All posts filed under: reviews

philip beesley architects

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Image Credit: Philip Beesley/ ROM Updated 12.16.2018 / I developed a concept for a global outreach program for the “Philip Beesley: Transforming Spaces” exhibit. View here. ______________________ I recently volunteered to work in Philip Beesley’s studio for a handful of days (for creative practice hours), helping with fabrication for an installation that was commissioned for an upcoming tour beginning in Vienna in October. The evening of my first day, I was invited to “Le Metabolism: Transforming Design on Film,”an artist talk at the Royal Ontario Museum — including a screening of the film “Le Metabolism” about the making of the ROM Dome Dress; access to the 2 exhibits “Philip Beesley: Transforming Space” and “Iris van Herpen: Transforming Fashion”; and a private reception. The ROM commissioned Dome Dress was the focus of the documentary and artist talk, and became the hinge between the two exhibits. Four (of their ten) shared designs are on display in van Herpen’s adjacent exhibit. A Dutch designer known for “her otherworldly dresses, and shoes that defy the laws of physics, [van …

a viable model

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It’s one thing to question your mind. It’s another to question your eyes and ears. But, then again, isn’t it all the same? Are senses just mediocre inputs for our brain? Sure, we rely on them, trust that they accurately portray the real world around us, but what if the haunting truth is, they can’t? That, what we perceive isn’t the real world at all, but just our mind’s best guess. ~ Elliot Alderson This essay focuses on Mr. Robot, a television series equivalent of an indie film, whose first season is said to have pushed boundaries and captured the cultural zeitgeist, almost overnight. Its first season ratings established it as the #3 most watched scripted cable drama in the US, garnering multiple awards and nominations — leading to the series being licensed in almost 200 countries (Birnbaum). This essay analyzes the strategies employed, deconstructs the elements contributing to its success, and explores why the series may be a model for future television properties moving forward.    The series is about a hacker genius whose …

narrative reframing

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This essay focuses on the first season of the Serial podcast, analyzing the narrative approach used in Sarah Koenig’s investigation of an old murder case. In covering the story, Koenig managed to correct cultural biases/ judgements inherent in the original criminal trial, and revealed a separation between truth and fact in the case, resulting in an upcoming retrial of the person convicted. Much of this was achieved through various techniques and aesthetics used in her reframing of the case narrative. Using the lens of theorists Palmenfelt and Jennings, I hope to illuminate the narrative approaches used, through an ethnographic analysis of aspects of the narration, and through examining theories around oral storytelling traditions employed in the podcast series. Serial’s Season 1 (referred to as ‘Serial’ throughout) is an episodic podcast first available late in Fall 2014. The podcast covers Sarah Koenig’s journalistic investigation into the 1999 murder of Hae Min Lee, a high school student in Baltimore, Maryland. Her ex-boyfriend, Adnan Syed was convicted of first degree murder the following year and given a life …

angry inuk

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Just attended the Gala Opening of “Angry Inuk” at the ImagiNative Film Festival. A revealing documentary of how organizations like Greenpeace have profited off (intentionally) misinformed activism around the issue of Canadian Inuit groups killing seal pups… hunting white coats has been illegal in Canada for over 30 years. Inuit communities subsist on older seals, caribou, wolf, etc for food, clothing, and other household uses… bi-products of which are sold commercially on the international market to support these communities and preserve their traditional ways of life. Since the 60s, animal rights organizations have (admittedly) exploited the image of the seal pup to garner millions in fundraising revenue. They admit seal pups are the best image to use for people to loosen the purse strings in the interests of animal rights. Seal species in the Canadian north aren’t even on the endangered species list. In fact their population has grown exponentially in the last few decades.     The European ban on seal products, which continues to economically devastate the Inuit peoples, relies on a western assumption that there is …

where control ends and freedom begins…

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This essay explores the permeability of space within technologically constructed realities, in the quest of finding where control ends and freedom begins (for an individual or subculture). The role technology plays within the constructed realities represented in “The Truman Show” and “Neuromancer,” points to media (models, spaces, content, interactions) as being purveyors of cultural control. The concept of ‘culture’ is defined as “an ensemble of beliefs and practices that form a given culture, function as a pervasive technology of control, a set of limits within which social behaviour must be contained, a repertoire of models to which individuals must conform” (Greenblatt 225). In this discussion, technology has two functions: a technical role in the construction of spaces and the impact the space has on the people who use it. This will be explored in the constructed realities evident in ¨The Truman Show¨ and ¨Neuromancer.¨ The attention to detail in the crafting of “The Truman Show,” enables the audience to peel away layers like an onion, in its examination of the manipulation vs. complicity debate in …

verdeccia

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Verdeccia’s play, Fronteras Americanas/American Borders illustrates Stuart Hall’s fluid construction of identity, encompassing a variable process in diaspora experience, which changes over time. Yet, it seems Verdeccia uses all four models in a sequence; perhaps suggesting the diaspora experience has stages. Once he began feeling the overarching culture and the limitations his Hispanic/Latino origins placed on him in his new place of origin, he then began to call our the stereotypes in an effort to dispel them. He encapsulates all the stereotypes, explored by his alter ego “Wideload”, when discussing Latin films (p. 47), which bring together all the preconceptions he is currently faced with. Yet, while attempting to dispel the stereotypes, for a moment perhaps, he exists in the place of “us” and “them.” By bringing the boundary to the surface — something I assert is necessary to cope with the boundary and determine what one can really do about it’s existence –- he creates a divisiveness. The mechanism of using “Wideload” is a luxury most of us do not have –- an alter …