Christian Marclay's The Clock: timekeeping through moments in cinema history
"'The Clock' is constructed out of moments in cinema when time is expressed or when a character interacts with a clock, watch or just a particular time of day. Marclay has excerpted thousands of these fragments and edited them so that they flow in real time. While 'The Clock' examines how time, plot and duration are depicted in cinema, the video is also a working timepiece that is synchronised to the local time zone. At any moment, the viewer can look at the work and use it to tell the time. Yet the audience watching 'The Clock' experiences a vast range of narratives, settings and moods within the space of a few minutes, making time unravel in countless directions at once. Even while 'The Clock' tells the time, it ruptures any sense of chronological coherence."
(White Cube, 2010)
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
In Media Res: collaborative, multi-modal forms of online scholarship
"In Media Res is dedicated to experimenting with collaborative, multi-modal forms of online scholarship. Our goal is to promote an online dialogue amongst scholars and the public about contemporary approaches to studying media. In Media Res provides a forum for more immediate critical engagement with media at a pace closer to how we experience mediated texts.
Each weekday, a different scholar curates a 30-second to 3-minute video clip/visual image slideshow accompanied by a 300-350-word impressionistic response. We use the title 'curator' because, like a curator in a museum, you are repurposing a media object that already exists and providing context through your commentary, which frames the object in a particular way. The clip/comment combination are intended both to introduce the curator's work to the larger community of scholars (as well as non-academics who frequent the site) and, hopefully, encourage feedback/discussion from that community.
Theme weeks are designed to generate a networked conversation between curators. All the posts for theme weeks thematically overlap and the participating curators each agree to comment on one another's work."
(In Media Res: A MediaCommons Project)
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
MTV Buzz: avant-garde television
"Buzz is a long forgotten MTV experiment from 1990. In 1988, Mark Pellington developed an idea for a non-linear collage program he called "Buzz". Created in partnership with MTV Europe producer/director Jon Klein, Buzz was an ambitious 13-part global series commissioned by MTV and channel 4 (UK). It was hailed by critics as ground-breaking, adventurous television. This is episode 1 of the 4 episodes that have managed to survive on an old VHS tape to be digitized for your edification in this modern, digital age."
(Black Flag Party, YouTube Channel)
Fig.1 Buzz Episode 01 Segment 01
Fig.2 Buzz Episode 01 Segment 02
Fig.3 Buzz Episode 01 Segment 03
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
The Open City: The Closed System and The Brittle City
"The idea of an open city is not my own: credit for it belongs to the great urbanist Jane Jacobs in the course of arguing against the urban vision of Le Corbusier. She tried to understand what results when places become both dense and diverse, as in packed streets or squares, their functions both public and private; out of such conditions comes the unexpected encounter, the chance discovery, the innovation. Her view, reflected in the bon mot of William Empson, was that 'the arts result from over-crowding'. Jacobs sought to define particular strategies for urban development, once a city is freed of the constraints of either equilibrium or integration. These include encouraging quirky, jerry-built adaptations or additions to existing buildings; encouraging uses of public spaces which don't fit neatly together, such as putting an AIDS hospice square in the middle of a shopping street. In her view, big capitalism and powerful developers tend to favour homogeneity: determinate, predictable, and balanced in form. The role of the radical planner therefore is to champion dissonance. In her famous declaration: 'if density and diversity give life, the life they breed is disorderly'. The open city feels like Naples, the closed city feels like Frankfurt."
(Richard Sennett, 2006)
Fig.1 Busy street in Naples, marlenworld.com
Fig.2 Paris, Les Olympiades, 1969-1974, Thierry Bézecourt in 2005
[3] Sennett, R. (2006). The Open City: The Closed System and The Brittle City. Urban Age.
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
Open-ended play environments enable rich learning experiences
"Children learn about themselves, others and the world they live in through play. Outdoor environments for play and learning can provide rich experiences for children who seek fantasy and adventure and are innately curious about nature. Children's environments, particularly school and neighbourhood playgrounds, parks and gardens, have the potential to facilitate learning through social, emotional, cognitive and creative opportunities. Unfortunately, in America, the play and learning potential for many outdoor play spaces is underdeveloped."
(Lauri Macmillan Johnson)
Fig.1 The Adventure Playground, 160 University Avenue, Berkeley, California is an example of an open-ended play environment.
Fig.2 commercially available play environments often work to regulate engagement according to social norms.
[3] Johnson, L. M. (2004). American Playgrounds and Schoolyards - A Time for Change. In School of Landscape Architecture. Tempe, AZ, The University of Arizona Press.
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
