PERCEIVING BODIES IN BECKETT S PLAY. Katherine Weiss
|
|
- Clifton Noah Oliver
- 5 years ago
- Views:
Transcription
1 PERCEIVING BODIES IN BECKETT S PLAY Katherine Weiss This essay examines Play inrelation to the modernists anxiety over technology. Walter Benjamin argued that the camera transforms the audience into an uncritical viewer because the image is mass reproduced as a commodity. Seven years earlier, Sigmund Freud asserted that while prosthetic tools perfect motor and sensory organs, they also inversely heighten the awareness of human limits. Both Benjamin and Freud fear that these prosthetic tools result in an alienation of the critical human perspective. Play does not reproduce the same critique but challenges the audience s responses as mechanised and uncritical, questioning their participation in authorial structures. In the early part of the twentieth century, innovations in technology transformed the nature of entertainment industries and led to theoretical investigations of the corresponding changes in perception. The camera became for many modernist writers and artists an example of a mechanical prosthetic eye that brings the image closer and commodifies it (Armstrong, 226; Orvell, ). The use of the camera and the photographic image triggered concerns over the mass re-production and commodification of art. In his 1929 book Civilization and Its Discontents, Sigmund Freud discusses technology as an attempt to enhance and perfect human motor or sensory organs. This use of technology, he found, causes human beings to become increasingly aware of their lacks and limits (43). Consequently, modern discontent is, at least partially, the result of the awareness of human failings and the need for prostheses to complete the human body. Two years later, Walter Benjamin wrote the first draft of The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction (1969, ). In this essay, Benjamin expressed his concerns over the status of works of art in the modern age and the dangers he thought would result from their mass reproduction. Howard Caygill explains that Benjamin s arguments are formed on the basis of a philosophy of experience that is vision-centred and vision-generated. The mass reproduction of photographic images troubles Benjamin because he believes that objects and surfaces lose 186
2 authenticity and aura through the ease of reproducibility. As his primary example of this phenomenon, Benjamin analyses the impact of film on contemporary culture and contrasts cinematography to painting and cinematic acting to theatrical performances (Caygill, 103). In his critique of film images, Benjamin argues that as culture becomes increasingly commodified, the individual s perception becomes less critical. While Freud recognised that new technology provides people with the tools to destroy fellow human beings easily along with their natural and constructed worlds, Benjamin fears that the camera makes human misery an object of consumption (1977, 96). Instead of merely reproducing the modernist critique of and anxiety over technology and the reproduction of art, Samuel Beckett in Play attaches no truth value to his critique of technology and the reproduction of the gaze. 1 Instead, he uses it to create a dialogue that awakens and revitalises the uncritical perception of his audience. Play, written shortly before Film, challenges ways of seeing in the theatre through its use of lightening. The spotlight, conventionally the actor s friend, in Beckett s play is the character s enemy through its power to mechanise the gaze and performance. This paper examines Play in light of modernist theories concerning mechanisation, particularly those of Walter Benjamin, and explores the audience s position in relation to the technology of the spotlight. It is tempting to link the spotlight directly to the eyes of the audience, yet Beckett, in his note on lighting, explains that the spotlight is distinctly separate from that of the audience in the stalls: The source of light [...] must not be situated outside the ideal space (stage) occupied by its victims (1986, 318). In addition, Beckett wrote to Alan Schneider in a letter dated 26 November 1963, The man on the light should be regarded as a fourth player and must know the text inside and out (Harmon, 145). Beckett carefully constructs the spotlight as a fourth player in order to direct the gaze of the audience as well as to give the spotlight an authorial role. As Ruby Cohn observes, the spotlight controls our view of the play (194). The spotlight becomes the active looker that directs the audience s inactive gaze. However, Beckett uses authoritative technology to direct the inactive gaze into action. The light stemming from below stage space, places the prosthetic eye in the place of the director, and, in effect, positions the inquisitive light in the role of authority, functioning much like the director in Catastrophe, who sits in an armchair downstairs audience left (457), barking out orders. 187
3 In Andreas Huyssen s discussion of Metropolis and cinema in After the Great Divide, he argues that the male gaze is ultimately that of the camera, of another machine, objectifying the female body (75). With this in mind, the audience connects the spotlight with the eye of the male authority on- and off-stage. Hence, the light functions to illuminate both the director dictating the way in which the play is seen and M s playing both W1 and W2. W2 says that when she questioned M whether there was anything between him and W1: Anything between us, he said, what do you take me for, a something machine? (309, emphasis mine). M is associated with the manipulative, unseeing and unthinking machine of the light. He represents the male, authoritative gaze that objectifies both W1 and W2 in a game/performance which he cannot seem to make sense ofor end even after his departure: I simply could no longer [ ] (311). The male authoritative gaze of the spotlight functions in many ways like a camera, bridging the distance between the audience and stage. Cameras, through techniques such as close-ups, panning and slow motion, help an audience to see more than they would with the naked eye. Cameras function as the spectators prosthetic eye, discovering and uncovering the nuances their human eyes cannot detect. The prosthetic eye extends the natural function of the eye and, in doing so, covers and fills in the absence of vision (Armstrong, 77-79). In Play, the spotlight becomes the prosthetic eyes and ears of the audience through its illumination of a purgatorial world not immediately visible, audible, or comprehensible to the human sensory organs. Like a camera, the spotlight works to capture the images on stage and places the audience in the framed image. In other words, the audience is transformed onto the stage as the inquisitor through the eye of the spotlight. Benjamin argues that the camera alienates the actor and the audience because [t]he audience s identification with the actor is really an identification with the camera. Consequently the audience takes the position of the camera [ ] (1969, ). According to Benjamin, the actor of the stage acts for a live audience while the actor of film acts for the camera. Beckett presents his theatre-going audience with an image of film-like acting. Beckett s audience is placed in the position of identifying with the light instead of the actors or as the light as a fourth actor. The privileged inquisitive gaze of the audience parallels the spotlight and, as a result, is also guilty of torturing the actors. Beckett s use of the spotlight exposes W2, M, and W1 as actors trapped into acting for the spotlight rather than for a live audience. When the spotlight shines on W1, she, like Mouth in Not I who attempts to shut out the audience s 188
