skandalon

✖ Via Life ― Hosted by Google: “Full frame of movie audience wearing special 3D glasses to view film “Bwana Devil” which was shot with new “natural vision” 3 dimensional technology.” photo by J.R. Eyerman, Paramount Theater, Hollywood, California, November 26, 1952.

This photo is well known, though it’s origin is not. It appears on the cover of the English translation of Guy Debord La Société du Spectacle (The Society of the Spectacle, tr. by Fredy Perlman and Jon Supak, Black & Red, 1970; available online). It was originally taken by Life photographer J.R. Eyerman (1906-1985) at “the premiere screening of film ‘Bwana Devil,’ directed by Arch Oboler, the 1st full-length, color 3D (aka ‘Natural Vision’) motion picture” (Life.com). I don’t know for sure if it ever appeared in Life Magazine itself, though it was later used in 1984 on the cover of the brochure that accompanied an exhibition of photographs from Life Magazine held at the International Center of Photography (New York) and entitled: The Second Decade, 1946-1955 (Boston: Little, Brown, 1984; used copies still available online).

Here’s what Thomas Y. Levin has to say about this photo in his essay “Dismantling the Spectacle: The cinema of Guy Debord”

This picture, taken by J.R. Eyerman, has since become a veritable cliché not only for the alienation of late consumer culture but also for the ten years following World War II: it appears, for example, on T-Shirts, bags, and buttons as well as on the cover of the brochure that accompanied an exhibition of photographs from Life magazine held at the International Center of Photography (New York) and entitled: The Second Decade, 1946-1955. Few realize, however, that this depiction of the latest stage in the drive towards cinematic verisimilitude exists in at least two versions: the one, employed for the cover of the Society of the Spectacle (Detroit, Black & Red, 1970, repr. 1977 and 1983), depicts its elegantly attired audience in a virtually trance-like state of absorption, their faces grim, their lips pursed, in the other shot of the same audience, however, the 3-D spectators are laughing, their expressions of hilarity conveying the pleasure of an uproarious, active spectatorship.

(‘Dismantling the spectacle. The Cinema of Guy Debord’, in On the passage of a few people through a rather brief moment in time. The Situationist International 1957-1972, MIT Press : Cambridge 1989, pp. 72-123; available online at the Media Art Net website.

I first found the reference to this photo via Beetle In A Box Tumblr blog, though it needs some correction : the photo did not appeared in any of Life Magazine November issues of 1952.

• Oct 06, 2010 link notes tagged: art photograph photographer film movie cinema 3D vintage BW crowd audience spectator spectacle Debord entertainment America 50s technology vision Debord society

art photographer photograph sun heat summer solar crowd bungalow

✖ Via

Andrew B. Myers: Solar Eclipse 2 (crowd watch), 2009 from the Solar Maximum series

Andrew B. Myers is a photographer and digital image maker that resides in Toronto. His colourful and detailed pictures are very carefully crafted, with an approach that always plays both analog as well as digital techniques to achieve a certain look and sensibility. He is currently completing his studies at Ryerson University and has been exhibited in the Toronto area. (About)

• Sep 18, 2010 link notes tagged: art photographer photograph sun heat summer solar crowd bungalow

There is nothing that man fears more than the touch of the unknown. He wants to see what is reaching towards him, and to be able to recognize or at least classify it. Man always tends to avoid physical contact with anything strange. In the dark, the fear of an unexpected touch can mount to panic. Even clothes give insufficient security: it is easy to tear them and pierce through to the naked, smooth, defenceless flesh of the victim.

All the distances which men create round themselves are dictated by this fear. They shut themselves in houses which noone may enter, and only there feel some measure of security. The fear of burglars is not only the fear of being robbed, but also the fear of a sudden and unexpected clutch out of the darkness.

