Zabriskie Point

Language: English
IMDB rating: 6.8/ 10

Plot: An epic portrait of late Sixties America, as seen through the portrayal of two of its children: anthropology student Daria (who's helping a property developer build a village in the Los Angeles desert) and dropout Mark (who's wanted by the authorities for allegedly killing a policeman during a student riot) (IMDB).

Zabriskie Point

Language: English
IMDB rating: 6.8/ 10

Plot: An epic portrait of late Sixties America, as seen through the portrayal of two of its children: anthropology student Daria (who's helping a property developer build a village in the Los Angeles desert) and dropout Mark (who's wanted by the authorities for allegedly killing a policeman during a student riot) (IMDB).

Sartre - The Road to Freedom

Some time ago I published a post on Martin Heidegger. This time I want to introduce another figure of contemporary European philosophy, Jean Paul Sartre.

In this excellent BBC documentary, Sartre's life is discussed by one of the grounding members of the "Nouvelle Philosophie" (for those interested in this stream of thought, click here for a great introductory essay) Bernard-Henry Levy. Jean-Paul Sartre's abstract ideas, grounded in everyday life, crystallized the mood of the times and became both a rallying point for youth and a touchstone for reaction to world events. This documentary covers accounts by Olivier Todd, Jean Pouillon, and Michelle Vian and includes interviews with Jonathan Ree, Baroness Mary Warnock, Patrick Vaudey, Bernard Levy, and others to analyze Sartre's life and existential outlook from the vantage point of World War II and its aftermath. Dramatized excerpts of "Nausea" and "No Exit" underscore Sartre's themes of alienation and commitment and offer a glimpse of his vision of hell.

Ryugyong Hotel

"It's a giant factory-state here, a City of the Future full of extrapolated 1930's swoop-facaded and balconied skyscrapers, lean chrome caryatids with bobbed hairdos, classy airships of all descriptions drifting in the boom and hush of the city abysses, golden lovelies sunning in roof gardens and turning to wave as you pass. It is the Raketen-Stadt..." (Pynchon in Gravity's Rainbow).

Spaceless Information About Places

A good thing of the contemporary spatial dynamics embedded in the hyper-communicative systems of the Internet is the access that I now have to news from the furthest corners of the world. Take the website of Newseum (627 front pages from 58 countries) for instance. Never before was it so easy to gain to access to Brazilian, Turkish or Taiwanese newspapers.

If it useful? Well that's another question (does it matter?).

Satellite Dishes

Has been some time since my last post, was busy writing the first draft of my first chapter of my PhD. Dealing with globalisation or better a critique of the globalisation literature. Would not want to bore you too much with my argument. However, one of the things I raised was the inherent connection between technology and capitalism. Not only how capitalism feeds innovative technological breakthroughs, but also how this affects the concepts of time and space.

A good example of this is the increase of TV satellite dishes in aesthetic landscape of Western European cities. The mushrooming of satellite dishes on rooftops and balconies marks the underlying emigration of (especially) Turkish families to Western countries. One could argue that the dishes destroy the aura of traditional landscapes or one could observe that these communicative devices actually hyperlise the static picture of a forgotten modernity. Or should we perhaps just accept the change without judgement? I don't know.

Revolutionary Love

I always believed that love as a political instrument is a vastly under-researched concept in both journalism and among academics. I hate to sound like a hippie, but I reckon that with a reconceptionalised experience of love and what it is (and perhaps what love should be), the world could be a better, i.e. more democratic and equal, place.

Love as immanence so to say. Like in a poem of Pessoa:

I'm nothing.
I'll allways be nothing.
I can't even wish to be something.
Aside from that, I've got all the world's dream inside me.

I think this is what Hardt is arguing (or what he tends to argue) for in the uploaded video files below. I am sorry I should explain who that is. Hardt is a neo-Marxian theorist, who wrote together with Negri the manifesto for the anti-globalisation movement: "Empire". If you are up for it, you can find your free copy here.

