Fairgrounds

And their significance

Carousel in "Strangers on a Train"

Three fairgrounds in three important films of the 20th century:

- Fernand Leger's erratic rides in his 1924 "Le Ballet Mecanique" where man and machine fuse as one, even during man's most abandoned and playful moments.

- The 1920 German Expressionist film "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" directed by Robert Wien, in which the protagonist, Dr. Caligari, uses a carnival to introduce his somnambulist Cesare.

- Alfred Hitchcock's 1951 "Strangers on a Train" has both a murder and the identification of a murderer occur at a fairground.

Leger uses fairgrounds to wax poetic about machines. Robert Wien makes the expressionist fairground into some kind of unearthly place full of macabre fantasies.

Hitchcock's carousel juxtaposes the horrors of the crime committed by the deranged criminal full of his internal fantasies, with the speed and distorted figures of the wooden horses, to finally evict the murderer through the centrifugal force of the mechanical carousel onto stable ground, where he can be identified and convicted.

Hitchcock took a little of each of the two previous films to make his approachable, human film where man is separated from machine and fantasy, and made to pay for his sins.

I'm always surprised at how moralistic Hitchcock is. After all, his films for the most part are about murder and crime. But, I think he really separates man from other things - nature, machine, psychosis (which is an inferior version of rational, sensible man.) Hitchcock has trust in man, despite his ambiguities and insecurities.

Unlike the other two filmmakers, whose protagonists are outside of the human (machine or fantasy), Hitchcock stays grounded in his portrayals of his fellow being.

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Good Things

Come in threes

Here are three new things I learned about the craft and design world in the past few days:

1. Charles Voysey is my favorite fabric designer (he worked with tapestries, carpets, fabric and also wallpaper design.) I especially love the way he hides birds in his designs, making them blend in with the foliage and other surroundings.

Voysey Birds:
Left for textile design ca. 1916 (how many birds are in the foliage?)
Right: For a greeting card ca. 1901

But I didn't know that he was also an accomplished architect. He had a distinctive style of low roofs and horizontal windows.

His homes have the same simplicity and harmony that his designs do, but their wholeness and beauty is further accentuated by their austerity.

The Orchard (1899)
One of Voysey's low-roofed house with horizontal windows. The Orchard was his home.

2. Felt is not just for hats. It is making a comeback in textile design. I think part of the attraction is that you don't need especially complicated equipment to make your own felt, and it is a very malleable and versatile material.

But, I didn't know this, and it makes sense, that it is one of the oldest fabrics, and that it is still in use, mainly in central Asia. Here are some current attempts at making felt today.

Left: Laser-cut felt rugs
Middle: Scarves using various felting techniques
Right: Penny Rug from early American and Canadian crafts

3. Rosenthal Porcelain from Germany is world-renowned, and considered one of the best both for its porcelain and for its design.

"Le Jardin de Versace"

A Rosenthal/Versace collaboration.

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When National Symbols Are Lacking

We'll grab onto anything

I've always said that if there is no concerted effort at keeping national symbols alive and well, something else will come along and take up the space.

This is just what happened with the Canadian Summer Olympics team uniform, under the direction of the Hudson's Bay Company Suzanne Timmins.

One of the designers, Tu Ly, apparently designed the "award winning" uniform for the Canadian team at the 2006 Winter Olympics. I tried finding Tu Ly's other works online, including his supposed knitwear for Saks Fifth Avenue, but came up with nothing. Same thing for his co-designer Vivienne Lu.

Tu Ly's 2006 work was commissioned by Roots Canada, and I get the feeling that he was under strict directions by Roots to follow their austere "everyman" designs and probably didn't have too much creative leeway.

Well, now that he does, here's what he, and his design team, has come up with.

Here are some of the design elements of the Canadian Olympics team uniform:

Font: Bamboo
Font direction: Up to down to mimicking Chinese script
Main background color: China Red
Style: Hip-hop camouflage
Inspiration behind the designs:
- Chinese tattoos
- Chinese astrology elements: Fire, Wood, Water, Earth Metal
- Chinese lucky number eight
- "Organic" maple leaf

I thought Olympics, as friendly as they are, are about giving strength to your own team, with dynamic home-grown symbols and designs.

What the designers have come up with is not Team Canada, but a subversive act to make Canadians into pseudo-Chinese.