4 eyes, says, Get off me! Get off me! (313). She addresses the prosthetic eyes of the audience that torment her, that is, the light, not the faces in the auditorium. This tormenting light functions as the authoritative gaze of a camera, alienating the actors by erasing the audience and alienating the audience by merging them with the inquisitive spotlight. 2 With the torturous staring of the light, Beckett creates the sensation in the viewers and in the actors (or so it seems to the audience) of looking into an unseeing eye. Benjamin, in On Some Motifs in Baudelaire, explains Baudelaire s dislike of the daguerreotype because the object photographed must stare for a prolonged time into a camera that does not return its gaze (1969, ). Similarly in Play, the spotlight functions like a camera, and the actors must stare into this mechanical eye that does not return their gaze. The actor is trapped into staring directly into the light, as Winnie is in Happy Days. For the actors, the brightness and positioning of the spotlight blackens the auditorium. All the actors see is a blinding light. Although the spotlight confronting the actors provides the audience with direct eye contact with the actors, the actors cannot see the audience. Hence, the audience stares at unperceiving bodies. The characters, acting for and seemingly gazing into the spotlight, question whether they are seen. W2, like Winnie in Happy Days, says: Are you listening to me? Is anyone listening to me? Is anyone looking at me? Is anyone bothering about me at all? (314). She begins by addressing her question to you, the specific perceiver the spotlight. By addressing the other questions to anyone, however, W2 turns her inquisitive eye towards the audience, yearning to know whether she is seen. Likewise, M says: And now, that you are... mere eye. Just looking. At my face. On and off. [...] Mere eye. No mind. Opening and shutting on me. Am I as much [Spot off M. Blackout. Three seconds. Spot on M.] Am I as much as... being seen? [...] [Closing repeat.] Am I as much as... being seen? (317) The mechanical reproducibility of the gaze results in a mechanised response to the image. The light swivels from one image to the other not hearing or seeing them. It is a precise and automated eye that authoritatively switches the voices on and off but does not see or hear the nuances 189
5 of the performance. The performance, likewise, performed ideally toneless and without expression, except where indicated, parodies the mechanised performance of the actor stuck in the same play for years. Responding to the spotlight has become their habit, and Beckett, years earlier, wrote that habits are paralysing (Beckett 1957, 9). The light repeatedly provokes the characters into speech that grows into a habit and consequently both erases the significance of their response and suggests a further lack of authorial control. Even though the stage suggests a purgatory where the actors must repeat their sins, it is, to the contrary, a place where even repenting does not release the figures from their agony. W1 asks, Is it that I do not tell the truth, is that it, that some day somehow I may tell the truth at last and then no more light at last, for the truth? (313). But even if she told the truth, the prosthetic eye the spotlight will not release her. Shortly after her questioning whether she is in her purgatory because she does not get the story right, she states: Penitence, yes, at a pinch, atonement, one was resigned, but no, that does not seem to be the point either (316). In an early typescript, this line read: I repent. Unfortunately that does not seem to be the point (ts. 1528/1). Repenting, an action that usually results in forgiveness, in Play, merely adds up to a heap of empty words. Modern technology, Benjamin explains in The Storyteller, results in the loss of ritual value and the silencing of the story-teller (1969, 84). Although in Play repenting, a ritual performed in order to be forgiven, no longer functions, the technology of the spotlight has not silenced the characters. They continue to tell their story even if it has become an agonising, unrelenting repetition. Beckett privileges M with the recognition of their situation as a performance. M says, I know now, all that was just... play. And all this? When will all this [...] All this, when will all this have been... just play? (313). M draws the distinction between his past life as play and his current agony. He refers to the past as a performance, yet ironically, he does not recognise his current situation as a performance which he must replay for the light. The title of this piece is also self-referential; it is a play about the agony of performing. Stage performance, the work demonstrates, is an agony because of its repetitive actions and the actor s need and agony of being seen. In the age of modern technology, the agony of performance is linked to the actors recognition that they perform for the mechanical eye of the spot or camera rather than a live audience. 190
