Category: Architecture, Film + The Modern City

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[Reading response] Barthes and Benjamin

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Two readings Barthes, R. (1986). Leaving the Movie Theatre 1975. In The Rustle of Language ( and Benjamin, W., Jennings, M., Doherty, B., Levin, T., & Jephcott, E. (2008). The work of art in the age of its technological reproducibility gave me an in-depth insight into their view of film. Both of them reflects on how our experience of watching the film and what changed the quality of experience. For example, in the Barthes’ text he explains the importance of lighting and sound as a tool of conveying tension to audiences. This brought me to a point that in the times of pandemic, how would directors overcome

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Cat Links Architecture, Film + The Modern City, Lecture 1 Architecture, Film & the Modern City

Reading Response: Roland Barthes

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After reading the text “Leaving the Movie Theater”, it inspired me two things to be thought about. Why would I go to the cinema and watching movie instead of watching it at home. What’s the purpose of it? From the perspectice of Barthes, “he goes to movies as a response to idleness, leisurem, free time” which is the most common statement I heard before. However, I would say it’s because I want to appreciate a movie which is directed by a famous director or acted by my favourite actor. Because there are vavious methods of relaxing yourselves due to the

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Reading Response: Roland Barthes

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Barthes’ writing about the happenings in cinema allows me to reflect on the purpose and significance of watching movies in the cinema. Despite not being able to enjoy and experience the cinema during the pandemic, the reading serves even more important to remind us why is cinema important. Barthes emphasized on the ‘darkness’ inside cinema which is not only visually dark but also atmospherically silent, such condition allows us to truly immerse into the movie, reducing the distant feeling due to surrounding activities, noises and distractions. Nowadays, cinemas are being considered less and less important as technology allows us to

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Cat Links Architecture, Film + The Modern City

Reading Response: Roland Barthes

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The section that left the deepest impression on me was the author’s insistence that the cinematic experience cannot be replicated with televisions or, more recently, laptops and smartphones. According to him, the lighting, sound, and the little bits and bobs that one sees in a cinema contributes greatly to the experience. For me personally, what with the COVID situation and all, I found that I have been missing the overwhelming sound coverage that is very difficult to replicate at home. In cinemas, especially if one is watching action movies, the volume is often a little too loud for comfort. So

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Moodboard: Des Voeux Road, Noisy Central

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What comes to your mind when thinking of Central? Noise, crowds, luxury, commercial center, skyscrapers, lights…… In my eyes, it is a crowded space both horizontally and vertically. Looking up, the sky is blocked with all those glass curtain wall, reflecting all the lights from another skyscraper. Looking down, you feel dizzy with all the street light, brand logo, crowds, vehicles and graffiti. it is a contrast but also a uniformity — a contrast of tidy and messy, a uniformity to show the NOISE (visually and aurally).

Cat Links Architecture, Film + The Modern City, Sci-Fi Technoscapes

Reading Response 2: Technology and Ethnic Otherness

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  Ghost in the Shell (1995) In his article “Technology and (Chinese) Ethnicity”, Darrell William Davis asks this question: why has Chinatown become an essential visual motif for dystopic future in cyberpunk classics such as Blade Runner and Ghost in the Shell (1995)?   A simple (yet valid) explanation would be Orientalism, or the use of the East as a signifier of “other”. To represent the mysterious and unknown future, a future that seems so “alien” to us, films have to employ the visual strategy of “otherness” to create a defamiliarizing effect. This otherness could be gendered, as there are

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Reading Response 1: Building on Disappearance – Not Only in Hong Kong

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In the reading Building on Disappearance: Hong Kong Architecture and Colonial Space,  the author discusses how the architecture in Hong Kong shows the culture of disappearance. It is hyperdensity and the constant building and rebuilding that lead to a loss of identity. Architecture becomes anonymous, stuck between merely local and placeless. Although the reading focuses mainly on Hong Kong, from my perspective, building on disappearance is a global issue. A loss of identity may be particularly outstanding in Hong Kong, but it is happening all over the world. Architecture represents the most obvious symptom. What does it mean by building

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Reading Response 1: Building on Disappearance: Hong Kong Architecture and Colonial Space

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Building on Disappearance: Hong Kong Architecture and Colonial Space In this reading ‘Building on Disappearance’, Ackbar Abbas exemplifies and critiques the political and economical factors that influence of culture of Hong Kong through space and architecture. He claims that the identity of Hong Kong represented in architecture, has been reduced to anonymity and hyper-density and influences of external powers, weather it be foreign architects, international business buildings, and political colonizers. The historical representation of the city is threatened, and it doesn’t have to take the physical demolition of monumental buildings to see that. The attempts for preservation of cultural places

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[Reading Response I] The Alluring Atmosphere of Cinema Halls

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In the piece ‘Leaving the Movie Theater’, author Roland Barthes explores the dazed and disjointed feeling of exiting a cinema hall. He argues that, through the processes of transfixion and reflection, the audience are ‘hypnotised’ with the film and are left feeling muddled and disconnected, wrapped up in themselves. However, Barthes argues, it is not sufficient to merely reflect on your affair with the film – instead, a successful cinematic experience would ensure that the film possesses you, to the point where your gaze is stuck on the screen and nothing else can call to your attention. Only then, when

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Reading response 1

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In the reading ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility’, some interesting arguments the author gives are about the comparison between ancient technology of artwork (The Greeks’, for example) and today’s technologically reproducible art, like film. And also he has some unique comment about film production. He seems trying to argue that film is more specialized, fragmented, made collectively, less individual spirit, and the reproducibility of these work of art has some effects on the aura of artwork. The way how the audience accept films is as important as how the film is reproduced. That should

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