Tag: Reading

Cat Links 2024 Blog

[Reading Response 2]-In search of the Ghostly in context

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“In Search of the Ghostly in Context” offers a fascinating analysis of how Fruit Chan’s film captures the spirit of estrangement within Hong Kong’s urban setting by utilizing the architecture of public housing estates and historic districts. The reading deftly explores how these locales are portrayed—not just as actual places, but also as vessels for haunting memories and socioeconomic inequality that highlight the more sinister aspects of the city’s quick industrialization and historical changes. The article emphasizes how architectural space profoundly affects cinematic story and character identity, especially considering Hong Kong’s transformation both before and after the handover in 1997.

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Cat Links 2024 Blog, Lecture 6: Housing Stories

Reading Response 2: In Search of the Ghostly in Context : Esther M. K. Cheung

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‘In Search of the Ghostly in Context’ discusses how Fruit Chan’s film explores estrangement through uncanny city spaces: low-cost public housing estates and old neighbourhoods in Hong Kong. He considered these places as the representation of the darker side of Hong Kong, such as social and economic inequality. These spaces are represented through lighting, warped space and shadow in the films, providing questions about the presence, absence, visibility, invisibility, appearance and reality of Hong Kong. In addition, Chan addresses the sense of rootlessness and displacement in the modern city, giving those who have been forgotten by the city an opportunity

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Cat Links Lecture 6: Housing Stories

[Reading Response2] Katarzyna Ancuta: ‘Communal After-Living: Asian Ghosts and the City’

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This reading is mainly looking into three themes: co-living for the ghosts and living,  loneliness and isolation, and the ghosts as a representation of failed economic dreams.    What captivates me the most, is the relationship between the city, public housing and ghosts. Public housing often appears in blocks of concrete filled with small windows, catering to low-to-medium income level citizens. There’s a quote that resonates with me, “ The loneliness of apartment ghosts mirrors the loneliness of humans.” I noticed its lack of maintenance, such as peeling walls and gloomy staircases, would always give me chills. Adult residents, burdened

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Cat Links 2021 Blog, Lecture 9 Global Space, Time & Architecture

Reading Response: Ackbar Abbas

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While Abbas introduced the invisible city and generic city in the reading, I was hooked on the concept of Generic city, a strangely interesting and vague term to me. A city with something of anything, but also nothing: No characteristic, no history, identity nor iconic shape. The movie clip shown in the tutorial from The Bourne Ultimatum (2007) clearly justified the idea. We cannot identify which city or countries the characters were in. Just a normal and crowded station. Hong Kong as an international city is also generic to some extent. Think about any Central Business District of the developed

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Cat Links Resources

Reading Resources (Additional)

Posted on Anne

For those who are interested in reading more widely on the topics covered in this Architecture and Film course, we have compiled a shortlist of books, chapters and various publications that range in disciplines, including Architecture, Landscape Studies, Cinema and Media, Visual Theory and Aesthetics. The HKU Library is a useful place to start in finding some of these titles. If the university library does not have it in holdings, you may request it via another institution by submitting through HKALL request. AlSayyad, N. (2001). Hybrid urbanism: On the identity discourse and the built environment. Westport, Conn.: Praeger. Berger, J. (1972). Ways

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