0314 – BioShock (2007 video game)

spacetime coordinates: 1960, the underwater city of Rapture

BioShock is a first-person shooter video game developed by 2K Boston (later Irrational Games) and 2K Australia, and published by 2K Games.

The game’s concept was developed by Irrational’s creative lead, Ken Levine, and incorporates ideas by 20th century dystopian and utopian thinkers such as Ayn Rand, George Orwell, and Aldous Huxley, as well as historical figures such as John D. Rockefeller. The game is considered a spiritual successor to the System Shock series, on which many of Irrational’s team including Levine had worked previously.

BioShock is set in 1960. The player guides the protagonist, Jack, after his airplane crashes in the ocean near the bathysphere terminus that leads to the underwater city of Rapture. Built by the business magnate Andrew Ryan, the city was intended to be an isolated utopia, but the discovery of ADAM, a genetic material which can be used to grant superhuman powers, initiated the city’s turbulent decline. Jack tries to find a way to escape, fighting through hordes of ADAM-obsessed enemies, and the iconic, deadly Big Daddies, while engaging with the few sane humans that remain and eventually learning of Rapture’s past. The player, as Jack, is able to defeat foes in a number of ways by using weapons, utilizing plasmids that give unique powers, and by turning Rapture’s own defenses against them. BioShockincludes elements of role-playing games, giving the player different approaches in engaging enemies such as by stealth, as well as moral choices of saving or killing characters; additionally, the game and biopunk theme borrow concepts from the survival horror genre.

Bioshock Trailer

BioShock received critical acclaim and was particularly praised by critics for its morality-based storyline, immersive environments, and its unique setting, and is considered to be one of the greatest video games of all time and a demonstration of video game as an art form.

pc requirements (MINIMUM): Operating System: Windows XP (with Service Pack 2) or Windows Vista. CPU: Intel single-core Pentium 4 processor at 2.4GHz. RAM: 1 GB, Video Card:Direct X 9.0c compliant video card with 128MB RAM and Pixel Shader 3.0 (NVIDIA 6600 or better/ATI X1300 or better, excluding ATI X1550)

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steam

0307 – Annemarie Schwarzenbach

Annemarie Minna Renée Schwarzenbach (23 May 1908 – 15 November 1942) was a Swiss writer, journalist, photographer and traveler.

Annemarie Schwarzenbach: Une Suisse rebelle (2000)

Based on unreleased archive material, this first film about Annemarie Schwarzenbach explores the life of woman born within a very rich Swiss family with open inclinations towards the Nazi Order. A writer, a journalist and a reporter photographer, Annemarie stood up against her aristocratic family and she travels around the world to denounce, European fascism as well as the exploitation of American workers. Annemarie Schwarzenbach doubts and disturbs.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0902252/

Die Reise nach Kafiristan (2001)

In 1939, the author Annemarie Schwarzenbach and the ethnologist Ella Maillart travel together by car to Kabul.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0207051/

279 – Jungle (2017)

spacetime coordinates:  1981 expedition into the uncharted Amazon in Bolivia //  Tuichi River

Jungle is a 2017 Australian adventure/ psychological thriller film directed by Greg McLean and written by Justin Monjo. The film is based on Yossi Ghinsberg‘s nonfiction novel Jungle: A Harrowing True Story of Survival. Jungle follows the three weeks that Ghinsberg spent in the Bolivian jungle without any supplies or help. 

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3758172/

0274 – It Follows (2014)

spacetime coordinates: 2010s Detroit

It Follows is a 2014 American supernatural teen horror film written and directed by David Robert Mitchell. It stars Maika Monroe, Keir Gilchrist, Daniel Zovatto, Jake Weary, Olivia Luccardi, and Lili Sepe.  The plot follows a teenage girl, Jay, who is pursued by a supernatural entity after a sexual encounter.

The film’s monster, shot composition, and overall aesthetic were influenced by the work of contemporary photographer Gregory Crewdson. Director of photography Mike Gioulakis said: “We’re both big fans of the still photographer Gregory Crewdson and David had him in his look book from day one. [Crewdson’s] photographs have the same kind of surreal suburban imagery that we wanted for It Follows.”

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3235888/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_Follows

272

“flame-recognizance,
hermeneutics of autumn, time’s
continuities tearing us apart.”

– Geoffrey Hill

http://spiritandteeth.tumblr.com/

038 – Carol (2015)

spacetime coordinate: Christmas season of 1952 – early 1953 / New York City > Waterloo, Iowa

Carol is a 2015 British-American dreamy romantic drama film directed by Todd Haynes. The screenplay, written by Phyllis Nagy, is based on the 1952 semi-autobiographical romance novel The Price of Salt (also known as Carol) by Patricia Highsmith. The film stars Cate Blanchett, Rooney Mara, Sarah Paulson, Jake Lacy and Kyle Chandler. Set in New York City during the early 1950s, Carol tells the story of a forbidden affair between an aspiring female photographer and an older woman going through a difficult divorce.

Carol was shot on Super 16 millimeter film to resemble the look and feel of photographic film from the late 1940s/early 1950s. The cinematography was influenced by the photojournalism of Vivian Maier, Ruth Orkin, Helen Levitt, and Esther Bubley. Photography by Saul Leiter (known for shooting through windows and using reflection) was a key influence.

Prior to production, director Todd Haynes compiled a playlist of 79 songs and instrumental music that were popular during the period Carol is set in (including songs referenced in the novel “The Price of Salt”) to assist in further understanding the era and mood of the times.

Director Todd Haynes creates image books as a guide to the visual feel of his films, going back to his drama Safe (1995). The compendiums are culled from photographs, film stills, paintings, periodicals and other sources to generate ideas for the film’s style. They are meant initially for the cinematographer. (The books are not to be confused with storyboards, the shot-by-shot breakdowns he has made since his first feature, Poison(1991).) His image books are “a way of communicating beyond words that gets to the crux of what the mood, temperature and stylistic references would be.” For Carol “it becomes great reference for clothes, hair, makeup, the way women carry themselves in the period and the specificity of how they’re being created from the outside in.” The image book includes, for example, references to other films such as: Brief Encounter(1945) and Vertigo (1958) for their sense of period, and The Sugarland Express (1974) for its innovative cinematography by Vilmos Zsigmond; Lovers and Lollipops (1956) for the locations and The Pumpkin Eater (1964) for the interiors; and urban photography by Ernst Haas, Helen Levitt and Vivian Maier. Haynes assembles his image books almost as a kind of visual mixtape, pulling photos and movie screen grabs of his inspirations and laying them out in pages of collages to create a kind of virtual movie. Haynes created more than 80 pages of photo collages for “Carol” that served as a road map through the production. It took him two months to compile. [from N.Y.Times 1/28/2016 “Todd Haynes Collects Images to Guide the Feel of His Films”]

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