Arts One Open, from the University of British Columbia

Architecture and Memory

Yo guys, hopefully last post of all wooohooooo!!

I have to say that this book dedicates particularly long passages to architecture and the description of buildings for a book that is seemingly about the holocaust. Evidently, the book’s context and deeper content reveal that Austerlitz is more than a heartfelt post-holocaust story, one of its main themes being the suppresion of memory. Furthermore, one of my questions is how does the role of architecture relate to this theme, and why does Sebald make such a big emphasis on it?

I spent a while thinking about this one, I could understand that Sebald’s character was a an architecture historian and for that reason it was only natural that he talk about architecture and the stories behind buildings. However, I could not relate its connection with the overall book and its themes. After some investigation I came upon this quote:

“From individual memory to collective memory, architecture can impact what and how we remember. An architect’s design might make the most of “suggestible” memories by creating built form that helps to “preserve” a memory— like a memorial, for instance. On the other hand, architecture can bring new meaning into our present as well.”

This quote set me off in a better understanding of Sebald’s use of architecture to characterize Austerlitz. I began thinking exactly how it is that today’s architecture affects the way I reexperience memories that happened in particular spaces. Although at first I had a lot of trouble thinking exactly how I had been affected by modern architecture, especially because Mexico is too chaotic for me to generalize my experiences, I could not think how Vancouver’s architecture had affected me. In order to find the answer to my question I began thinking of experiences where architecture has certainly affected the way I remember experiences.

After backpacking through europe for a month and a half I was visiting the 19^th city of my trip, Rome. As any person visiting this city for the first time it was of the utmost importance that I visited the Vatican and saw the insteriors of St Peter’s Basilica. This place stood out because of its architectural mounstrosity but the way I experienced it, now that I think about it, applies to all the memories of all the famous plaza’, buildings and streets that left an impression on me in my trip around europe. Each one had a distinct element to them that makes the memories that much more vivid, making it easy to recall moods and environments. Okay, so St Peter’s Basilica, I was standing there, inside the Basilica, its enormous pillars, enormous dome and its enormous everything. The sun rays were shining through, and everything around me looked magnificent, massive, awe-inspiring and imposing. I really don’t know how much the space I was in affected the way I experienced the following moment, but I just remember that this is one of the moments in my trips that I became very self aware of where I was standing and what I had gone through to get there. It was a rushing sensation very hard to describe and it only lasted a few moments, but I quickly associate with the magnificence of the basilica. It seemed as though my past experiences were gathering at that particular point in time and I was becoming part of the numerous lives that had crossed paths with such a large building and its signifance. Its hsitory and the stories behind it interconnected with what I had experienced through the 18 cities I had gone through to get there.

inside_st__peter__s_basilica_by_blackstar0725-d5aqwgm

St Peter’s Basilica at Rome

I feel this is the reason Sebald gives importance to architecture to spaces in Austerlitz. Austerlitz is a character that is trying to connect with his past, and for that reason he finds himself drawn to the history and functions of pieces of architecture such as the Antwerp Station in Brussels. Through spaces and how they fulfill a function Austerlitz creates a connection with the past. Each building contains a certain path that draws to different memories, and also adds to the mood of ‘lost memories’ that envelopes the novel. Austerlitz recognizes that all the spaces contain a certain path that is unique to thema and adds to the mood of lost memories that enevelopes the novel.

With this in mind, I came back to the buildings we have in vancouver, and again how it could be that through their function they affect the way I have experienced memories. In today’s arcitecture from what I have observed of my own experiences it seems that we give a lot of priority to the efficiency of spaces at completing a certain function. Years and years of studying old buildings, have given us knowledge of what exactly a space can do and how that space can achieve its function. We find it aesthethically pleasing when a space is efficient, so I cant help but say (again, this is from what I have gathered from my experiences as I am no expernt I might be entirely wrong of what I am saying) that our architecture is very function-driven. We only need look at the Nest in UBC to observe that its beauty can be found in the fact that it is able to perform specific functions very efficiently. Furthermore, if I were to say that today’s architecture has affected the way I recount past experiences can be seen by the high priority we have given as culture to going about our business. Especially moving from Mexico, I can say that coming to Vancouver evereybody is going about their own business and has the priority to complete an objective and sometimes because of this people don’t get to appreciate the beauty of chaos/disorder and the liveliness that comes with it. Maybe this is the reason I have not paid enough attention to the architecture surrounding me, and its because it seems to be only there to complete a function, and it does this so well that it does not seem to bring attention to itself and stand out to the buildings that surround it.