6 The use of the word play also refers to theatre and performance as a game. In the fourth typescript, this sequence reads: I know now, all that was just a game. (Pause.) And all this? (Pause.) When will all this have been... just a game? (ts. 1528/3). Theatre is a game play, writes George Devine in his notes relating to the premiere of Play. The word game both refers to the performance as a harmless game as well as hurtful manipulation. The actors and audience are being messed about by the spotlight, director and theatrical conventions. While played with, the audience is directed into questioning the menace and misery they perceive and laugh at as well as the authorial structures within theatre. The change to play signifies a further reading. This word may refer to a play back a repeat. Not only is a repeat built into the play, giving the impression of an endless performance, but also Beckett s play suggests that memories have become increasingly mechanised in the modern age. Although memories by their very nature recur sometimes voluntarily and sometimes involuntarily, memories become more easily reproduced with modern technology. Technology allows one to capture more specific moments. The mechanically reproduced photographic images seen in Film and the tape-recorded voice in Krapp s Last Tape provide us with a reproduction of the past. When we look at a photographed image, it triggers our memory. Likewise, the spot prompts the three figures on stage to replay their love triangle. Mechanically reproduced memories, however, do not offer a more accurate image of the past. Although the camera promised to replicate the object photographed and the tape recorder promised to replicate the voice, both the camera and the tape-recorder failed to do so. The daguerreotype required a death-like stillness of the person photographed and even more precise cameras capture a fraction of the action. The moment viewed is always dead. Moreover, the mechanism of the camera that captures the object is a mirror. Mirrors provide only distorted reproductions. The spotlight in Play provides the audience with an image and provokes the actors into speech, but as Beckett notes, the voices are sometimes unintelligible (307) and the repeat may present an element of variation (320). The spot possibly prompts the characters into imperfect reflections of their past, and thus, the images we gaze upon in this play are distortions of the past. Constructing the spotlight as a technological tyrant, Beckett creates a work that examines the fragmented and mechanised nature of stage productions as well as exploring questions concerning the prosthetic eye and the technical reproducibility of film. In his notes about Play George 191
7 Devine jotted down, Audience privileged/actors tortured. The audience may appear to be privileged because the spotlight extends their vision; however, this prosthesis also hinders sight (Freud, 43). Benjamin warns that altering the gaze may give rise to a wave of absent-minded examiners (1969, 241). The privileged, prosthetic eye of the audience cannot edit together the fragments to provide understanding nor can this eye illuminate the purgatorial experience it sheds light on. W2 says, No doubt I make the same mistake as when it was the sun that shone, of looking for sense where possibly there is none (313-14). As part of a vision-centred and vision-generated culture, the audience looks where the light is shone, searching to be enlightened. However, Beckett s use of the spotlight comments on the audience s mistake in attempting to look for meaning where there may be none. The spotlight is an artificial light that, through its illumination of the image on stage, places the audience in the dark. In other words, it is a staring, technological eye that initially seems to enhance the audience s human sight, allowing them into a purgatorial world, but instead of illuminating the play, it reveals the audience s and the characters lack of insight. 3 In its illumination of the audience s lack of insight, the spotlight works to bring the audience into a position of questioning the role of authority both in the spotlight and in themselves. Beckett challenges the privileging of theatre by staging a performance that resembles film production. The light functions as a camera that traps the actors into repetitive, fragmented scenes, and traps the viewers into perceiving the actors. While the audience watches the play, they begin to recognise that they are bodies perceiving unperceiving bodies. Beckett s audience, however, is not Benjamin s absent-minded viewer. Through his use of technology and authorial structures within Play, Beckett awakens the audience and prompts them into a questioning of the reproductive and manipulative structures in the production of a play. Notes 1. In the opening directions of Film, Beckett wrote: No truth value attaches to above, regarded as of merely structural and dramatic convenience (323). Beckett steps away from asserting any truth to Bishop George Berkeley s esse est percipi (to be is to be perceived) or to any of the assertions about the mechanised gaze in Film. However, this statement produces an awareness in the readers to the dramatic structure of the work. The readers, in essence, are asked to examine the work structurally and dramatically rather than emotionally. 192
8 2. See McMullan for a discussion of the Spotlight and judgement (17). 3. See Klaus Peter Müller for an analysis of traditional metaphors of light and dark in Play (258). Works Cited Armstrong, Tim, Modernism, Technology and the Body: A Cultural Study (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1998). Beckett, Samuel, Play typescripts with manuscript corrections, ts. 1528/1, 3, 5, 9, Archive of the Beckett International Foundation (BIF), U of Reading., The Complete Dramatic Works (London: Faber and Faber, 1986)., Proust (New York: Grove P, 1957). Benjamin, Walter, Illuminations, ed. by Hannah Arendt, trans. by Harry Zohn (New York: Schocken, 1969)., The Author as Producer, in Understanding Brecht, trans. by Anna Bostock (London: NLB, 1977), Caygill, Howard, Walter Benjamin: The Colour of Experience (London: Routledge, 1998). Cohn, Ruby, Back to Beckett (Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1973). Devine, George, Manuscript notes on Play relating to the premiere dated 1963, ms. 1581/15, BIF, Reading. Freud, Sigmund, Civilization and Its Discontents, trans. by James Strachey (New York: Norton, 1989). Harmon, Maurice, ed., No Author Better Served: The Correspondence of Samuel Beckett and Alan Schneider (Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1998). Huyssen, Andreas, After the Great Divide: Modernism, Mass Culture and Postmodernism (London: Macmillan, 1988). McMullan, Anna, Theatre on Trial: Samuel Beckett s Later Drama (London: Routledge, 1993). Müller, Klaus Peter, More Than Just Play : The Creation of Fabulous History in Beckett s Plays, in SBT/A 2, Beckett in the 1990s, ed. by Marius Buning and Lois Oppenheim (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1993), Orvell, Miles, Literature and the Authority of Technology, in Literature and Science as Modes of Expression, ed. by Frederick Amrine (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic, 1989),
Key Words: Beckett, Language, Postmodernism, Identity, Communication
1 Key Words: Beckett, Language, Postmodernism, Identity, Communication Abstract The value of language on the physical stage results in many complex consequences. In making a literal reality from an immaterial
More information290 JOURNAL OF BECKETT STUDIES
290 JOURNAL OF BECKETT STUDIES Scève s dizain CCCXXXI. But despite such fundamental difficulties, and many others besides, SBL is one of the few texts that will prove essential for scholars of Beckett,
More informationSpatial Formations. Installation Art between Image and Stage.
