ACTIVE TIME in ARCHITECTURE, LANDSCAPE and CINEMAPolitics of Time, Zones of Work
theory & practice through a cinematic | urban | digital lens
Prof: Ed Keller
Guest Lecturers: TBA
Since the birth of cinema, architectural and urban space, and ideas of landscape have played a crucial role in the visual representation of space on screen. As contemporary discourse is reinventing the idea of landscape and providing us with the idea of multiple layers of overlapping ‘scapes’, so also has the concept of landscape evolved within cinema.
One of the key hypotheses we will examine in this course is the presence and function of time within cinematic and urban landscapes. Thinkers like Gilles Deleuze have written interdisciplinary histories of cinema- his Cinema 1+2, for example- exploring the way that film functions as a highly accelerated cultural engine for the development of thinking about space and also about time.
Many different scales of time have been revealed or discovered as human society moved from an agrarian to an industrial to a post industrial environment. Examples of time embedded within landscapes abound: geological time; genetic time; prehistorical time; cosmological time; city time vs. agricultural time; linear time or cyclical time; measured time [Chronos] and unmeasured time [Aion]; reversible time as measured by classical physics or irreversible time shown in thermodynamics and dissipative structures.
Contemporary urban theories rely on concepts of networks and agents- human, ecological or economical- which populate the landscapes that we work with as designers, and which can only be properly understood 'in time'. Earlier conceptual models for landscape were drawn from a complex symbology and representational vocabulary. A well recognized lineage exists which we can trace over the past 8 centuries which parallels the way that societies construct images of themselves, build systems of control and economy, and the frames they build in the landscapes around them.
Cinema has compressed into just over one century all the representational and philosophical themes that our built environment has been driven by for over a thousand years. This evolution of film has been informed, in many ways, by the history of landscape theory: moving from the primarily visual, to the compositional and symbolic, to the compositional and material, to the active landscape, then the urban montage as a landscape of image and action and finally to emergent landscapes: the discovery of network systems on macro and microscopic levels. Indeed, cinema has played a role in changing the way that we understand the nature of landscape as a lived field spanning the scale from the microscopic to the cosmologic.
The films we will survey in this seminar evidence a variety of landscapes, each of which generates different forms of time. We will track this catalog of ' time landscapes' through several dozen films. A wide range of film genres and periods will give cinematic illustrations of each concept of landscape, and will be joined with selected examples from landscape, urbanism, and architecture. We will read from a core group of theorists and philosophers whose work addresses the themes of time, power, and space that the films evidence.
A common theme present in our screenings and readings this semester will be that in each of the varying kinds of time we see evidenced, there is a deeply political nature. In fact, these 'Politics' of time suggest that all experiences of this new concept of landscape are both intensely political and temporalized.
We will use cinema to rethink the application of landscape as a mediated system which establishes connectivity both in terms of space and time, informed by Appadurai's terms(techno, media, ethno, ideo, finance... scapes) thus adding a critical component which activates the idea of time as an agent in the discourse on landscape and the built environment.Each class will include a one+ hour lecture and/or analysis of film clips/precedents, followed by a general discussion of the materials. Additional time will be required to view film assignments.
NB: this class is a workshop/seminar. There will be intensive readings and viewings as well as project work at the end of the semester. All assignments will be submitted online in a simple web format. Assignments will be reviewed online, and will be discussed at a final review at the end of the semester in a ‘pinup’ with outside critics.
Week 1-10: Lectures, in class discussion, and external screenings and readings will comprise the bulk of the work. Short exercises in diagramming.
Week 10-14: students will form small teams and conduct an urban mapping assignment that will draw on and extend some of the cinematic and landscape concepts we have studied throughout the semester. A technology orientation session will take place around week 10, before the mapping exercise begins. This will provide a basic introduction to Digital Video capture and editing, using firewire and DV cameras. We will discuss ways of merging landscape mapping techniques with film making techniques. A brief film mapping exercise will yield protocols for an urban engagment, which will be conducted according to Situationist ideas of the derive. This exercise will be recorded, and presented as a short digital film in a juried screening during the final class session.
