. Engaged Interactivity in The Autobiography of Jane Eyre’s Storyworld; Or What We Can Learn from Paratextual Traces

This paper uses The Autobiography of Jane Eyre (Nessa Aref and Alysson Hall’s 2013–2014 transmedia adaptation of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, hereafter AoJE) to explore the impact of characters’ social media accounts on user interactivity and immersion. AoJE employs the powers of social media to create a modernized and fully-fledged storyworld, yet the users’ overall experience is undermined by the very strategies meant to facilitate engaged interactivity. When social media posts become sites where users not only actively seek additional content but also ‘read’ traces of other users’ interactions with the content, those traces function as paratextual commentary, creating dialogic metaphors. In AoJE, the characters’ social media accounts demand that users remain in a near constant state of metalepsis by accepting and even inverting several previously accepted ontological binaries: character/actor, reader/writer, passive/ active, immersive/interactive. The effort required by users to interact successfully with the various platforms additionally underscores the difficulty of consuming (and prosuming) a story that unfolds over multiple platforms, especially once the social media components no longer exist in the immediate present

Dimensional flatland: Beamer, drone, flash drive

The impact of the Internet and digitization is pervasive and pervious. Users constantly interface with a constructed virtual world of worlds, simulated by signs and representations. The web content appears to exist but only fades into oblivion. Digital imageries promise the HD real but can never be as phenomenal as our physical experience, and instead render an alternative fantasy of deceptive factuality. This is a hyperlinked network of data and pixel information that takes no solid permanent shape, and claims zero responsibility for altering and molding our consciousness in this technological fiction. Dimensional Flatland: Beamer, Drone & Flash Drive responds to such phenomena with provocative and poetic gestures: The work appropriates the views of the machines, whose logic and illogic I employ to generate an abstract realm to criticize and dramatize, and to represent the simulated immaterial world in conflict with the “real” material one with which we are familiar. It probes into the mechanism of realism through digital imaging, and examines different modes of expression and representation with self-criticality. Graphic design deals more and more frequently with screen-based media, and yet the screen is not a neutral medium but an aggressive glow. Our spectatorship with thescreen has transformed from a pure fascination into a desire for participation and intervention— from an outside position to a critical insider role. Unveiling the invisible and intangible mechanism behind the screen, this thesis presents a series of work that liberates digital tools from their prescriptive functional constraints, traces back to the point of origin, and evokes our very sensibility and imagination in the hyperspace