Enjoy the lecture (about 30 mins)

Part 1


Part 2


Part 3


Part 4


Part 5


Part 6

The Post-Modern through the eyes of Marx

I promised in my previous post to upload another analytical 'post-modern' video clip. This one is a talk by Frederic Jameson at the University of Toronto on the the late capitalist features of what has been labelled as a 'global post-modernity'. Jameson is one of the last great philosophical Marxists, one who proved to be a worthy student in the Frankfurt School tradition. His analysis are said to be as much grounded in contemporary modern culture as they are historically constructed in the social relations of the modes of production.

Enjoy

The post-modern

Don't hate me for freshing up your intellectual skills today! Its time for some post-modernism. I found two movies of two academics that work in this theory/ concept and whose opinions and critiques I hold very high. The first is a real 'postie' and writes on the simulacra and the experience of images and forms, Jean Baudrillard! The second (Frederic Jameson) I will post later today or otherwise tomorrow.

BTW: enjoy watching the American elections today!

Part 1


Part 2


Part 3


Part 4


Part 5


Part 6


Part 7


Part 8


Part 9

Israel-Palestinian Art

I normally refrain from posting messages on the Israeli-Palestinian issue. Why? Well, its a bit like putting your heard in a bag of razor-sharp needles. Everybody seems to have a opinion about the conflict, which is exactly one of the obstacles for resolving it in the first place. It is not just an arena of hate (a matter which in many instances, I believe, comes forth from pure ignorance), but also of continuous judgment of what is considered to be 'Good' and what is deemed to be 'Evil'. A lot of Europeans wearing Palestinian scarfs believe that their (fashionable) resistance, which matches the rest of their trendy clothing, can actually be justified on the basis of the knowledge they receive from their televisions or from what their friends say. However, the moment when those same people are confronted with the Other in its direct form, they shiver and are anxious to be robbed from what they define as the "Freedom Expression'.

Yes, I have been to the West Bank, and no, that does not make me more of a specialist (or more knowledgeable) than the people actually living on either side of the borders. Should we remain passive? I don't think so, but blaming the conflict on one side would be downright foolish and ignorant of the historical and social inheritance of the country at hand. What to do then to bring both sides back to the negotiation tables? To make sure that brighter days are coming. I can think of a couple of solutions, a powerful one is bringing the two sides together through a cooperation in the arts.

Progressive poster for the 40th birthday of Israel; morphing Herzl into Arafat

Distance from childhood memories in the form of dust which is to change into a storm.

*Pictures with the courtesy of the Um El fahem Gallery and Liberation Graphics - both of which are well worth a visit and a bit of your time.

Clowns

Fellini earned his reputation of excellence over his years of fame. Movies such as Roma, La Dolce Vita, Casanova and 8 1/2 were not only brilliant films, but in fact changed the very face of cinema.

Clowns, I, is a much lesser known film of his stunning oeuvre. Nevertheless, it is a good portrayal of his fascination with the circus and with entertainment in the broader sense. This 'shorty' is funny, smart and allows insights in the dreamworld of its makers. Moreover, the score is wonderful.

Plot: A sentimental journey shot in France and Italy, searching the trace of the great clowns of yesterday, by one of the few filmmakers that showed his love for these performers in his own films, an affection that dates from a childhood experience in his hometown Rimini, which is lovingly recreated in the dream-like opening scene. Made for Italian television, the film shows Fellini meeting a few survivors, talking to clowns' relatives and friends, visiting white clowns, and recreating the style of the old art, as the funeral of a famous clown, that closes the documentary. He even finds and films Anita Ekberg, the star of his 1960 masterpiece, "La dolce vita" (I always thought he saw her a bit as a joke); but what I find curious is that his film crew seems to be integrated by a clownish crowd without make-up. Nino Rota contributed one of his most cheerful scores. (IMDB)

Note: Language is Italian and subtitles are French (hope that is not a problem, good way to catch up with your languages ;))


*with the courtesy of filmschatten.blogspot.com

Research abstract

Today not a movie, but my updated research abstract! Please dont be shy and comment when you dissagree or when you think that something is not clear (enough). I intend to provide this (probably with some ammendments) to compete for a scholarship at my uni.