At a CBC interview, critic Stig Larsson, a designer and owner of sports store Level Six and himself a national athlete, was concerned that designs makes the clothing too prominent, diminishing the athletes. I agree with him, and upon viewing his company's products, it is a real surprise that he wasn't part of (if not leading) the Olympics design team.

One last thing, 80% of the clothing were made in China, which given the direction of the design should come as no surprise.


Left: Chinese tattoo prints with "organic" maple leaf
Right: The number 8 as an emblem

Left: The Village-wear print with China red background
Middle: Close-up of print with mixture of Chinese and Canadian symbols
Right: "Organic" maple leaf, looking like a marijuana leaf


Left: The five Chinese astrological signs
Right: Bamboo font text from top to bottom (instead of left to right)

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Update on Good Shape

More like "good form"

Here's a revealing comment by Christopher Alexander:

[F]orms must arise that come from the technology and economics and social circumstances of that era. So that if one sets out a program where you're essentially sort of copying old forms in any version, you're liable to be in a hell of a lot of trouble...But [people] don't know what to do about it...And I think that it is necessary to spend time - I would say major amounts of time - thinking only about form and geometry. Thinking about the language of form that is appropriate now.

This puts a lot of things into perspective, which I had only subconsciously understood until now.

Almost all of my colleagues, professors and acquaintances in the art and design fields seem to be stuck on this search for "the language of form that is appropriate now."

Hence:
- The name "experimental" for the avant-garde group of current filmmakers, of which I was a member for a few years. There was (is) great emphasis on finding new techniques, and even branching into non-film media such as digital and computerized manipulations. Thus calling themselves "experimental."

- A recent bizarre project by fellow board-member (at a post I had at Trinity Square Video), whom I posted about here, who uses jello to simulate water in a fountain. In trying to find a new way to design fountains, she tried to redesign the water instead!

- A textile "artist" who has been experimenting with the very ugly, thick - in all aspects - fiber felt to try and come up with sculptural elements. The problem is that felt is not solid, unless stuffed. Trying to find this intrinsic sculptural element in a non-sculptural material hinders the real emphasis. Which should be representing the object itself.

- Textile designer Looolo makes biodegradable, organic and toxin-free home accessories. The simple pillows range from a steep $100-$150. The price is for the dubious material. Design not included. Also, biodegradable fabric! Isn't the idea that it last as long as possible, and not get tossed in the green bin when a little worn? And aren't cotton, silk and wool naturally biodegradable?

What's going wrong here?

As film theorist Siegfried Kracauer quotes avant-garde filmmaker Jacques Brunius: "The cinema [of the avant-garde] is the least realistic of arts."

This holds true for the three examples I've given above. In the single-minded effort to find "the language of form that is appropriate now", these designers, artists and filmmakers have given up on reality!

It's as simple as that.

There is something noble in this experimental, almost scientific, attempt at finding the right form. But, I think where they are made their fundamental error is in their disengagement with reality. Form comes from the real world. Trying to find form without the real will only give us deflating sculptures and giant jello for water.

Left: Chung-Im Kim's undecipherable object (worm, horn, shell, ice cream cone?)
made with sewn pieces of felt with a hollow inside.
One clutch and the object is flattened

Right: Gwen Macgregor's "Pool." Water made from jello as part of an "installation"
project with wading pools. Even the project is misdirected, looking at the pools
instead of the structures. The kids don't look too much like they're enjoying themselves.

Looolo pillows:
Left, "Fly" at $140; Center, "Janthur" at $190; Right, "Windows" at $140

The Fly and Janthur pillows defy leaning back on their irregular surface. Isn't that what pillows are for? And design is wanting in the Windows series.

Ten second preview of Bruce Elder's experimental film "The Young Prince"

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Good Shape

Why it matters in design

I am in the middle of reading architect Christopher Alexander's epic four volume work entitled: The Nature of Order describing how recent (he actually dates this from 400 years ago) man-made environments have alienated man from himself, from his surroundings and from nature.

We only have to look at the atrocious modern architecture (and designs) to realize it. Here is my favorite worst:
The new ROM extension - again. (It will never go away)

The book is really a treatise for all designers and artists, and not just architects.

Basically, a good shape is composed of simple, elementary shapes. He cites the following that he has discovered to be building blocks to a good shape:

Square, line segment, arrowhead, hook, triangle, row of dots, circle, rosette, diamond, s-shape, half circle, stars, steps, cross, waves, spiral, tree, octagon.

Here's an example of a bad shape:


With its amorphous, unsimplistic and undefined elemental shapes:


And how a design of a flower can actually be composed of elementary squares, triangles, diamonds, making the overall shape into a good one.