Nest at UBC

http://sensingarchitecture.com/1328/what-is-the-role-of-human-memory-in-architecture/

Posted in blogs, lb4-2015 | Tagged with architecture, Austerlitz, memory, Sebald

Sebald the Illusionist

Hi all! Sorry my blog post is late! But nonetheless, here it is!

How does the use of images affect the reader?

Does it augment/heighten or decrease/contract from the imagination (of having no pictures)?

Austerlitz is a work of fiction but does the use of images create a set image that did not exist before?

Honestly I think that Sebald is manipulating the use of images so that we, as the reader, see what he wants us to see. On page 5, there is a comparison between the eyes of owls and philosophers. This may not seem like anything but I feel tricked because Sebald could easily have taken any images that could support his ideas.

It’s true that both sets of eyes indeed do look similar, but if Sebald had decided to choose a different pair of eyes, his analysis/comment would be void and quite untrue.

Also, the picture of the little boy on the cover of the novel, which is also on pg. 183 is another example of how Sebald’s use of images may affect us readers. The picture is a supposed picture of Austerlitz as a boy; thus creating the image of a serious little boy with a more than not-so-happy face. This ingrains the physical image provided Sebald and doesn’t allow us, as the audience, to imagine a face for ourselves since this novel is a work of fiction.

Although the pictures can be regarded as helpful or better, I believe that we- as the reader- have the right to imagine any images for ourselves, particularly the way Sebald’s novel is formatted because it is created in a way that seems non-fiction-like (not some illustration) but actual photographs.

Thanks for reading my post once again! Have a great day!

Posted in blogs, lb4-2015 | Tagged with Sebald

Poetry After Auschwitz

The gruesome legacy of Nazism is unavoidable in any discussion of Western (and especially German) culture. Theodor Adorno was one of many figures to address this bloody imprint, in his maxim that ‘to write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric’. The specific meaning of this statement is much-debated, but its relevance is unquestionable.

The Dadaists, following the First World War, formed their movement based on the credo that mankind didn’t deserve art for their complicity in that maelstrom of carnage. The result was an upsurge in ‘anti-art’, which was labelled degenerate upon the rise of Nazism. While this intent was not echoed directly after the Second World War, it is easy to see Adorno’s credo as an invocation of the same sentiment – the perpetration of these evils, by humanity at large or by the Germans specifically, is so great that those responsible, for the fact that this was allowed to happen, do not deserve the catharsis found in art.

The critical slant of the statement is the fact that art can be used for catharsis, and can relieve pain and anxiety; most chillingly, it can do this by glorifying actions that cause this pain and anxiety through the brutality of their perpetration. The banality of evil and the subtle contributions of an entire people to the crime make everyone complicit to an extent, and make it to easy to brush aside an evil that makes such gradual demands. To remember and learn from the horror of Nazism is to see inhumanity in its more pleasant and unassuming guises, and so to never forget the ultimate conclusion of the power that, a decade prior to its fall, had a sufficient portion of the popular vote and outspoken praise, even by some of those outside its borders. To take solace in poetry, that which can nullify the horror of participation, however insidiously in this brutality, is a greater offense than drowning it in liquor or offering tear-stained prayers for forgiveness, because it allows a conscious denial of responsibility where such is plainly an affront to sanity.

Posted in blogs, lb1-2015 | Tagged with Sebald

Austerlitz & Adorno & Cabaret

Last seminar we discussed a lot of interesting things, but one of the things I found most interesting was our many varied responses to the quote from Theodor Adorno, “to write poetry after Auschwitz is barbarism”. As a class we offered pros and cons and potential interpretations to this quote, but some of the most important things (I think) that were brought up were first the idea that it is important to use art as a way to remember and be conscious of the past while still moving forward from it, as well as the blurring between history and fiction that occurs when fictional characters embody the stories of true events.