Spatial Formations. Installation Art between Image and Stage. An English Summary Anne Ring Petersen Although much has been written about the origins and diversity of installation art as well as its individual
More informationILLUMINATIONS: ESSAYS AND REFLECTIONS BY WALTER BENJAMIN
ILLUMINATIONS: ESSAYS AND REFLECTIONS BY WALTER BENJAMIN DOWNLOAD EBOOK : ILLUMINATIONS: ESSAYS AND REFLECTIONS BY WALTER BENJAMIN PDF Click link bellow and free register to download ebook: ILLUMINATIONS:
More informationTHEATRE STUDIES. Written examination. Wednesday 19 November 2003
Victorian Certificate of Education 2003 THEATRE STUDIES Written examination Wednesday 19 November 2003 Reading time: 2.00 pm to 2.15 pm (15 minutes) Writing time: 2.15 pm to 3.45 pm (1 hour 30 minutes)
More information2007 Issue No. 15 Walter Benjamin and the Virtual Politicizing Art : Benjamin s Redemptive Critique of Technology in the Age of Fascism
2/18/2016 TRANSFORMATIONS Journal of Media & Culture ISSN 1444 3775 2007 Issue No. 15 Walter Benjamin and the Virtual Politicizing Art : Benjamin s Redemptive Critique of Technology in the Age of Fascism
More informationBlindness as a challenging voice to stigma. Elia Charidi, Panteion University, Athens
Blindness as a challenging voice to stigma Elia Charidi, Panteion University, Athens The title of this presentation is inspired by John Hull s autobiographical work (2001), in which he unfolds his meditations
More informationBlindness and Enlightenment in Alfredo Jaar s Lament of the Images
Almeida 1 Blindness and Enlightenment in Alfredo Jaar s Lament of the Images Laura Freitas Almeida The Chilean-born artist Alfredo Jaar is an example of an unusual documentary photographer who seems to
More informationThe Spell of the Sensuous Chapter Summaries 1-4 Breakthrough Intensive 2016/2017
The Spell of the Sensuous Chapter Summaries 1-4 Breakthrough Intensive 2016/2017 Chapter 1: The Ecology of Magic In the first chapter of The Spell of the Sensuous David Abram sets the context of his thesis.
More informationIntroduction: staging Beckett at the margins
Introduction: staging Beckett at the margins Article Accepted Version McMullan, A. and Pattie, D. (2017) Introduction: staging Beckett at the margins. Samuel Beckett Today / Aujourd'hui, 29 (2). pp. 227
More informationCinema and Telecommunication / Distance and Aura
Cinema and Telecommunication / Distance and Aura Film/Telecommunication Benjamin/Virilio Lev Manovich If Walter Benjamin had one true intellectual descendant who extended his inquiries into the second
More informationModule A Experience through Language
Module A Experience through Language Elective 2 Distinctively Visual The Shoehorn Sonata By John Misto Drama (Stage 6 English Syllabus p33) Module A Experience through Language explore the uses of a particular
More informationTowards a Methodology of Artistic Research. April 3rd
Towards a Methodology of Artistic Research April 3rd Singularities The word singular has become much used if not always in right sense It depicts features that cannot be explained with the help of general
More informationPractices of Looking is concerned specifically with visual culture, that. 4 Introduction
The world we inhabit is filled with visual images. They are central to how we represent, make meaning, and communicate in the world around us. In many ways, our culture is an increasingly visual one. Over
More informationVertigo and Psychoanalysis
Vertigo and Psychoanalysis Freudian theories relevant to Vertigo Repressed memory: Freud believed that traumatic events, usually from childhood, are repressed by the conscious mind. Repetition compulsion:
More informationWestern Sydney University. Milissa Deitz. All the little boxes
Western Sydney University Milissa Deitz Biographical note Dr Milissa Deitz lectures in communication and digital media at Western Sydney University. She is a journalist and novelist. Milissa s book Watch
More informationOusmane Sembene: An Aesthetic Appreciation in the Light of HD
Ousmane Sembene: An Aesthetic Appreciation in the Light of HD Fisher, A. (2017). Ousmane Sembene: An Aesthetic Appreciation in the Light of HD. Viewfinder, (104). Published in: Viewfinder Document Version:
More informationFilm Studies Coursework Guidance
THE MICRO ANALYSIS Film Studies Coursework Guidance Welling Film & Media How to write the Micro essay Once you have completed all of your study and research into the micro elements, you will be at the
More informationPeter Ely. Volume 3: ISSN: INNERVATE Leading Undergraduate Work in English Studies, Volume 3 ( ), pp
Volume 3: 2010-2011 ISSN: 2041-6776 School of English Studies Examine the role of the subject and the individual within democratic society. What are the implications of these concepts in a society with
More informationMultiple Choice Questions
Chapter 1 Introduction Multiple Choice Questions 1) Maxim Gorky referred to the world that film transported him to as the ʺkingdom of.ʺ A) dreams B) thought C) art D) shadows E) imagination Diff: 4 Page
More informationHere is an example of a critical summary of an academic article specific to a chosen topic, Hannibal.