The two bad shapes feel like they have no balance. It feels like the chair would topple you off as soon as you sit on it, and the ROM extension will collapse on you as soon as you pass under it.

Here's Alexander's wonder at a simple, sturdy, and as he calls it beautiful good shape of a simple Japanese teapot stand:

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Update On Urban Development Keeps on Going...

How Ryerson University envisions the future

Basically, it is glass, glass and more glass. (Read the blog entry here.)
The glass look planned for the downtown area on Yonge street and on campus

The plan for the Image Arts building, right, and the already constructed Centre for Computing and Engineering


Seattle Central Library

President Levy wants the new library extension to resemble the "modern" Seattle Central Library which was designed by one of those glamor architects, Rem Koolhaas of the Netherlands.

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Urban Development Keeps On Going And Going

And how universities are scrambling for the spoils
Statue of Eggerton Ryerson
Founder of Ryerson University

Ryerson University is touted as the "down-town" University of the city of Toronto. The Ryerson campus is expected to receive $210 million over 20 years to dramatically expand the campus. So far, $45 million have been promised by the provincial government. This 20-year project hopes to fund itself both through public and private monies.

A lot of this rationale for this expansion comes from increased student applications, which rose by 20% since last year, and which are expected to spiral up in the upcoming years. The school currently has about 20,000 full time students, and expects this to at least quadruple.

Since this a blog that deals with art, culture and society, I will focus on:
- Architects
- How the aesthetics of Toronto's landscape is changing for the worse
- Multiculturalism

Architects:

I don't have a great deal of respect for contemporary architects as I've outlined here, here, here, here and here.

No less than four architects are now part of the Ryerson campus expansion, with more surely to join the fray in the future. The lucrative deal between university and architects (funded by public funds and generous wealthy private donors - individual or corporate) is not to be take lightly.

Urban aesthetics:

One of my most poignant posts was when I noticed a beautiful three-storey building along Gerrard street across from the Ryerson campus proper, and decided to reproduce it in charcoal and pastel. To my dismay, about a year later, this building was being demolished to what I presumed would become a high rise building.

Well, I was right in that it would be a several-storied building. But, the ultimate irony is that it belongs to Ryerson, who built it as accommodation for its students.

Multiculturalism, which I will now call Immigration:

Much of my reasoning to explain the drive for urban development and expansions comes from information provided by blogger Dispatches from the Hogtown Front, and his detailed analysis as to why Toronto's downtown skyscrapers are flourishing.

Succinctly, his point is: immigration. The city of Toronto receives about 1000,000 new immigrants, mostly from India, China and other Asian countries, a year.

And they have to live somewhere, and go to school somewhere.

The president of Ryerson, Sheldon Levy, also commented in an interview that it is immigration which will bring this unprecedented increase in student number.

Hence, Ryerson's ambitious plan to cater for this "growing number of students" by its spectacular development projects, all in all costing upwards of $200 million.

I will later on elaborate on the consequences of this urban development scheme fueled by high levels of immigrants from Asiatic countries, many of them also Muslims.

Addendum:

I should add that the most authentic, and deserving expansion comes from my alma mater department of Image Arts, where the Photography Gallery and Research Center is to house the famous Black Star Historical Black & White Photography Collection which was donated to the department. This has nothing to do with accommodating the latest governmental policy on population regulation, but on the hard work, wise connections and academic excellence which the department has fostered.

That is why universities should expand, and not as boxes to refuge students who have unexpectedly inundated their campuses.

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The Empress Theodora

And her past

A comment at VFR comparing the 6th century Byzantine Empress Theodora with the Spitzer escort girl prompted me to write this post, especially since I had just finished reading - coincidentally - a short excerpt on Theodora in Daniel Boorstin's The Creators: A History of Heroes of the Imagination. Theodora started off with lowly beginnings as the daughter of a bear keeper, followed her mother's profession as an actress, and eventually became a prostitute. Here is an excerpt from Boorstin's account of her:

[A]ccording to Procopius "As soon as she was old enough and fully developed, she joined the women on the stage and promptly became a courtesan." Who would have predicted that she would become an emperor's faithful wife, a passionate Christian theologian, and the most powerful empress in the history of the Roman Empire?

Boorstin continues to say that this all happened after:

Suddenly and unaccountably, [she] abandoned her lascivious ways, settled in a modest house near the palace, and earned her living by spinning wool. Attracted by Theodora's beauty, wit, intelligence, and youth, Justinian determined to marry her.