FIRST CLASS:
Introduction to course themes; selected examples of cinematic and temporal LANDSCAPESIntro Class screenings
__PARIS TEXAS:: Opening in desert
__LESSONS of DARKNESS:: ten minutes- various excerpts
__MAN with MOVIE CAMERA:: Ten minutes at START
__MIRROR:: Trust Not Premonitions passage; Final sequence
WEEK 1-- The construction of VISIBILITY: the VISION LANDSCAPE
___ assigned viewing: Irma Vep [Assayas], Draughtsman's Contract [Greenaway]
___suggested viewing: Drowning by Numbers [Greenaway]
• Fredric Jameson, The Geopolitical Aesthetic
• Virilio, The Vision Machine
• Sanford Kwinter, 'Landscapes of Change', Assemblage 19
WEEK 2-- CTHONIC landscapes: Non-Human life, Deep Time, Slow Time
___assigned viewing: Beau Travail [Denis] Mirror [Tarkovsky], Koyanisquatsi [Reggio]
___suggested viewing: Exorcist [Friedkin], Nosferatu [Herzog], Stalker [Tarkovsky], Taste of Cherry [Kiarostami]
• Michel Serres: Hermes: Literature, Science, Philosophy and The Parasite
• Andrei Tarkovsky, Sculpting in Time
• online essays on Serres and Tarkovsky
WEEK 3-4-- Landscapes of WAR; Machinic, Genetic and Cosmic Landscapes
___assigned viewing week 3: Thin Red Line [Malick], Lessons of Darkness [Herzog], Apocalypse Now [Coppola]
___assigned viewing week 4: 2001 [Kubrick], Solaris [Soderbergh, Tarkovsky],Crash [Cronenberg], Deserto Rosso [Antonioni]
___suggested viewing: Weekend [Godard], The Third Man [Reed], Full Metal Jacket [Kubrick], Andromeda Strain [Wise]
• M. Serres, continue reading Parasite and 'Origin of Language'
• Bernard Cache, Earth Moves
• Manuel DeLanda, Zone 6 [Non Organic Life]
• Lem, SolarisWEEK 5-- The Western horizon: Landscapes of MYTH
___ assigned viewing: Once Upon a Time in the West [Leone], Paris Texas [Wenders], Easy Rider [Hopper]
• Wim Wenders, from Emotion Pictures [Once upon a Time in the West, Easy Rider]
• The Act of Seeing [Urban Landscape..]
WEEK 6-- The Voyage transformed
___ assigned viewing: Thelma and Louise [Scott], North by Northwest [Hitchcock]
___ suggested viewing: Dead Man [Jarmusch]
• Lukacs, Theory of the Novel
• Jim Corner, Taking Measures Across the American Landscape
WEEK 7-- CitySCAPES
___ assigned viewing: Alphaville [Godard], Playtime [Tati], Blade Runner [Scott]
___suggested viewing: Heat [Mann]
• Manuel DeLanda, A Thousand Years of NonLinear History
• Tschumi, SIX CONCEPTS; Questions of Space, Manhattan Transcripts
WEEK 8-- TechnoSCAPES
____assigned viewing: Conversation [Coppola], Blowup [Antonioni], VideoDrome [Cronenberg]
___suggested viewing: BlowOut [DePalma], Matrix Trilogy [Wachowskis], Enemy of the State [Tony Scott], Ghost in the Shell [Oshii]
• Enzensberger, 'Constituents of a Theory of the Media'
• Fredric Jameson, The Geopolitical Aesthetic [revisit text from first week]
• Neal Stephenson, Diamond Age
WEEK 9-- POLITICIZED BODIES: CONTROL Landscapes
___ assigned viewing: Farewell my Concubine [Kaige], Fight Club [Fincher], Traffic [Soderbergh], Catch-22 [Nichols]
___ suggested viewing: Clockwork Orange [Kubrick], Chinatown [Polanski]
• Gilles Deleuze, Foucault, Expressionism in Philosophy
• Greil Marcus, Lipstick Traces
• suggested: Elias Canetti, Crowds and Power
WEEK 10-- CITYMAPS: COGNITIVE Landscapes: [RE]constructing new [IN]visibility
___ assigned viewing: Man with a Movie Camera [Vertov], CARO DIARIO [Moretti], MAMMA ROMA [Pasolini]
___ suggested viewing: ROMA, AMARCORD [Fellini]
• Michel deCerteau, The Practice of Everyday Life
• Situationist Texts , online at www.nothingness.org
Week 11-- City Maps 2: Cognitive Landscapes
___ assigned viewing: Vertigo [Hitchcock], Wings of Desire [Wenders], Chungking Express [Wong Kar Wai]
___ suggested viewing: Lisbon Story [Wenders], My Own Private Idaho [Van Sant]
• Wim Wenders, 'Find Myself a City...'