This reminded me of a production of the musical Cabaret that I saw recently. Similar to Sebald’s approach with Austerlitz, one doesn’t quite realize the story’s connection to the Holocaust until towards latter half of the play in the second act. The show takes place in a cabaret in Berlin the early 1930s, on the precipice of the fall of the Weimar Republic – exhibiting the remnants of the “dancing on the edge of the volcano” attitude. In the opening of the show (0:40-2:30 in the video below), the Emcee encourages the audience to leave their troubles at the door because in the cabaret, “life is beautiful, the girls are beautiful – even the orchestra is beautiful”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KW5eFCFnW9c (embedding was disabled on this video for some reason)

Both the audience and the characters leave their troubles at the door, but soon the reality of the polotical situation becomes undeniably present in their lives. While nothing is explicitly addressed, the audience has a sense of what the outcome will be. The closest to a direct reference to the Holocaust that is made in the play is in the final scene, linked below, though the ending is left somewhat to the audience’s interpretation and each production stages the ending slightly differently.

In the finale, the Emcee entertains the audience until the very last moment when he removes his coat to reveal his striped pajamas. In the specific production that I saw, silent figures representing nazi officer were shown applauding after the Emcee said “auf wiedersehen” and gave his final bow, suggesting that the cabaret performers wound up in a camp like Theresienstadt where they were then performed for their lives – similar to what may have happened to Austerlitz’s mother. Though they take place on opposite points in time in reference to the Second World War, both Cabaret and Austerlitz take the audience/reader on a guided tour through an artistic and beautiful story taking the weight of focus off of the atrocities that occurred while not forgetting them all together.

My main question is: do you think that creating fictional characters in a difficult historical period in similar situations to true events, as Austerlitz and Cabaret both do to an extent, helps to inform the collective perception of the holocaust or do they lean towards romanticizing the events?

*Note: since I didn’t end up posting this before seminar I figured I might as well include some of the responses we generated in our seminar. I think a point was made that Sebald very deliberately avoids talking about the Holocaust directly, and that his approach to leave space for the voices of those who did really experience it to be heard allows him to be safely within the boundary, though he does so in a way that does rely somewhat on the reader’s likely romanticized preconceptions of the Holocaust. I feel that Cabaret on the other hand is a lot closer to the boundary and has more potential to romanticized, depending on the particular production – the one that I saw I felt was very conscious of this and therefore was more in-line with Sebald’s technique of not hitting you over the head with the facts of the event. Instead they both give small suggestions here and there before turning around and returning to their narrative, leaving “ghost images” that the reader/audience creates in their mind.

Something that Professor Mota pointed out was that Theodor Adorno likely used this quotation “to write poetry after Auschwitz is barbarism” as a question or as a challenge to artists, and rather than saying that it shouldn’t be done he is really asking “how are you going to create art after Auschwitz? How is it going to be move forward without ignoring the past?” I think these two works both successfully explore the possibilities of this challenge.

Posted in blogs, lb4-2015 | Tagged with Sebald

An Analysis of the Narrator as the Voice of the City in Toni Morrison’s Jazz

The narrator seeks to be the voice of the city and follows the characters of Toni Morrison’s Jazz, to document their lives. In an attempt to provide the reader with an accurate account of their actions and characteristics, the narrator dismisses the possibility of being tainted lens. As each voice is created to further an agenda, this narrator is unable to provide an unbiased version of the story.

The narrator wishes to be the voice of the city by speaking and listening on behalf of it. As the city, the narrator is to address the city’s culture and roots. However, the city cannot be described by a single narrator as the city is experienced differently by each individual. The story that the city tells to each person is unique and as it stimulates its residents, each perception of the city created is significantly different. The voice of the city may be one that is the most generic version of the most common perception but the narrator is unable to speak in this voice. The ambiguity of the city resembles in the undefined narrator. By not identifying the narrator’s gender, race or age, one is free to determine the details of the narrator’s character. This opens the possibility for the reader to insert them into the novel. The narrator’s claim to be the voice of the city is a statement that limits the imagination of the readers as the setting is created as a character. Yet it also opens the possibility of an opportunity for the reader to create the city as the narrator.

