miniature city symphony

A late entry in our catalogue of "city symphony" films, this animated short was shot in 1975.

More from its maker here.

philip johnson

the barcelona day bed (mies van der rohe c1929):




the glasshouse (1949):

eames links

eames office
eames in australia
case study houses
eames at moma

the lounge chair debuts on nbc:

assembling the lounge chair:

wikipedia and ayn rand

Ayn Rand on Donahue:



You might be interested to see the ways in which the ideas of Ayn Rand have influenced the development of wikipedia. This article from the London Review of Books offers an interesting argument about the way in which wikipedia can be said to be working.

Excerpt:

When knowledge is generated by crowds, no single individual has much personal responsibility for what is produced, but nor does any one person have a realistic prospect of shaping the outcome. With Wikipedia, the opposite is true. The fact that there is no final version means that anyone can change anything, but it also means that every given change can be attributed to a particular individual.

Okay ...

Ayn Rand lived in a house designed by a renowned modernist architect, Richard Neutra. You can find more information about Neutra's work at the Neutra Institute for Survival through Design. Merrill Schleier, the author of the article I gave you about The Fountainhead, has more to say about Rand's relationship to modernist architecture here. Alas, the house she lived in, the Von Sternberg house (designed 1934) was demolished in the seventies. You can see Julius Sherman's photographs of the house in a slideshow here, as well as read an account of its interesting history; more images of Neutra's work here. The picture below is of Rand (and her husband, Frank O'Connor) in situ.

Kong v Gonga

Mellard ("Framed in the Glaze," available via WebCT) argues that O'Connor offers, in Hazel, a kind of "case history ... a scene of original trauma ... that trauma's effects" (52) and offers a Lacanian reading of the novel that focuses on the novel's depiction of the gaze and anamorphosis. Anamorphosis is defined by the OED as a "distorted projection or drawing of anything, so made that when viewed from a particular point, or by reflection from a suitable mirror, it appears regular and properly proportioned; a deformation." Perhaps the most famous visual example of anamorphosis is Hans Holbein's painting The Ambassadors, where an image of a skull in encrypted near the bottom of the painting.



Mellard argues that O'Connor uses metaphor to effect this same kind of transformation, noting in particular Mrs' Hitchcock's observation of "The outline of a skull under [Haze's ] skin" (10;57). This image introduces one aspect of the novel I want you to consider: its fascination with the visual realm and that fascination translated into writing. From its opening description of Hazel's eyes moving from the window to the carriage aisle the novel adopts, I argue, a cinematic orientation to the representation of its imaginary spaces.

Perhaps equally important is its analysis of the cinematic space in the diegesis. Taulkinham is represented as a city of lights, reminiscent of the signage that dominates the cityscapes of the city symphony film: "PEANUTS, WESTERN UNION, AJAX, TAXI, HOTEL, CANDY" (Chapter 2) and Hazel arrives on the train, as by this point we might anticipate or require. Later Enoch goes to the movies and finds himself engulfed in its "maw." The first film Enoch witnesses concerns "a scientist named The Eye who performed operations by remote control ... only his eyes looked at the screen." The movie palace offers another scene of trauma, one supplemented by the appearance of Gonga, and of Hazel who preaches in front of the Odeon theatre. Gonga, a dimly and debased descendant of King Kong, orients the question of vision around phenomenon of film as he views Enoch through "celluloid eyes."



Marshalling these indices, some lines of flight emerge between:
* the city symphony and King Kong
* the city symphony and Wise Blood
* King Kong and Rose Hobart
* East of Borneo and King Kong
* Kong and Gonga
* writing and film

And one final intersection, the reworking of Wise Blood by John Huston in his 1979 Wise Blood, which we will watch, in part, in class.