RAN HERE:
thank every presenter for their efforts!!
I do NOT have TV at home, otherwise it would be great to watch this TV series
1. Term’s usage and theorization by Charles Baudelairethank every presenter for their efforts!!
TVB programme 光影流情 (12/3/2007)
“Well aware of the interconnections between urban uniformity and the need for diversity, he single-mindedly looked for such diversity in the crowd.” (Lehan, pp. 71)
Rapid modernization in Paris
Nervous stimuli of the city, rapid crowding
Avant-garde of modernism
2. From Modernization and Modernism
"Modernization is a concept in the sphere of social sciences that refers to process in which society goes through industrialization, urbanization and other social changes that completely transforms the lives of individuals.” (Wikipedia)
Physical change like pulling down, construction
Tradition is harmful for progress and development
“Modernism describes a series of reforming cultural movements in art and architecture, music, literature and the applied arts which emerged in the three decades before 1914.” (Wikipedia)
Flâneur, as part of modernism
Creative writing to explore another perspective in seeing modernism (& modernization)
3. As a writer and ‘city walker’ (part of the crowd)
Double roles --within it (enclosed) and outside it (detached)
“He strolls to pass the time that his wealth affords him, treating the people who pass and the objects he sees as texts for his own pleasure.” From: http://www.thelemming.com/lemming/dissertation-web/home/flaneur.html
“As a member of the crowd that populates the streets, the flâneur participates physically in the text that he observes while performing a transient and aloof autonomy with a "cool but curious eye" that studies the constantly changing spectacle that parades before him (Rignall 112).”
From: http://www.thelemming.com/lemming/dissertation-web/home/flaneur.html
Tell the histories/ stories of the city; through his writings on the city (or maybe through his personal association with the city)
Baudelaire, as a flâneur, tells his observation and feeling when he sees the modernization of Paris
“The observer in these poems identifies with an urban subject, usually someone who steps out of the crowd, and then through a process of association and memory connects this impression with his own experiences.” (Lehan, pp.71)
"..primal modern scenes: experiences that arise from the concrete everyday life of Bonapartes's and Haussmann's Paris but carry a mythic resonance and depth that propel them beyond their place and time and transform them into archetypes of modern life." (Modernism in the Streets, pp.148)
through writings (inspired by the crowds and concrete everyday lives)
Creating resonance and depth
Get beyond
“In Freud’s view, consciousness as such receives no memory traces whatever, but has another important function: protection against stimuli… the protective shield is equipped with its own store of energy and must above all strive to preserve the special forms of conversion of energy operating in it against the effects which tend towards an equalization of potential and hence toward destruction.” The threat from these energies is one of shocks. The more readily consciousness registers these shocks, the less likely are they to have a traumatic effect. Psychoanalytic theory strives to understand the nature of these traumatic shocks “on the basis of their breaking through the protective shield against stimuli.” According to this theory, fright has “significance” in the “absence of any preparedness for anxiety.” (Benjamin 161)
Baudelaire “To a Passer-by”
A man (flâneur) encounter a woman (passerby) in a deafening street
“Amid the deafening traffic of the town” (stimuli) Sensory overload
Inability to react to all stimuli
Delayed response
“The delight of the urban poet is love - not at first sight, but at last sight. It is a farewell forever which coincides in the poem with the moment of enchantment.” (Benjamin 169)
Xiao Si’s “Hong Kong Bank Lion statues (看銅獅去)”
“我是特意地走到中環匯豐銀行去的，為的是看那對銅獅子。活在香港幾十年，原來從沒有細細看過那對獅子。去看，去撫摸一下，去查看雕塑家的英文名字。”
“我繞著獅子走幾圈，一個大概在等人的人瞪著我，又不像遊客，這個人要看甚麼？一個土生土長的香港人，第一次細看那已經在那裡幾十年的獅子，先生，你明白嗎？” “他當然不會明白。” (Xiao Si 19)
Delayed response
Different behaviors between the flâneur and the passerby in the modernized city
Star Ferry
“Not seeing what is there”
Love it unconsciously without realizing it
Delayed response
Knowing that it has to be torn down
Love emerges again
- “Love at last sight” (Benjamin 169)
Nostalgia and Memory
City is fast moving
Full of destruction and construction
Involvement of “milieu de memoire” and “Lieu de memorie”
“The site of memory are “milieux”, the real environment of memory, but today, with our lack of memory, we have to be content with lieux de memoire, places which remind us of the past, of a (broken) memory.” (Morley 87)
Xiao Si’s stories
別矣紅磚 (Goodbye, red brick)
Fast changing city
The old poet could not notice where he was
Xiao Si showed him the church with red bricks (lieu de memoire), he recongnized where he was (milieu de memoire)
歐外歐老作家李別香江十多年後重來, 面對本來熟悉的灣仔,無法辨認, 顯得惘然。我就帶他們走紅磚禮拜堂前,他們那如見故人的雀躍, 至今難忘。它証實了重來非夢,老人家久歴滄桑,劫後歸來, 它是一種實體證明, 是一種物證。
春秧街(Chun Yeung Street)
The busy market was moved
When Xiao Si returned to the street (lieu de memoire), she thought about the market which was once very lively and the people were so close
“1993年3月1日開始, 各式攤子要遷到附近新建好的多層街市去了。春秧街回復了一條街, 一條電車路的樣貌。幾個拎着菜藍小車的主婦, 依然慣性地在街中央走着, 有點若有所失的神情。風光過後, 一切變成記憶。” «春秧街»
conclusion
In Xiao Si’s “A small hillock at Garden Road”
“city is kept on changing. Everything is changing, it is nothing that we can do against this destiny.”
We can response actively, communicate with the city
都市不斷在修改面貌, 一切改變,
竟是不可抗拒的歸宿。«花園道口的小丘»
references
Charles, Baudelaire. The Flowers of Evil. Eds. Marthiel and Jackson Mathews. New York: New Directions, 1898.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flaneur
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modernism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modernization
http://www.thelemming.com/lemming/dissertation-web/home/flaneur.html
Kolstrup, Soren. “Wings of Desire: Space, Memory and Identity.” P.O.V. 8(1999): 18 Jan. 2005
Marshall Berman: “Baudelaire: Modernism in the Streets”
Richard Lehan: “The City in Literature: An Intellectual and Cultural History” Berkeley / L.A./ London: University of California Press.
Walter Benjamin: “On Some Motifs in Baudelaire”
http://imv.au.dk/publikationer/pov/Issue_08/section_2/artc5B.html.
盧瑋鑾 «香港故事 - 個人回憶與文字思考»
1 comment:
Wow~!!! Wonderful!!
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