Thanks a lot for any comments!

Introduction

My interest in analysing China’s post-modernity (through a progressive political-economic framework) is the logical consequence of the position I fulfilled as an urban planner in Changzhou (Jiangsu province). During my employment for the Chinese and German government I became aware of the intrinsic relation between China’s changing landscape and its paradoxical political-economic apparatus. This area of study has however been largely neglected by both economic sociologists and anthropological political-economists. I believe that an in-depth and progressive study on the functioning of capitalism and the effects it has on China’s modernisation project could allow for a greater understanding of its impact on the country’s urban society.

Background

China’s contemporary development towards a stage of modernity is in this research considered to be taking place under a dynamic, yet contradictory synthesis of a deceased communist ideology and a political apparatus which increasingly relies on a capitalist logic. A paradoxical situation, described as an ‘authoritarian state capitalism’, which compels the country to increasingly transition into spaces of modernity and post-modernity. These historical stages, which are understood to be temporal transitions within the expansive rationale of capitalism, have provided an environment for both an increasing commodification of the natural word and a cognitive instrumentalisation of human perceptions and aesthetics.

Hypothesis

The discussion on the country’s long and still ongoing twentieth century, characterised by its questioning of how to modernise, will serve as the key to an unlocking of the hypothesis that China’s integration in the world economy (and its concomitant embrace of the capitalist logic for the purpose of political stability) fundamentally alters the landscape of China into layers of a reproductive post-modernity. The validity and nature of this presupposition will be tested empirically on the basis of the increasing influence of European architecture on China’s urban landscape. The simulacrum of ‘Europeanness’ into an ever growing number of Chinese cities marks the growing estrangement of inhabitants from their local habitat and underpins the growing influence of capitalist Reason into the consciousness of China’s population.

Epistemology

The epistemological approach of this research finds its origin in the historical transcendence of the dialectic which is central to the Hegelian-Marxist interpretation of capitalism and its instrumental reasoning. This historical narrative finds its support in a robust theoretical framework, which from the very onset of this research will conceptualise both the dialectics of capitalism and its role in the path to modernisation and post-modernity. Evidently, this causes the necessity to revaluate Marxism along lines which would enable it to come to terms with China’s internal contradictions in a world which is said to be increasingly ‘globalised’. The intended makeover, which will find its support in the works of progressive and philosophical Marxian theory, is not a rejection of Marxism, but rather a recognition and acceptance of its validity over the deterministic economic base that is increasingly intertwined with its super-structure.

Bobby Fisher

What have Lenin, Beethoven, Brecht, Francis Bacon and Marx in common? Their love for Chess of course! As Huxley said: “The chessboard is the world, the pieces are the phenomena of the Universe, the rules of the game are what we call the laws of Nature
and the player on the other side is hidden from us”.

Brings me to a sad moment in chess history, Bobby Fisher passed away today. Bobby, despite his controversy and anger, was probably among the best (next to Capablanca and Kasparov) players the world has ever seen. By some described as Zeus, the "God of Gods". It is sad day for chess...

The God of Gods


The classic: Fischer - Spassky game

Herbert Marcuse

You might want to check out the following documentary about Herbert Marcuse. Personally, I am a great admirer of him and what he has accomplished as a provocative thinker and lifetime activist (along with other thinkers of the Frankfurt School).

BIO: Herbert Marcuse was born in Berlin on July 19,1898. After completing his Ph.D. thesis at the University of Freiburg in 1922, he moved to Berlin, where he worked in the book trade. He returned to Freiburg in 1929 to write a habilitation (professor's dissertation) with Martin Heidegger. In 1933, since he would not be allowed to complete that project under the Nazis, Herbert began work at the Frankfurt Institute for Social Research, a Marxist-oriented think-tank (as we might say today).

