> the city in modernism
> the city as a public & as a private space.
> the city in post modernism.
George Simmel (1858-1918)
- Dresden exhibition 1903
- Simmel is asked to lecture
> urban sociology
- the resistance of the individual to being levelled, swallowed up in the social-technological mechanism.
Louis Sullivan (1856-1924)
- Architect
- Credited with being the creator of the modern sky scraper
Guaranty building
- ornate // decorative exterior
(despite appearance)
4 interior zones
Basement - public area - office zone
organised // ordered environment
3 types of exterior block corresponding with the three visible exterior zones.
America as an upward moving, land of opportunity.
Manhatta (1921) Paul Strand
Documentary film > loose / no narrative
Explores the relationship between photography and film, minimal camera movement.
Charles Sheeler
ford plant > river rouge > detroit
{fordism}
Modern times (1936) Charlie Chaplin
body is consumed/swallowed by the factory
Stock market crash of 1929
>immigrant population hit first > then laborers
Man with a movie camera (1929)
noted for it's range of video/movie techniques
celebration of industrialisation and everything that goes with it.
Flaneur
Stroller / lounger / saunterer
A person who walks the city to experience it.
Both apart from, and a part of the crowd.
Walter Benjamin
> bit of a flaneur
> Adopts the concept of and urban observer as an analytical tool and as a lifestyle.
Susan Sontag
> the photographer as a flaneur
> Photographer is merely an 'armed' flaneur
Flaneuse
Female wanderer.
Susan Buch-Morss
Bag lady or prostitute.
Arbus // Hopper
Hoppers 'Automat' (1927)
Diane Arbus' 'Woman at a counter smoking N.Y.C' (1962)
Observed moments with sense that something has just happened
Sophie Calle - Suite Venitienne (1980)
About the experience of the city
Accompanied by a text explaining her relationship with the man in the pictures.
Venice > labyrinth of streets and alleyways
Good place for a filthy stalker...I mean...photographer
Don't look now (1973) <film>
Nicholas Roeg
The Detective (1980)
Having private detective following her
> wants to provide photographic evidence of her existence
Cindy Sherman ( 1977-80)
Typical representation of women in the city
Pictures were intended to be mysterious
typical of post modernism { no concrete location (could be anywhere) }
Weegee (arthur felig)
Documented the dark side of city
Following and documenting police detectives.
With a mobile darkroom so he could develop pictures and be the first to the press.
The Naked City
Noire tradition
L.A. Noire set in 1947 Los Angeles (2011)
Homage to the visual style of film noire.
cities of the future > Metropolis (1929)
Blade runner (1989 > depicting 2019)
Lorca di Corcia - heads (2001) NY
Not seen by the people he photographs
Set off like a trip flash from people walking past.
Sense of height & drama
A man in one of his photos objected to the use of his image on religious grounds
The image was subsequently allowed.
Anything that happens in the city is open to artistic interpretation. Private is taken back.
Walker Evans - Many are called (1938)
Intensely private moments shot unaware.
Postmodern city
"the outside becoming the inside" Ed Soja
Being lost in architecture
Confusing/difficult to navigate
Joel Meyerowitz
Postmodern city in photography. Chaotic. Busy
Citizen Journalism > the end of the flaneur?
Impossible to be a detached observer
9/11. destroyed in a mental capacity aswell.
Destruction of the twin towers represents a destruction of the American Dream.
Adam Beezer (2001)
involved in the tragedy. Pictures from a phone camera.
Returns photography to it's roots // merely to document events.
Surveillance city
Coming together of photography & film on the street.
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