• Raskin, Camera movement in Wings of Desire
• Ed Keller, 'Complex Time' lecture
WEEK 12-- GEOPOLITICAL SCAPES: Politics, responsibility, and the construction of new identity
___assigned viewing: Passenger [Antonioni], Underground [Kusturica]
___ suggested viewing: Hiroshima mon Amour [Resnais/Duras], Element of Crime [Von Trier]
• Bakhtin, The Dialogic Imagination
• Arjun Appadurai, Modernity at Large
WEEK 13
TOPOLOGICAL LANDSCAPES: Collective time, and building a new self: the machine and memory
___ assigned viewing: 8 1/2 [Fellini], Polygraph, Confessional [LePage], Afterlife [Koreeda]
___ suggested viewing: NIN concert footage, La Jetee [Marker]
• Samuel Weber, 'Displacing the Body: the Question of Digital Democracy'
• Henri Bergson, Matter and Memory and Creative Evolution
• Paul Ryan, essay on the relational circuit
• Philip K Dick, from VALIS
• Ben Goertzel, online essays on structure of time and AI
WEEK 14-- ACTIVE TIME in the body politic:
___ assigned viewing: All About My Mother [Almodovar], Fallen Angels [Wong Kar Wai], Sans Soleil [Marker]
• Grant Morrison, The Invisibles
• Antonio Negri, Time for Revolution
• Chris Marker, Sans Soleil text
• Howard Rheingold, Smart Mobs
TEXTS
Readings will consist of key passages excerpted from the following texts:
•Fredric Jameson, The Geopolitical Aesthetic
•Grant Morrison, The Invisibles, [the BOMB: webpage analysis of Invisibles]
•Virilio, The Vision Machine
•Ed Keller, 'Complex Time' lecture
•Michel Serres: Hermes: Literature, Science, Philosophy and text on The Parasite
•Gilles Deleuze, Foucault, Cinema 1 + 2, Expressionism in Philosophy
•Analysis of Tarkovsky’s Theory of Time-Pressure
•Ilya Prigogine, From Being to Becoming
•Manuel DeLanda, Non Organic Life [Zone 6], and A Thousand Years of NonLinear History
•Mikhail Bahktin, The Dialogic Imagination
•Lukacs, Theory of the Novel
•Bernard Cache, Earth Moves
•Jim Corner, Taking Measures Across the American Landscape
•Situationist Texts , online at www.nothingness.org
•Greil Marcus, Lipstick Traces
•Michel deCerteau, from The Practice of Everyday Life
•Henri Bergson, Matter and Memory and Creative Evolution
•Neal Stephenson, Diamond Age, Snow Crash
•Tschumi, from Questions of Space, Manhattan Transcripts, Six Concepts
•Wim Wenders, from Emotion Pictures [Once upon a Time in the West, Easy Rider] and
The Act of Seeing [Urban Landscape..]
•Wim Wenders, Find Myself a City...
•Raskin, Camera movement in Wings of Desire [ and POV issue 8 on WoD]
•Enzensberger, 'Constituents of a Theory of the Media'; EK comments and excerpts
•Saskia Sassen, 'Urban Economies and Fading Distances'
•David Harvey, 'Possible Urban Worlds' [pdf]
•Ben Goertzel, online essays on the structure of time and consciousness
•Paul Ryan, essay on the relational circuit
•Philip K Dick, Disinfo-links, DanielPotter links, and excerpts from VALIS
•Stanislaw Lem, SOLARIS
•Sanford Kwinter, 'Landscapes of Change', Assemblage 19
•Howard Rheingold, Smart Mobs
•Arjun Appadurai, Modernity at Large
•Antonio Negri, Time for Revolution [excerpts]
•Samuel Weber, 'Displacing the Body: the Question of Digital Democracy'
•Chris Marker, script for Sans Soleil