✖ Via Crowds and Power by Elias Canetti, tr. Carol Stewart, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, [1960]1962, p. 15 (originally published as Masse und Macht, Hamburg: Claassen Verlag, 1960)

• Jul 13, 2010 link notes tagged: communication community relation touch fear together politic body skin society panic security immunity space distance protection defense aggresion environment crowd mass power Canetti

art photograph photographer youth young kids zeitgeist crowd music spectacle spectators

✖ Via Ryan McGinley: Projects, “Irregulars Regulars”

“McGinley went on a two-year road trip, traveling to dozens of Morrissey concerts in the US, the UK, and Mexico. The resultant photos, many of which are densely saturated in the concerts’ colored lights, feature candid shots of fans, regularly zooming in for seductive close-ups of enamored youngsters—a celebration of the ecstatic cult of fame and its ardent enablers. A few oblique pics of Morrissey himself are scattered throughout the show, though the shots are careful to avoid the singer’s face.” (more)

About McGinley:

“Ryan McGinley (born October 17, 1977) is an American photographer living in New York City who began making photographs in 1998. In 2003, at the age of 24, McGinley was the youngest artist to have a solo show at the Whitney Museum of American Art. He was also named Photographer of the Year in 2003 by American Photo Magazine. In 2007 McGinley was awarded the Young Photographer Infinity Award by the International Center of Photography.” (wikipedia)

• Jun 06, 2010 link notes tagged: art photograph photographer youth young kids zeitgeist crowd music spectacle spectators

alone art artist body crowd decadence girls loser lost nude painting party zeitgeist realism hyperrealism

✖ Via Terry Rodgers: “The Triumph of Venus”, oil on linen, 160cm x 244cm, 2005

Rodgers late paintings are somehow reminiscent of Bret Easton Ellis novel Glamorama.

About Terry Rodgers:

“Rodgers’ current work focuses on portraying contemporary body politics. His rendering of the upper-class leisure life stands as an iconic vision of today’s society. The resulting paintings are not snapshots or slices of life, not verite records of actual moments in actual party or family situations, or diaristic records of his life, but carefully constructed and composited fictions, designed to elicit the most meaning and sustain the maximum amount of ambiguity.

Terry Rodgers attended Amherst College, with a major in the Fine Arts. His strong interest in film and photography influenced his style in the direction of representational realism in art.” (more)

Artist statement:

“Importantly, however, is that nothing I create is meant to judge or criticize. I am merely looking closely at who we are, the density of influences upon us, the choices we make, and the recognitions that occur in trying to comprehend a universe with no signposts.” (more)

First spotted via This Isn’t Happiness.

• Jun 04, 2010 link notes tagged: alone art artist body crowd decadence girls loser lost nude painting party zeitgeist realism hyperrealism

Ethical issues aside, the banks also did poorly at their core job, which is managing risk. And, while there are plenty of honest, capable people in finance, the ease with which investors looked past Wall Street’s failings seems like a classic case of what the social psychologist Leon Festinger called “cognitive dissonance.” Festinger argued that when beliefs come into conflict with reality we think up explanations that shape reality to our beliefs, rather than vice versa. He used the example of the Millerites, a millenarian religious sect that came to believe that Jesus Christ would return to earth on October 22, 1844. He didn’t. But not all the Millerites abandoned their faith. Many set about constructing elaborate rationalizations to justify their belief, arguing that Christ had returned spiritually, or that the event had occurred in Heaven, if not on earth. Similarly, when people’s faith in Wall Street as an honest broker, a smart allocator of capital, and a path to personal wealth was disappointed, they managed to explain things away.