He emigrated from Germany that same year, going first to Switzerland, then the United States, where he became a citizen in 1940. During World War II he worked for the US Office of Strategic Services (forerunner of the CIA), analyzing intelligence reports about Germany (1942-45-51). In 1952 Herbert began a university teaching career as a political theorist, first at Columbia and Harvard, then at Brandeis from 1954 to 1965, and finally (already retirement-age), at the University of California, San Diego.

Work: His critiques of capitalist society (especially his 1955 synthesis of Marx and Freud, Eros and Civilization, and his 1964 book One-Dimensional Man) resonated with the concerns of the leftist student movement in the 1960s. Because of his willingness to engage seriously with (and support) student protesters, Herbert soon became known as "the father of the new left" (a term he disliked and rejected). He had many speaking engagements in the US and Europe in the late 1960s and in the 1970s. He died on July 29, 1979, after suffering a stroke during a visit to Germany. (http://www.marcuse.org)

Further links:

• Official Homepage
• Wikipedia
• Herbert Marcuse Archive

The below documentary is well worth a watch, though the narrator's voice can be annoying at times.

Eisenstein

Today one of the greatest directors in movie history (I think). A great modernist (one of the last and of Kafkian greatness), who's work shared a similar dialectic as that in the works of Marx. Forget about Orson Welles, cause this is Eisenstein! Poetic, political, philosophical and provocative.

Quote: "In painting the form arises from abstract elements of line and color, while in cinema the material concreteness of the image within the frame presents - as an element - the greatest difficulty in manipulation."

Bezhin lug (or "Bezhin Meadow")

Plot: A Soviet farmer son, who is working at a Kolchos is killed by his father, who wants to burn the fields of the Kolchos to damage the Soviet Society. (IMDB).



Aleksandr Nevskiy

Plot: It is the 13th century, and Russia is overrun by foreign invaders. A Russian knyaz', or prince, Alexander Nevsky, rallies the people to form a ragtag army to drive back an invasion by the Teutonic knights. This is a true story based on the actual battle at a lake near Novgorod. (IMDB)



Oktyabr

Plot: In documentary style, events in Petrograd are re-enacted from the end of the monarchy in February of 1917 to the end of the provisional government and the decrees of peace and of land in November of that year. Lenin returns in April. In July, counter-revolutionaries put down a spontaneous revolt, and Lenin's arrest is ordered. By late October, the Bolsheviks are ready to strike: ten days will shake the world. While the Mensheviks vacillate, an advance guard infiltrates the palace. Anatov-Oveyenko leads the attack and signs the proclamation dissolving the provisional government (IMDB)

French culture

Some time ago I read an article in Times Magazine, claiming that French culture was tead.

"Once admired for the dominating excellence of its writers, artists and musicians, France today is a wilting power in the global cultural marketplace."

I was not even upset by its general statement, but even more by the arguments it provided for its conclusion.

"[N]obody takes culture more seriously than the French... Every French town of any size has its annual opera or theater festival, nearly every church its weekend organ or chamber-music recital... All of these mighty oaks being felled in France's cultural forest make barely a sound in the wider world."

Fortunately, I was not the only one that felt the need to defend the French as even the English (who always find themselves arguing with the French) were outraged by the American claims. The Guardian wrote a full page arguing that the article, probably said more about contemporary American culture than about the French one.

I mean, really, to claim for the "Deaht of French culture" is not only attacking French grounds - but Europe in general and perhaps culture at large. This is not to say that French culture is the world culture, but merely that French culture is embedded in a world culture.

Some French- English culture (a Jacques Brel- influenced song from a French group singing in English, with an Middle Eastern influenced singer) Beirut - "Elephant Gun"


And another one, live on the streets where the culture lies, instead of in the blockbusters that Times Magazine searches for it.