The city itself would be the ideal narrator as an unbiased and all knowing character. One who could speak on behalf of every character and provide an accurate background of each character or location. The narrator as the voice of the city creates depth within the novel. The illusion of the city’s free spirit is created through the flow caused by the lack of punctuation and describes each street as composed of a symphony of sounds. As the narrator describes the city, it comes to life as a character but when s/he attempts to become the city, s/he fails to embrace its true essence. As the narrator is to convey the messages that the characters cannot verbally share, s/he inserts their opinion of the characters and actions. The narrator’s investment in the defense of the characters takes away from the effect of being the voice of the city. By becoming the city, the narrator hopes to tell the secrets of the characters but is unable to do so without their personal bias affecting their stories.

Posted in blogs, lb1-2015 | Tagged with Morrison

The Message in the Medium: An Analysis of Graffiti with the Lens of John Berger

Historically, one’s possessions were depicted in oil paintings to display one’s riches as the paintings would entice potential spouses. Oil paints are used for they have the ability to create texture and communicate wealth. The medium of graffiti signifies rebellion as it began as a medium to make a statement against those in power. By defying laws and defacing properties of the wealthy messages are sent through the medium as well as the statement sprayed on the walls.

Graffiti or street artists? One label implies an illegal activity and the other legitimizes their work.
Graffiti artists deface public or private property with a tag, a practice that originates from teenagers without parental authority and with an underdeveloped prefrontal cortex. Tags that are carelessly thrown onto walls are often used by gangs to show their presence in the community and to define their territory. Is graffiti an illegal activity due to the oppressors in society censoring speech or is it because it is disrespecting property? Perhaps the disobedience to the law by spraying a message on the wall creates the negative connotation that is associated with it. As tags are used to promote gangs and further illegal activity, it may be the reason for the ban of them.

Street artists are often fed up with the system and are done waiting for approval of art critics create their own gallery through street art. There are two motives behind street art, one is to achieve individual fame and the other is to make a political statement. Either way, the images are of significance and depend on the audience’s interpretation. Street art is meant to create a dialogue between the artist, those who enjoy or despise the art and then there are others artists who respond. As walls are tagged, the artist is marking their territories and begin a conversation. Whether a symbol or a word is thrown onto the wall, another artist will respond with their own statement. As the original image provokes responses, the responses begin to provoke responses. Some may pass by without declaring their input in ink but those who do build an even more complex message. The bystander who admires the work may take a picture and distribute the image to others in honor of the artist. Those who do not enjoy the piece whether it be for legality issues or is irked by the image itself is included in the dialogue nonetheless.

The element of anonymity in graffiti or street art allows the artists to take on other personas. The potential risk of being arrested when doing what they love drives up the artists’ levels of endorphins. The satisfaction of seeing other’s appreciation for the piece for itself and not due to the artist’s brand would be an experience like no other. There is also an element of pride as one’s work is genuinely created for oneself and does not seek the approval of the critics or gallery executives. Street art is a means to make an anti-authoritarian statement and to gain personal satisfaction from bringing one’s art to the public without the politics that are associated with it.

As there are multiple ways to view art, Berger encourages one to look beneath the surface and images to study the material and connotations. Oil paintings indicate the hierarchy in a society of those who can afford the paint and the time of the artists. Graffiti paint is a medium that the oppressed choose to send a message as the cans of paint can be bought with mere pocket change. As there are multiple techniques required to spray an image, it is relatively quicker and easier in comparison to the textured portraits done with oil paint. The mediums themselves represent the class of where the messages originate.

Posted in blogs, lb1-2015 | Tagged with Berger

An Analysis of Alex Heilner’s Photographs in “The Ballad of Sand and Harry Soot” by Stephanie Strickland

Alex Heilner is one of the artists whose photos illustrate several stanzas of “The Ba. His photographs are of microbes that represent the internal and external environments that are common to the everyday norm. An analysis of Heilner’s photographs through the lens of a novel photographer will be completed in this blog.

