Wissenschaftsakademie tonite!

[imomus]

Einladung zum dritten Seminar des Studiengangs Architekturtheorie an der
Wissenschaftsakademie Berlin




Samstag, 26. August, 20 Uhr c.t.:
Momus:
Howl's Moving Architecture

Using scenes from the film as illustration, Momus looks at the way
Miyazaki's animation "Howl's Moving Castle" sets retro-futurist
architectural invention against a backdrop of Mitteleuropa as imagined by
the Japanese. He relates these themes to the circumstances of his own first
viewing of the film, at Tokyo's Roppongi Hills development, right after
seeing the experimental architecture show "Archilab". He also thinks about
the representation of Europe in Tokyo's architectural landscape, and relates
the mutability seen both in "Howl's Moving Castle" and Tokyo itself to Tom
Wolfe and Robert Venturi's ideas about "electrographic architecture".

Das Seminar wird in englischer Sprache gehalten werden.

Abbildungen zum Seminar:
http://www.modocom.de/akademie/Architekturtheorie/Momus/Momus.htm

Seminarort: Seminarraum 1 der Wissenschaftsakademie Berlin - Elite
Universität, Torstrasse 94 (Redesigndeutschland), 10119 Berlin

Comments

[zzberlin.livejournal.com]

<< seen both in "Howl's Moving Castle" and Tokyo itself to Tom Wolfe and Robert Venturi's ideas about "electrographic architecture". >>

Hey where does Tom Wolfe talk about "electrographic architecture"? Book name please?

[imomus.livejournal.com]

"As Tom Wolfe points out in his brilliant essay on Las Vegas, they achieve their quality by replacing buildings by signs.” The “brilliant essay” by Tom Wolfe is “I Drove Around Los Angeles and It's Crazy! The Art World Upside Down,” first published in the Los Angeles Times in December 1968 and apparently finding an eager reception in Britain, being reprinted as “Electrographic Architecture” in the July 1969 issue of Architectural Design. The article is heavily illustrated with images of signs, especially neon signs, throughout the Los Angeles area. Wolfe notes that contemporary art is obsessed with “light sculpture.” He is impressed by the theories and work of artists like Dan Flavin and Billy Apple. “But,” he decides, “I look at what they have actually done and then at Melvin Zeitvogel’s BUICK—it’s crazy! The art world is upside down. All of a sudden the avant-garde, the serious artists are the primitives, the Grandma Moseses … The commercial artists, the Melvin Zeitvogels, are the classicis."

"[Venturi and Banham] approvingly quote Tom Wolfe 's writings about signs and electrographic architecture and the shift within Pop architecture to "whole structures designed primarily as pictures or representational sculpture."

Source:
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3982/is_200301/ai_n9176445/pg_8

Venturi's definition in "Iconography and Electronics upon a Generic Architecture":

"An architecture that embraces signs, reference, representation, iconography, scenography, and trompe-l'oeuil as its valid dimensions: that makes manifest evocation."

[zzberlin.livejournal.com]

<< especially neon signs, throughout the Los Angeles area. Wolfe notes that contemporary art is obsessed with “light sculpture.” >>

That reminds me of the first time I ever saw neon art that was designed to be seen through squinted, moving eyes. It was in downtown L.A., 1986, outside the Temporary Contemporary Museum. The piece was a vertical neon lamp, and if you moved your head rapidly (side-to-side) while looking at it, you saw letters in your peripheral vision. (I can't remember what the letters spelled.) It was exciting. How the hell did they do that?

I like light sculpture. I don't mind being obsessed with it.

[intergalactim.livejournal.com]

i didn't think anyone outside of NZ had heard of billy apple, cool.
all the best for your talk, just thinking about it makes me want to watch the film again...

i'm imagining a "special feature" momus talk-over on the dvd, could you make that??

sniffle

[(Anonymous)]

we missed you, momus.

[iamcoreyd.livejournal.com]

there's an error with my spelling as well.

[bikerbar.livejournal.com]

I thought you raised some interesting points about nostalgia for the 19th century, the way that individual cultures recreate themselves based on commonly-held views of a collective past, and of course the Japanese view of Europe. I wanted to comment on your observation on the jet-set culture having become a larger global community that moves around the globe. As an ex-patriate I am interested in this idea. But don't you epect this era in history to be relatively short-lived? The peakoil crowd say that the air industry is a canary in the coalmine, that it will become unprofitable rather quickly with continuing depletion of energy sources. So the internet will continue to connectus in a hive mind, but the globetrotters will soon be reined in, thus developing more 19th century localized economies.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

There's also the possibility that a clampdown on immigration, together with other developments in the direction of a paranoid security state mentality, will make the era of global economic migration a limited one, even within "extended families" like the Commonwealth. That would be a great shame, and a great change; many of my relationships have been with people who are totally the result of that kind of economic migrant cosmopolitanism -- who wouldn't even have existed without it.

[cheapsurrealist.livejournal.com]

There's also the possibility that a clampdown on immigration, together with other developments in the direction of a paranoid security state mentality

in Pat Buchanan's new book, State of Emergency: The Third World Invasion and Conquest of America . He claims "will lose the American Southwest to Mexico linguistically, ethnically, [and] culturally" and "that [the southwest] part of America is moving back to Mexico, from whom we took it in 1848."

The good news is that I'll be able to migrate without having to move all my stuff.

[sparkligbeatnic.livejournal.com]

Nine comments, the longest of which is your own ... Academia, Ahoy!

[tundraboy.livejournal.com]

Hopefully this show will appear on dimeadozen momentarily.

[xenogil.livejournal.com]

Howl No Ugoku Shiro, another Miyazaki masterpiece. Have you seen any of his other works? Porco Rosso, Laputa, and Nausicca are some of my favorites.

While I was at Otakon earlier this month (an anime convention of over 23,000 people here in the states, biggest on the east coast), I encountered a person cosplaying as one of the characters from the film.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v163/Xenogil77/Otakon%202006/DSCF1025.jpg

Ever been to an Anime Convention? A wonderful experience!