area or portion of space; locality; square or street; dwelling; location with particular use; point in something; proper position; opportunity to study; status; responsibility; job; somewhere to sit; position in series; position of digit in number.
My definition of place: a mental construct modeled as representation of space*.
space: physical dimensional reality that can never be subjectively experienced as such.
1) Sze Tsung Leong
Typologies of cities and infrastructure, on the topic of space and place.
Hes is a Guggenheim fellow.
quote: "...cities are prolonged accumulations of time— from a Roman amphitheatre overlooked by a cliff of recent concrete construction in Amman, to a Medieval cathedral rising above a flat, seemingly endless landscape in Ghent, to a colonial city center undulating over the Andean topography of Quito, to the postwar patchwork of histories of London, to the sinuous lines of highways engraving the attenuated landscape of Houston."
web site: http://www.szetsungleong.com
review: http://www.szetsungleong.com/Leong_Artforum_2006.pdf
review: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/06/arts/design/06geft.html?_r=1
2) Pleven 1907
A photographic portfolio I found by chance in the Central Archive in Sofia. It examines the development of Pleven, Bulgarian town, celebrating 30 years from the end of the Ottoman invasion. The main subject is infrastructure and public projects emphasizing the new European look with many photos of construction or places that would be soon demolished. While the portfolio celebrates the new look, it is a document of a disappeared era.
One place is changed into another.
Contains 52 photographs, artist unknown. I would go back and scan it if I could.
3) George Tice - Urban Landscapes
An array of everyday places taken out of context and sequenced in order to show them as spaces. I am not sure whether this is Tice's intention as his writing is quite limited. He is a 1973 Guggenheim fellow.
Quote: "... I had to suppress my sense of familiarity with the subjects so that I might perceive their own special qualities and isolate them within the frame..."
Tice, George A, Urban Landscapes, Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, New Jersey 1975
4) Michael Wesely
Relating personally to his images is impossible as their representation of time is so abstract and out of human experience. They must be very anti place, however, he photographs buildings, all of them parallel and cubic, very ideal and conceptual. They are spatial manifestations of mental constructs common for the contemporary human. These spaces are logical and can be successfully defined with words and numbers.Wesely illustrates the transformation of mental constructs into spaces, however, his images keep a huge distance from subjective experience thus depicting again pure spaces. I see a very strong connection to Gordon Matta-Clark in the ability to see through.
quote: "As Ms. Hermanson Meister has noted, they also suggest a kind of response to the late Henri Cartier-Bresson's notion of "the decisive moment,'' that one single instant that captures the full essence of a situation, arguing instead for the power of aggregation and the recognition that change is never just about beginning and end states, but also about that magically indefinite gap between them." Jeffrey Kastner NY Times article, see below
web site: http://www.wesely.org/wesely/index.php
review: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/26/arts/design/26kastner.html
5) Das Rad (2003)
An animation by Chris Stenner, Arvid Uibel and Heidi Wittlinger, funny but also with a very sophisticated idea of alternative time and space. It relates to Wesely's long exposures. Spaces are seen from a very subjective point of view and yet detached from human experience, resulting in a very different idea of place. This work was completed in 2003 using a mix os pupets slow motion animation, sets and CGI animation. It was nominated for an Academy award.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0330801/
http://www.dasrad.com
6) Elastic City - "conceptual walks and living theater"
The organization is found by Todd Shalom, a poet, who curates artists to interact with participating audience. The result are events in which the audience is the performer responding to the artists' challenges posed within a city environment. The point is redefining peoples experience of place by putting them in situation different from the everyday life. I find this to be meditation on what makes spaces into places. This seems to be similar to what I intend to do although these happenings are a much happier take on the subject compared to my work. I like the idea of curating experience.
Quote:
"Elastic City intends to make its audience active participants in an ongoing poetic exchange with the places we live in and visit. Artists are commissioned by Elastic City to create their own walks. These walks tend to focus less on providing factual information and more on heightening our awareness, exploring our senses and making new group rituals in dialogue with public space in the city. Elastic City is produced and directed by Todd Shalom. He realized the idea for Elastic City while suffering from altitude sickness in Cusco, Peru."
web site: http://www.elastic-city.comReview: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/10/arts/10elastic.html?_r=1
7) Darren Aronofsky - Pi (1998)
The movie is about the conflict between experience and rationalization. This is important as mental constructs/spaces relate to real spaces. Not paying attention to one of the two categories and only focusing to the other may be very degrading to the human mind. I saw the movie 6 or 7 years ago and I vaguely remember the struggle of the main character lasting for the entire duration and the very clearly the ending, where he did not reach his goal but had an epiphany. I will definitely see it again when I get the chance to.
review: http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9F03E2D9173AF930A35757C0A96E958260
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0138704/
8) Aki Kaurismaki - The Man Without a Past (2003)
The movie is about a man who looses his entire memory after an accident. He does not know who he is or where he is from. What is interesting is his struggle not to rediscover himself and get back to his previous life but to build his identity anew. He does that by altering the spaces around (makes a "home " out of a freight container) and fully engaging in the community he has ended up in thus creating a place, more over his own place.
Notions of places can be personal or imposed by others and it was fascinating for me how the main character in the movie invented his own place.
review: http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9503E5DD1338F931A35753C1A9649C8B63
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0311519/
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