Here is an example of a critical summary of an academic article specific to a chosen topic, Hannibal. In Freud and the Psychoanalytic Situation on the Screen Alain de Mijolla analyzes popular representations
More informationFIGURATIVE v. LITERAL
FIGURATIVE v. LITERAL Characteristics of FIGURATIVE language: imaginative literary creative artful abstract subjective poetic connotative language that describes the world from an IMAGINATIVE point of
More informationThe Illusion of Sight: Analyzing the Optics of La Jetée. Harrison Stone. The David Fleisher Memorial Award
1 The Illusion of Sight: Analyzing the Optics of La Jetée Harrison Stone The David Fleisher Memorial Award 2 The Illusion of Sight: Analyzing the Optics of La Jetée The theme of the eye in cinema has dominated
More informationThe assassination of experience by photography
Daniel Rubinstein Draft Do not quote without permission The assassination of experience by photography Daniel Rubinstein One way of thinking about the ways in which photography contributed to the experience
More informationFILM + MUSIC. Despite the fact that music, or sound, was not part of the creation of cinema, it was
Kleidonopoulos 1 FILM + MUSIC music for silent films VS music for sound films Despite the fact that music, or sound, was not part of the creation of cinema, it was nevertheless an integral part of the
More informationWeek 22 Postmodernism
Literary & Cultural Theory Week 22 Key Questions What are the key concepts and issues of postmodernism? How do these concepts apply to literature? How does postmodernism see literature? What is postmodernist
More informationTHE SYNERGY OF FILM AND MUSIC: SIGHT AND SOUND IN FIVE HOLLYWOOD FILMS BY PETER ROTHBART
Read Online and Download Ebook THE SYNERGY OF FILM AND MUSIC: SIGHT AND SOUND IN FIVE HOLLYWOOD FILMS BY PETER ROTHBART DOWNLOAD EBOOK : THE SYNERGY OF FILM AND MUSIC: SIGHT AND SOUND IN Click link bellow
More informationIf Paris is Burning, Who has the Right to Say So?
1 Jaewon Choe 3/12/2014 Professor Vernallis, This shorter essay serves as a companion piece to the longer writing. If I ve made any sense at all, this should be read after reading the longer piece. Thank
More informationCity, University of London Institutional Repository. This version of the publication may differ from the final published version.
City Research Online City, University of London Institutional Repository Citation: McDonagh, L. (2016). Two questions for Professor Drassinower. Intellectual Property Journal, 29(1), pp. 71-75. This is
More informationDiegetic: The source of the sound is visible, it is on the screen and of the scene, and the actors can hear it.
Part 3: Scene Analysis We have been looking at the aesthetics of still images, or the look & style of the visuals, we now need to look at the constructed scene, so we also need to consider SOUND and EDITING,
More informationFilm Studies: An Introduction. Nia Nafisah. Abstract
Film Studies: An Introduction Nia Nafisah Abstract This paper is based on the seminar on film studies which took place in University of Indonesia, Jakarta early this year. The seminar responded to the
More informationHaga clic para introducir Week 2el título del tema. Media & Modernity
MEDIA THEORY Haga clic para introducir Week 2el título del tema Media & Modernity Introduction Historical Context Main Authors This work is under licencia de Creative Commons Reconocimiento-NoComercial-
More informationSOED-GE.2325: The Learning of Culture Fall 2015, Wednesdays, 10:40 a.m. 12:20 p.m.
SOED-GE.2325: The Learning of Culture Fall 2015, Wednesdays, 10:40 a.m. 12:20 p.m. Professor Lisa M. Stulberg E-mail address: lisa.stulberg@nyu.edu Phone number: (212) 992-9373 Office: 246 Greene Street,
More informationBeyond myself. The self-portrait in the age of social media
Beyond myself. The self-portrait in the age of social media The infinite desire to be seen, heard, thus being»connected«and, last but not least to have as large an audience as possible, has in our age
More informationAn Analysis of Les Yeux Clos II by Toru Takemitsu
Western University Scholarship@Western 2016 Undergraduate Awards The Undergraduate Awards 2016 An Analysis of Les Yeux Clos II by Toru Takemitsu Jason Mile Western University, jmile@uwo.ca Follow this
More informationMind Formative Evaluation. Limelight. Joyce Ma and Karen Chang. February 2007
Mind Formative Evaluation Limelight Joyce Ma and Karen Chang February 2007 Keywords: 1 Mind Formative Evaluation
More informationThe Commodity as Spectacle
The Commodity as Spectacle 117 9 The Commodity as Spectacle Guy Debord 1 In societies where modern conditions of production prevail, all of life presents itself as an immense accumulation of spectacles.
More informationWhat most often occurs is an interplay of these modes. This does not necessarily represent a chronological pattern.