The mysterious word is "unaccountably."

I will venture to say that this change wasn't unaccountable. By gleaning through various written and internet sources, it appears that in her early twenties, she briefly stayed in Alexandria and converted to Christianity. Although no source I have reviewed makes this association, where inference follows logic, it would surely be her Christian conversion that led her to abandon her previous life, and live modestly as a wool spinner.

Her extraordinary life with Justinian is immortalized in the mosaics at the San Vitale Basilica in Italy, where she stands with her cohort of women on the south wall of the apse, facing her husband Emperor Justinian, who is on the north wall. Justinian had made her joint ruler of the Byzantine Empire.

With great contrition at putting Theodora's name together with Spitzer's call girl, here's a headline from Times online entitled: Prostitute Ashley Alexandra Dupre behind Eliot Spitzer sex scandal cashes in.

One can never accuse the expiated Theodora of cashing in. In fact, her legacy lives on as one can only hope, after renouncing sin and attempting to live an exemplary life.

Mosaic of Justinian in San Vitale
[Click image to see larger version]

Mosaic of Theodora in San Vitale
[Click image to see larger version]

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The Unwearable Genius of John Galliano

Fashion as Inspiration

John Galliano is the enfant terrible of the fashion industry. And whatever deviations he takes, he will always be forgiven (at least by me) for his talent, and, I really believe, his deep desire to create beautiful clothes.

For some reason, he seems to be stuck on tarnishing the very women for whom he creates his clothes. His models have strange doll-like make-up at times, some he adorns (!) with moustache-like paint, others walk in heavy fur winter boots while modelling silk floral spring clothes.

Another strange obsession of his is are wispy, dusty veils. These grey head-gear look like they're made of cobwebs from dusty interiors. They look like death at the doorstep.

His obsession with death (and with distorted, doll-like women) almost has a romantic feel to it, of the decadent, violent type.

I can hardly go into what makes Galliano deface (literally) his designs. That is why his work will only remain an inspiration and perhaps this is as lofty a compliment as I can make.


Galliano's Genius
[Click image to see larger version]

Everything from the great Valentino, on the other hand, is always for the wearing.

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Slowly Seeping into our Landscape

Moratorium on exotic representations

It is unusual that I don't post images for two straight weeks, and the previous post was too serious to put up images which corroborate with the erroneous "Moorish Revival" as proposed by the writers at Space Toronto.

I understand and appreciate fully the creative desire at times to represent "exoticism." And this is just what I did with my gouache print design which I did a couple of years ago entitled "Desert Jewels." I'm pretty sure it is the turquoise domes of the Iraqi landscapes which inspired me to do this.

But, this type of occasional representation is a far cry from the stories of design and fashion changes that our Muslim residents are planning for our cities.

Print design "Desert Jewels"

With sadness, I have to conclude that exoticism has to be out for now. And we are far better off going back to our original landscape to reinforce it back into our psyche.

Fortunately, I did just that last year, with my Trillium and Queen Anne's Lace series.


Print design
"Trillium/Queen Anne's Lace"

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Cross-Cultural Influences

Moorish Revival, with a twist

I've consistently said that Canadians are either very naive or deeply irresponsible. A recent article I came across from Spacing Toronto entitled Toronto meets Marrakesh leads me to think that the sin lies in irresponsibility.

The online blog, which is part of a print edition, describes itself thus:

Spacing Toronto is your hub for daily dispatches from the streets of Toronto to cities around the world, offering both analysis and a forum for discussion. Our contributors examine city hall, architecture, urban planning, public transit, transportation infrastructure and just about anything that involves the public realm of our cities.

Clearly a blog and magazine that tries to understand the urban landscape of cities across Canada.

But, the writer of Toronto Meets Marrakesh, Thomas Wicks, is incapable of differentiating between a benign, and even flourishing, urban landscape, and that which is endangered.

European and American artists have always had a fascination for foreign cultures, from African masks, to Chinese ceramics to exotic "Moorish" styles. Often, they lived in these cultures for some time, or spent years traveling back and forth, while borrowing from and being inspired by their alien friends.

Still, the bottom line has always been that they never transformed their societies with these strange and foreign elements. Whatever they brought, somehow and not always tidily, fit into their European or American environments.