The photograph titled “Transmission Helix” is the only one in its series that does not have the word “microbes” in its title. It is also an abnormality for the microbes are to be viewed as a whole, the microbes are assembled together to build a “Transmission Helix”. The other photographs are of microbes that individually look like other objects. However, the “Transmission Helix” neither mimics a 3-dimensional shape that spirals nor portrays communication. The subjects do appear to be two people dancing, both with their arms raised above their head and their feet are tapping together at the bottom of the photograph . The subject on the left’s side profile is portrayed and on the right, the subject is facing forwards. The microbes that construct this image resemble bones and muscle tissue. The microbes with black circles would be the bones and the other ones with a gradient tone would represent the muscles. In the stanza that accompanies “Transmission Helix”, speaks to Harry’s moods, specifically his violent ones. Harry’s moods are represented by the act of dance, the line “Harry has structure” is represented by the figure on the right’s straight lines. This photograph encompasses Sand on the left and Harry on the right. Sand is described as mimicking sand itself, as tiny particles, similar to the microbes.

The photograph “Manhattan Microbes” do resemble the New York Island but they also appear to be snakeheads. The black dot in the center of the head represents the pupil and the white ring would be the iris. The thinner end of the snake’s head could be its tongue. The snake illustrates the actions of both characters in this stanza as when Sand moves quickly and Harry as he watches those in Times Square. Sand is moving in a manner that mimics the snake as she is appearing to disappear as she Zaum Zoom in and Zoon Tzm out. Harry is the snake amongst the tall grass, which are represented by the skyscrapers in New York City.

“Airplane Microbes” suits the stanza that it is paired with as it describes Sand painting on the duck of an aircraft. The microbes photographs do resemble jets in the sky as they are contrasted by varying shades of blue. The microbes also appear to be syringes as the pointed end of the microbes would be the tip of the needle. The syringes would illustrate the virus that Harry mentions in this stanza. As viruses are mobile, the aircraft accurately represent them also due to them both symbolizing the potential of technological advances or discoveries. Accompanied by the potential for destruction of lives can be both improved and destroyed by either an aircraft or syringe.

The photograph of microbes with an orange contrast is titled “Helicopter Microbes” and illustrates the Sand who is described as “an infinite receiver and deceiver”. The microbes in this photograph do portray helicopters but they also have an “infinitely flexible” potential for interpretation. The helicopters represent the means of traveling to any location are they are not restricted by the necessity of a landing strip. The microbes can also be interoperated as lobsters with the thinner end would be the tail and the little appendages would be its legs. The microbes could also portray the long-necked herbivore, the Sauropod. There are a number of possibilities for this photograph to be interpreted which represents Sand’s ability to deceive.

The four photographs by Heliner are named in a manner that clearly states a shallow interpretation of the microbes in relation to Strickland’s stanzas. However, upon further analysis, they are deeply complex as many interpretations arise from these photographs.

http://www.wordcircuits.com/gallery/sandsoot/heilner.html

Posted in blogs, lb1-2015 | Tagged with poetry, Strickland

Tongue Twisters: The Spoken Langauge in Austerlitz

As hard as I tried, I could not make myself like W.G. Sebald’s novel Austerlitz. It was predominately the long, descriptive, and digressive style that contributed to my distaste for the book, as, by writing in this manner, Sebald effectively confused me and, as a Austerlitz’s story gradually became more complicated, made me want to finish the novel less and less. However, I do think that my confusions with this novel are suitable for what will most likely be my last Arts One blog post since it seems as though I have been nothing but utterly confused in most of my blog posts all year….

