I took a bath; read In Praise of Shadows, an essay by Japanese novelist Juni'ichiro Tanizaki. I finished my bath. An idea came to mind:
This year, we are to investigate the technical and aesthetic aspects of the urban film archive, situated in the one and only, dirty Houston. Given the popularity (and reactionary spite) of midtown, the film archive will move into this growing area of town.
My partner and I were given the case study of the unbuilt Raaks Cinema Centre in Haarlem, Netherlands, by Bolles + Wilson Architects. I particularly liked their short article titled "Mass in the Age of Media:" My notes are as follows:
Built and digital have surface in common—the monitor and the façade. Virtual depth and material depth. Architecture is no longer an information carrier as it cannot travel by satellite. Architecture, however, has permanence unlike digital data; it cannot be as easily deleted. It is concrete, and has an uninterruptible presence. Buildings (or, can we say, Architecture?) become their site. They become place. However, the digital age has turned “television and the Internet [as] today’s piazzas”, since social interaction no longer requires place. Media has no depth, no human-reference; it can be overwhelming or not enough. Bolles and Wilson characterize the digital as our “infinitely forgettable, post-urban settlement patterns.” Architecture, however, always “gives measure to its immediate context, to eh comings and goings of daily use.” Most importantly, it has mass.
And an important bold quote:
“In today’s carpet-like urban field (the physical consequence of the indeterminacy of logistics), architecture can no longer hope to bring order to the whole (the ambition of nineteenth century planning). Instead, by focusing its unambiguous presence, its mass, architecture has the possibility to hold fast, to anchor, to give measure to the surrounding flux.”
To hold fast, to anchor, to give measure to....what beautiful purpose architecture has! But media... to be fast, to dis-anchor, to forget measure to...
My idea of media, after reading this, is loud loud pollution of light light and sound sound. Then, a bath with Tanizaki took place. Media is not viewed alone.
Media is only accentuated when viewed in the dark...the darkness that Tanizaki mystified, glorified, and attributed to as the essence of Japanese culture: shadows are needed to accentuate light, just as shadows accentuate their architecture, theater, and cuisine.
Then, my brainstorm: If I am to make a film archive-- a cinema, if you will-- why not use light and shadow as my architecture. To pulsate light out to the public-- their movie, their light show, their night life-- then truncate their sentences as they pass this tunnel of shadow. Out from this darkness, like a solitary laser, the secrets of cinema. Like a pause in a drama-- waiting for the actor to sob.