✖ Via The New Yorker: “Déjà Vu” by James Surowiecki, May 3rd, 2010, p. 25

About James Surowiecki:

“James Surowiecki has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 2000. He writes The Financial Page. Surowiecki came to The New Yorker from Slate, where he wrote the Moneybox column. He has also been a contributing editor at Fortune and a staff writer at Talk. Previously, he was the business columnist for New York magazine. He has contributed to The Wall Street Journal, Wired, the New York Times Magazine, the Washington Post, and Lingua Franca, and has written on subjects ranging from Silicon Valley to college basketball.” (more)

More importantly, James Surowiecki is the author of The Wisdom of Crowds (2004)

• May 03, 2010 link notes tagged: communication bank finance greed cognition faith reality economy theory crowd capitalism fraud lost loser

A lot of the people who read a bestselling novel, for example, do not read much other fiction. By contrast, the audience for an obscure novel is largely composed of people who read a lot. That means the least popular books are judged by people who have the highest standards, while the most popular are judged by people who literally do not know any better. An American who read just one book this year was disproportionately likely to have read ‘The Lost Symbol’, by Dan Brown. He almost certainly liked it.

✖ Via The Economist, “A World of Hits”, Nov. 26, 2009

Very interesting article offering a critic of the “long tail” model developped by Wired editor Chris Anderson. The article was written last November. By now, Avatar has become the second highest grossing film of all time, just behind Titanic (1997). In the summer of 1998, a few months after the success of Titanic, the relative failure of Godzilla had some analyst wondering if the “blockbuster era” was coming to an end. At the time, Peter Bart (then Variety’s editor-in-chief) offered a good portrait of the situation in his book The Gross (Amazon link).

Previously on Skandalon: First feedback from audience and critics for James Cameron’s Avatar

• Jan 10, 2010 link notes [via] tagged: art technology communication mass crowd Consumption marchandise popular blockbuster best-seller industry America audience ressource statistics

✖ Via State Library of New South Wales photostream on Flickr: “Her Majesty’s Theatre re-opened after the fire, Sydney, 1903; with Governor Sir Henry Rawson in the top left box / A.J. Perier”

Permanent link.

• Sep 12, 2009 link notes [via] tagged: art theater vintage BW audience crowd

crowd space astronaut news celebration parade bw photo

✖ Via

NASA Headquarters: “Collins, Aldrin, and Armstrong in post-flight tickertape parade in New York City. NASA Administrator Thomas Paine is seated in front of Buzz.” (September 9, 1969) Photo ID: 69-H-1421.

• Sep 09, 2009 link notes [via] tagged: crowd space astronaut news celebration parade BW photo

art photo vintage archive ressource summer water landscape crowd bw

✖ Via Powerhouse Museum Collection photostream on Flickr: “Coogee Beach”

Description: “Glass negative, full plate, ‘Coogee Beach’, Kerry and Co, Sydney, Australia, c. 1884-1917. Silver gelatin dry plate glass negative in landscape format. The caption, studio number and studio mark are inscribed on the reverse of the negative.”

About Kerry and Co: “Charles Kerry was born in 1858 and by 1885 was running a studio in partnership with C. D. Jones. This partnership lasted until 1892, when Charles became sole owner and changed the studio’s name to Kerry and Co.” (Read more: perm. link)

This picture was found while searching Flickr: The Commons: “The Commons was launched on January 16 2008, when we released our pilot project in partnership with The Library of Congress. Both Flickr and the Library were overwhelmed by the positive response to the project! The program has two main objectives: 1)To increase access to publicly-held photography collections, and 2) To provide a way for the general public to contribute information and knowledge.”

• Aug 17, 2009 link notes [via] tagged: art photo vintage archive ressource summer water landscape crowd BW

art photograph photo bw history revolution crowd

✖ Via Bibliostoria / Josef Koudelka: “Invasion”, Prague 1968.

Previously on Skandalon.

• Aug 05, 2009 link notes [via] tagged: art photograph photo BW history revolution crowd

crowd tabaco celebration space exploration moon astronaut

✖ Via

NASA Headquarters: “Mission Control in Houston celebrates after splashdown. ” (July 24, 1969) Photo ID: S69-40299.

• Jul 24, 2009 link notes [via] tagged: crowd tabaco celebration space exploration moon astronaut