Wicks' great description of the Toronto landscape of the early 20th century, when there was a general Moorish Revival through architecture, art and design, shows that many of these elements (they were actually very few) somehow blended in, albeit a little incongruously, with the rest of the city, and Toronto went on being Toronto, and nothing fundamental changed.

Yet, Wicks' attempt to favorably compare the latest "Moorish" incursion with the original one is completely erroneous and dangerous.

There is no Moorish Re-Revival. There are no artists and architects who, enchanted by these faraway lands, tried to bring a little of that exoticism back to their hometown.

What we have now is actual "Moors" right here, who are adamant about changing the landscape to fit their world view. They are not building mosques and minarets as quaint additions to a northern city, but as buildings which will transform this city. There will not be one or two buildings dispersed here and there, but whole regions which will be under the visual and aural spell of this new landscape.

Wicks appears to be a regular writer for Spacing Toronto. I hold him responsible for his myopia and wrong analogies, since he appears to be a professional. He will be directly responsible for the innocent bystander who will have to hear chants five times daily from the minaret that was built just across his home. And even if he moves to another place, a new one is sure to rise up again.

Canadians are certainly not naive. They have ample evidence, information and proof. They are ultimately profoundly irresponsible to their society, their environment and their landscape.

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Flat, Simple and Funny

Charley Harper's Illustrations

It is always a pleasure to find an innovative artist who eschews the avant-garde mentality. Charley Harper (1922-2007) made his first claim to fame when he illustrated The Golden Book of Biology, and The Animal Kingdom. Although not pure realism, his illustrations are nonetheless realistic. He calls his work "minimal realism" and he describes it as "flat, simple and funny."

I think they are more than that, with a certain charm, rhythm, and a story to them.

Birch, Bark and Birds

Double Lucky

Octoberama

Trumpeter Swan

Migration Mainline, Cape May

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Collapsing Architecture

The warning signs of Toronto's latest architectural addition

The new Royal Ontario Museum's (ROM) extension sits on the narrow curb of Bloor street as if ready to fall on the innocent pedestrians. Its architect, Daniel Libeskind, who also started the Twin Towers memorial, but later on had to cede the design to another architect for fear of an unstable structure, has been very buoyant during his interviews about his new Toronto structure.

The new Royal Ontario Museum exterior

The new Royal Ontario Museum interior

Interviewer: Your addition is radically different from the existing ROM building. Along with the praise, you’ve heard lots of criticism of it.

Daniel Libeskind: When the Eiffel Tower was built, it was condemned universally. But what would Paris be without the Eiffel Tower?

Libeskind hubristic response equating the Eiffel Tower with the new ROM extension is not even correct. The Eiffel Tower was built in the spirit of triumph, celebrating the one hundred years of the French Revolution and man's perceived victory against fate, at least the fate of ordained Kings and serfdoms, by lofty (if misguided) ideals of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. It was also an ode to the science and technology, and the achievements of the industrial age.

What has Libeskind's convoluted structure to offer? Libeskind's consistent response is that his buildings are "different" and "progressive." That's it, according to him. That's their value.

But there is another undeclared layer that Libeskind is not articulating. Either he doesn't really know it, or is too clever to mention it. His buildings all convey destruction, the opposite of architecture. But why is that? I think primarily because of uncertainty. Libeskind has no principles to build on. Liberty, equality, science, centennials? None of these words figure in his interviews. Instead abstract and empty ones like "different" and "radical" describe much of his intentions.

Libeskind is essentially a nihilist. And since art is always the projector of its creator's thinkings, his buildings emerge as potentially (imminently) crumbling edifices. And his interiors are no different. There is a sense of claustrophobic despair inside his structures, as though the wall are about to fold in. In fact that was one of the strongest criticisms of the Jewish Museum in Berlin, another of his buildings on the verge of collapse.

Whenever architects and artists distort our structures to the point of collapse, I believe that danger is nearby. This was what happened just before the horror of the Nazis. German filmmakers were making their own nightmarish films, and claustrophobic buildings about to cave in figured prominently in their stage sets. But there was at least a sense of awareness of impending doom by the German filmmakers. They chose, unwisely, to deal with it in metaphorical terms. Libeskind, on the other hand, keeps cheerfully giving interviews about the renaissance of Toronto, with, of course, his exemplary contribution.

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari by Robert Wiene, 1920. Exterior and interior scenes

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Winter Wonderland

New Year's Day, 2008

Street Scene with Overhanging Trees

Fir Tree in the Park

View of the Allan Gardens

The Allan Gardens Conservatory

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