Documentary notes on Bill Nichols 1 Situations > strategies > conventions > constraints > genres > discourse in time: Factors which establish a commonality Same discursive formation within an historical
More informationTextual analysis of following paragraph in Conrad s Heart of Darkness
Textual analysis of following paragraph in Conrad s Heart of Darkness...for there is nothing mysterious to a seaman unless it be the sea itself which is the mistress of his existence and as inscrutable
More informationRecently a professor shared two images with me, the first was a photograph of ancient
Andy Warhol s Outer and Inner Space (2015) Recently a professor shared two images with me, the first was a photograph of ancient cave drawings from Lascaux and the other a plan of a city crudely drawn
More informationREVERSE ENGINEERING EMOTIONS IN AN IMMERSIVE AUDIO MIX FORMAT
REVERSE ENGINEERING EMOTIONS IN AN IMMERSIVE AUDIO MIX FORMAT Sreejesh Nair Solutions Specialist, Audio, Avid Re-Recording Mixer ABSTRACT The idea of immersive mixing is not new. Yet, the concept of adapting
More informationThe Foundation of the Unconscious
The Foundation of the Unconscious The unconscious, cornerstone of psychoanalysis, was a key twentiethcentury concept and retains an enormous influence on psychological and cultural theory. Yet there is
More informationLaura Gallop. INNERVATE Leading Undergraduate Work in English, Volume 6 ( ), pp
According to Jiří Veltruský, All that is on stage is a sign. Using appropriate semiotic terms and critical support, discuss this assertion, making reference to elements of performance you have been involved
More informationMuller s play of human sorrow
Muller s play of human sorrow Kevin Cristopher Wilkins kwilkin1@nd.edu Lauren Whitnah Writing and Rhethoric 13100 December 12 th 2013 Charles Louis Muller, 1850 The Last Roll Call of the Victims of Terror
More informationHOLLYWOOD AND THE WILD WEST Professor Wise University of North Texas Spring 2016
HOLLYWOOD AND THE WILD WEST Professor Wise University of North Texas Spring 2016 Roy Rogers filming in Lone Pine, California, 1938 This class provides a rigorous introduction to the critical study of western
More informationPhilosophy Pathways Issue th December 2016
Epistemological position of G.W.F. Hegel Sujit Debnath In this paper I shall discuss Epistemological position of G.W.F Hegel (1770-1831). In his epistemology Hegel discusses four sources of knowledge.
More informationMLA Annotated Bibliography Basic MLA Format for an annotated bibliography Frankenstein Annotated Bibliography - Format and Argumentation Overview.
MLA Annotated Bibliography For an annotated bibliography, use standard MLA format for entries and citations. After each entry, add an abstract (annotation), briefly summarizing the main ideas of the source
More informationConstant. Ullo Ragnar Telliskivi. Thesis 30 credits for Bachelors BFA Spring Iron and Steel / Public Space
Constant Ullo Ragnar Telliskivi Thesis 30 credits for Bachelors BFA Spring 2011 Iron and Steel / Public Space Table of Contents References Abstract Background Aim / Purpose Problem formulation / Description
More informationCover Page. The handle holds various files of this Leiden University dissertation.
Cover Page The handle http://hdl.handle.net/1887/62348 holds various files of this Leiden University dissertation. Author: Crucq, A.K.C. Title: Abstract patterns and representation: the re-cognition of
More informationUnity & Duality, Mirrors & Shadows: Hitchcock s Psycho
Unity & Duality, Mirrors & Shadows: Hitchcock s Psycho When Marion Crane first enters the office of the Bates Motel, before her physical body even enters the frame, the camera initially captures her in
More informationEditing IS Storytelling. A few different ways to use editing to tell a story.
Editing IS Storytelling A few different ways to use editing to tell a story. Cutting Out the Bad Bits Editing is the coordination of one shot with the next. One cuts all the superfluous frames from the
More informationAPHRA BEHN STAGE THE SOCIAL SCENE
PREFACE This study considers the plays of Aphra Behn as theatrical artefacts, and examines the presentation of her plays, as well as others, in the light of the latest knowledge of seventeenth-century
More informationMr. Christopher Mock
REQUIRED SUMMER READING (Two Books): Book #1. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Book #2. How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas C. Foster Choose any editions, but you must read both
More informationCrystal-image: real-time imagery in live performance as the forking of time
1 Crystal-image: real-time imagery in live performance as the forking of time Meyerhold and Piscator were among the first aware of the aesthetic potential of incorporating moving images in live theatre
More informationNew Hollywood. Scorsese & Mean Streets
New Hollywood Scorsese & Mean Streets http://www.afi.com/100years/handv.aspx Metteurs-en-scene Martin Scorsese: Author of Mean Streets? Film as collaborative process? Andre Bazin Jean Luc Godard
More informationSource: Anna Pavlova by Valerian Svetloff (1931) Body and Archetype: A few thoughts on Dance Historiography
I T C S e m i n a r : A n n a P a v l o v a 1 Source: Anna Pavlova by Valerian Svetloff (1931) Body and Archetype: A few thoughts on Dance Historiography The body is the inscribed surface of events (traced
More informationDurations of Presents Past: Ruskin and the Accretive Quality of Time
Durations of Presents Past: Ruskin and the Accretive Quality of Time S. Pearl Brilmyer Victorian Studies, Volume 59, Number 1, Autumn 2016, pp. 94-97 (Article) Published by Indiana University Press For
More informationHeiner Müller, Hamletmachine (1977)
Heiner Müller, Hamletmachine (1977) Beckett s interest in an aesthetic of elimination, reduction Krapp: one character, single light, voices in the dark form in part emanating from recognition of aporia
More informationGEISTERTRIO: Beethoven s Music in Samuel Beckett s Ghost Trio. Michael Maier
GEISTERTRIO: Beethoven s Music in Samuel Beckett s Ghost Trio Michael Maier The role of Beethoven s music in Beckett s second television play is very complex. In this paper, I first analyze the formal
More informationPerforming Gender in the Theatre
Performing Gender in the Theatre An Analysis of Gender Performance in an Original Play Noemi Akopian Presented to the Department of English and Communications in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements
More informationScope: Film... 2 Film analysis...5 Template: Film...8
Film Scope: Film... 2 Film analysis...5 Template: Film...8 Outline This document is the film study section of the resource Viewing & Re-viewing which is designed to develop visual literacy skills through
More informationChallenging Form. Experimental Film & New Media
Challenging Form Experimental Film & New Media Experimental Film Non-Narrative Non-Realist Smaller Projects by Individuals Distinguish from Narrative and Documentary film: Experimental Film focuses on
More informationMemoria est Imperfectus
Memoria est Imperfectus If history exists as a fixed entity, clarity emerges in present time upon reflection of the past. If the past exists as an accumulation of unresolved perspectives, then there is
More informationIntroduction to Postmodernism
Introduction to Postmodernism Why Reality Isn t What It Used to Be Deconstructing Mrs. Miller Questions 1. What is postmodernism? 2. Why should we care about it? 3. Have you received a modern or postmodern
More informationDance Glossary- Year 9-11.