One thing that I found vexing, albeit intriguing, was the multiple different languages (as in spoken languages, not the “language” of images) used throughout the text and how and when they were used. Although I do believe that Austerlitz and the narrator mainly converse in French or English (Please correct me if I am mistaken!), several other languages are woven into the recount of the narrator’s prolonged conversation with Austerlitz through the various different character voices that are brought up throughout Austerlitz’s story. For instance, when Austerlitz recalls his first visit with Vera, he claims that she “stared at [him] over her spread fingertips, and very quietly but with what to me was quite singular clarity spoke these words in French: Jacquot, she said, dis, est-ce que c’est toi?” (153). From this point on, the reader is aware that the conversation between both Austerlitz and Vera is taking place in French, although, being an English translation of the novel, their words are predominately written in English. However, Austerlitz also states that Vera told him that, in the past, she and the young Austerlitz “spoke French, and only when [they] came home in the late afternoon and Vera was making [their] supper did [they] convert to Czech….In the middle of her account Vera herself, quite involuntarily, had changed from one language to the other” (155). One can see, in these excerpts, two of the ways in which Sebald indicates that there are different languages being used to communicate throughout the text. My favourite of the these two ways of illustrating language has to be the first. For by getting a character to speak a line in, say, French, the reader assumes that the character speaks the rest of their words in French, allowing Sebald to avoid employing the boring old phrase, “said Character XYZ in French”. However, knowing full well that not all his readers speak the languages that he uses throughout his novel, Sebald sometimes provides one of a general overview of what the character said. Take the bottom three lines on page 152, where Austerlitz speaks in Czech, for example. Immediately after the Czech sentence are the English words: “I am looking for Mrs. Agáta Austerlitzová” (152-153). Thus, the reader knows that was the gist of what Austerlitz had said in Czech, even if they cannot read Czech for themselves.

What confuses me about all this is when Sebald does the opposite of what was described in the last example in the paragraph above–when Sebald states something in English and then translates it back into French, Czech, etc., even though he has already established that these characters are, in fact, not speaking English. One such instance of this can be seen on page 173, wherein the narrator states “that [Austerlitz] had [his] things with [him] in a little leather suitcase, and food for the journey in a rucksack–un petit sac à dos avec quelques viatiques, said Austerlitz, those had been Vera’s exact words, summing up, as he now thought, the whole of his later life”. Although I get that these are the “real” words that these character would have been using (and, thus, these words are conveying the character’s real meaning), I am a bit perplexed as to how Sebald is adding value to the text with this method. After all, the English (or, in the original version of the book, German) readers may or may not be familiar with these languages. Thus, one may end up having to translate some of these sentences into English in order to understand them, which, as far as I can see, completely goes against the initial intent of keeping the words in their native language. Therefore, I am wondering if there is any value to keeping these words in their original language? And if so, how these words can provide any reader with additional value.

As a sidenote, something that I found kind of frusterating is when Sebald did not provide a translation (or give his readers a rough idea of what was being said) in another language. An example of this can be found on page 283, when, in French, “Austerlitz quoted from memory” a passage from a book about Colonel Chabert. Austerlitz then goes on saying that reading the book “reinforced the suspicion that [he] always entertained that the border between life and death is less impermeable then we commonly think…” (283). Although this is fine to do, I, as an Anglophone, who has, unfortunately, lost much of the French that I have learned, am not able to understand what is happening in this section very well. After reading the quoted passage, I have no idea how the excerpt in French shows how life and death are supposed to be closer than we think. Even though Google Translate can provide me with a rough translation of the passage, I can’t help but feel as though I have been left out of the loop, like Sebald did not intend for a non-francophone to draw much meaning from the passage. However, I do feel like this section is trying to communicate something significant. So, why did Sebald not translate this passage into English or give an English overview of what Austerlitz quotes?

Posted in blogs, lb4-2015 | Tagged with aggregated posts, Arts One, Austerlitz, Seeing and Knowing, W. G. Sebald

End of year reflection on writing

Here is the end-of-year reflection on writing I’m asking you to do. I sent this out over email, and it will also be given on paper during the last week of class, but here is another copy in case you can’t find yours.

End-of-year-Reflection-Assignment (April 2016) (PDF)

Posted in blogs, lb4-2015 | Tagged with announcements

Austerlitz by W.G Sebald

While reading the book Austerlitz by W.G Sebald one of the things that stood out to me the most was the style and the structure of the novel. The novel had extremely long and intricate sentences that would go on for pages and pages. When Austerlitz was describing Theresienstadt the sentence was almost nine pages long (Austerlitz 236-245). The entire book just felt like one huge paragraph and felt very depressing. There weren’t any chapters and only a few paragraph breaks. I feel like because of the structure of the novel the entire book felt very unsettling and weird. The questions that I came up with for the class are: why do you think the author structured the novel this way? What effect does it have on the story?

Posted in blogs, lb4-2015 | Tagged with Austerlitz, Sebald

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