A Accessory An additional item of costume, for example gloves. Actions What a dancer does eg travelling, turning, elevation, gesture, stillness, use of body parts, floor-work and the transference of weight.
More informationOpening a Dialogue between Cultural Conservatism and Modernism MICHAELS. ROTH A
Opening a Dialogue between Cultural Conservatism and Modernism MICHAELS. ROTH A theme that by now has become more than a little familiar to readers of democracy is the conflict between cultural conservatism
More information1/10. Berkeley on Abstraction
1/10 Berkeley on Abstraction In order to assess the account George Berkeley gives of abstraction we need to distinguish first, the types of abstraction he distinguishes, second, the ways distinct abstract
More informationCritical Essay on Inglourious Basterds by Quentin Tarantino. When discussing one of the most impressive films by Quentin Tarantino, one may
Last name 1 Name: Instructor: Course: Date: Critical Essay on Inglourious Basterds by Quentin Tarantino When discussing one of the most impressive films by Quentin Tarantino, one may mention the directing
More informationArticle On the Nature of & Relation between Formless God & Form: Part 2: The Identification of the Formless God with Lesser Form
392 Article On the Nature of & Relation between Formless God & Form: Part 2: The Identification of the Formless God Steven E. Kaufman * ABSTRACT What is described in the second part of this work is what
More informationSinners in the Hands of an Angry God. Jonathon Edwards
Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God Jonathon Edwards Silly Quiz #4 In Edward s sermon, what emotional state is God in? Comparison Compare the language used in Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God to the
More informationCHAPTER 10 SOUND DESIGN
CHAPTER 10 SOUND DESIGN Digital Audio Production [IT3038PA] NITEC Digital Audio & Video Production Institute of Technical Education College West Introduction List down what you hear J Lesson Objectives
More informationVisual Culture Theory
Spring Semester 2010 ASTD 615-01 Dr. Susanne Wiedemann TR 4:00-6:30 American Studies Seminar Room, Humanities Building Office Hours: T&Th 10-12 and by appointment Humanities Bldg. 113 swiedema@slu.edu
More information21M.013J The Supernatural in Music, Literature and Culture
MIT OpenCourseWare http://ocw.mit.edu 21M.013J The Supernatural in Music, Literature and Culture Spring 2009 For information about citing these materials or our Terms of Use, visit: http://ocw.mit.edu/terms.
More informationFilm Lecture: Film Form and Elements of Narrative-09/09/13
Film Lecture: Film Form and Elements of Narrative-09/09/13 Content vs. Form What do you think is the difference between content and form? Content= what the work (or, in this case, film) is about; refers
More informationFILM AND VIDEO STUDIES (FAVS)
Film and Video Studies (FAVS) 1 FILM AND VIDEO STUDIES (FAVS) 100 Level Courses FAVS 100: Film and Video Studies Colloquium. 1 credit. Students are exposed to the film and video industry through film professionals.
More informationThe contribution of material culture studies to design
Connecting Fields Nordcode Seminar Oslo 10-12.5.2006 Toke Riis Ebbesen and Susann Vihma The contribution of material culture studies to design Introduction The purpose of the paper is to look closer at
More informationA description of intonation for violin
A description of intonation for violin ANNETTE BOUCNEAU Helsinki University Over the past decades, the age of beginners learning to play the violin has dropped. As a result, violin pedagogues searched
More informationA didactic unit about women and cinema
A didactic unit about women and cinema Título: A didactic unit about women and cinema. Target: 1º Bachillerato. Asignatura: Inglés. Autor: Gloria Pérez Peirats, Licenciada en Filología Inglesa, Profesora
More informationPETER - PAUL VERBEEK. Beyond the Human Eye Technological Mediation and Posthuman Visions
PETER - PAUL VERBEEK Beyond the Human Eye Technological Mediation and Posthuman Visions In myriad ways, human vision is mediated by technological devices. Televisions, camera s, computer screens, spectacles,
More informationBerkeley s idealism. Jeff Speaks phil October 30, 2018
Berkeley s idealism Jeff Speaks phil 30304 October 30, 2018 1 Idealism: the basic idea............................. 1 2 Berkeley s argument from perceptual relativity................ 1 2.1 The structure
More informationIf your quotation does not exceed four lines, put it in quotation marks and incorporate it directly in your text.
QUOTING Once you are committed to source acknowledgement, you have to do so in a particular way. What follows is a summary of the most important conventions of quotation and source acknowledgment. Quotations
More informationOnce Upon a Time by Halle Youth Ensembles
Once Upon a Time by Halle Youth Ensembles Reviewed by Matthew Dougall March 2016 I journeyed yesterday afternoon to the rather functional and un-predisposing building called The Bridgewater Hall in Manchester,
More informationThings to watch/read for this week as we turn to "Serial Killers III: Portraits and Signs."
Session Five Lecture Notes: Serial Killers III Portraits & Signs Professor Eugenie Brinkema 21L.435/CMS.840 - At the Limit: Violence in Contemporary Representation Things to watch/read for this week as
More informationSC 532, Fall 2010, Boston College, Thurs. 3:00-5:30 PM, McGuinn 415 Stephen Pfohl, McGuinn Hall 416 Office hours: Thurs: 3:15-5:15 PM, and by appt.
SC 532, Fall 2010, Boston College, Thurs. 3:00-5:30 PM, McGuinn 415 Stephen Pfohl, McGuinn Hall 416 Office hours: Thurs: 3:15-5:15 PM, and by appt. Images and Power People are aroused by pictures and sculptures;
More informationFilm-Philosophy
Jay Raskin The Friction Over the Fiction of Nonfiction Movie Carl R. Plantinga Rhetoric and Representation in Nonfiction Film Cambridge University Press, 1997 In the current debate or struggle between
More informationwith A Theatrical Performance of György Ligeti s Aventures & Nouvelles Aventures
A Theatrical Performance of György Ligeti s Aventures & Nouvelles Aventures with Samuel Beckett: Play, György Ligeti: Artikulation, and the potential for newly-commissioned works Proposed schedule: 08/29-09/15
More informationLeering in the Gap: The contribution of the viewer s gaze in creative arts praxis as an extension of material thinking and making
Kimberley Pace Edith Cowan University. Leering in the Gap: The contribution of the viewer s gaze in creative arts praxis as an extension of material thinking and making Keywords: Creative Arts Praxis,
More informationImage and Imagination
* Budapest University of Technology and Economics Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design, Budapest Abstract. Some argue that photographic and cinematic images are transparent ; we see objects through
More informationCritical Cultural Theory:
Critical Cultural Theory: Walter Benjamin/Theodore Adorno IDSEM.UG 16Fall 2011 Sara Murphy/sem2@nyu.edu Office: One Washington Pl, 612 Hours: Tuesday, 10:30-12:30; 2-4; Wednesday, by appointment In this
More informationPage 1 of 6. MUSC8021: Core Musicianship Skills 5. Core Musicianship Skills 5 APPROVED Long Title: Core Musicianship Skills 5.
MUSC8021: Core Musicianship Skills 5 Title: Core Musicianship Skills 5 APPROVED Long Title: Core Musicianship Skills 5 Module Code: MUSC8021 Credits: 5 NFQ Level: Field of Study: Advanced Music & Performing
More informationDisputing about taste: Practices and perceptions of cultural hierarchy in the Netherlands van den Haak, M.A.
UvA-DARE (Digital Academic Repository) Disputing about taste: Practices and perceptions of cultural hierarchy in the Netherlands van den Haak, M.A. Link to publication Citation for published version (APA):
More informationIntersemiotic translation: The Peircean basis
Intersemiotic translation: The Peircean basis Julio Introduction See the movie and read the book. This apparently innocuous sentence has got many of us into fierce discussions about how the written text
More informationStrategii actuale în lingvistică, glotodidactică și știință literară, Bălți, Presa universitară bălțeană, 2009.
LITERATURE AS DIALOGUE Viorica Condrat Abstract Literature should not be considered as a mimetic representation of reality, but rather as a form of communication that involves a sender, a receiver and
More informationAP Music Theory Curriculum
AP Music Theory Curriculum Course Overview: The AP Theory Class is a continuation of the Fundamentals of Music Theory course and will be offered on a bi-yearly basis. Student s interested in enrolling
More informationMusical Meaning and String Quartets
Dawson Musical Meaning and String Quartets 1 Musical Meaning and String Quartets Prof. Michael Dawson, Department of Psychology, University of Alberta Mendelssohn Op. 44 No. 1 Felix Mendelssohn s mature
More informationResearch Methodology for the Internal Observation of Design Thinking through the Creative Self-formation Process
Research Methodology for the Internal Observation of Design Thinking through the Creative Self-formation Process Yukari Nagai 1, Toshiharu Taura 2 and Koutaro Sano 1 1 Japan Advanced Institute of Science
More informationWhen I was fourteen years old, I was presented two options: I could go to school five
BIS: Theatre Arts, English, Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature When I was fourteen years old, I was presented two options: I could go to school five minutes or fifty miles away. My hometown s
More informationGetting My Art Talk On Lesson 2
Critical Learning Elements and principles of design are everywhere. Elements and principles of design are used to communicate. Guiding Questions What are the elements and principles of design? How will
More informationIdeology and Inscription "Cultural Studies" after Benjamin,
Ideology and Inscription "Cultural Studies" after Benjamin, In Ideology and Inscription: "Cultural Studies" after Benjamin, de Man, and Bakhtin questions the way history, ideology and politics are invoked
More informationCase Study: Vivre Sa Vie / My Life to Live (Godard, 1962) Student Resource
GCE A LEVEL COMPONENT 2 WJEC Eduqas GCE A LEVEL in FILM STUDIES Case Study: Vivre Sa Vie / My Life to Live (Godard, 1962) Student Resource EXPERIMENTAL FILM Experimental Film Case Study: Vivre Sa Vie/My
More information