Archive for January, 2008

The Mist – that’s what I call an ending.

Tuesday, January 29th, 2008

We are in the wintry movie season, extending from the beginning of October to something Aprilesque. This is the time of year when horror movies galore enter the movie theaters. The Mist belongs to the genre, offering a setting not dissimilar to the setting of Dawn of the Dead: people get trapped inside a shopping mall, while Evil is lurking outside. That is how people feel today, one might guess – the shopping mall as a safe haven. However, this is the Horror genre, and the script is based on a Stephen King novel, so we are also taught some contempt for those fools who dwell in the shopping malls of this planet, too.
The effects and main storyline of this genre flick is not a big hit, but good enough for those who are into it. Especially for those who are into the Cthulu myth that has been created by H.P. Lovecraft in his early 20th century – there are some scary, overwhelming things out there in the mist… However, this is not much more than a neat bonus for those who know their literature, but it wouldn’t make this movie particularly interesting. The thing which makes writing this entry a worthwhile endeavor is its ending. In the last two scenes, we get a glimpse of the inventiveness that made The Shawshank Redemption (done by the same writer and director, Frank Darabont) such a great movie: interesting twists in the plot. I really loved how evil the ending is, and dearly recommend sitting through until the end to those with a twisted sense of humor.
IMDb entry | Trailer

Space, materiality, perception. The process of envelopment.

Tuesday, January 22nd, 2008

I am quite happy to tell you that I will be presenting a paper at the Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers (AAG) in Boston this April. Actually, I wanted to go to last year’s meeting in San Francisco too, but the deadlines were right in the middle of my dissertation, defense, and getting new job as a postdoc phase of turmoil, so that I was not able to apply. Things were not as stressful this season, therefore I found the time to craft an abstract. This is what I am going to talk about during the session Thinking Geography:

Entering a building or any other spatial setting, people encounter a new spatial-material and social constellation. This constellation envelops those who enter the setting. All kinds of impressions intrude upon those who enter, thus changing the things they perceive and the way they act. Noises, light and darkness, smells, the texture of surfaces, and many other aspects of the surroundings present themselves to the perception of those who enter. However, those entering a setting bring certain intentions with them. They are involved in certain activities and they follow bodily and mental routines. Thus they also produce an envelope of their own, which regulates the distance to their surroundings, their perceptions, and their actions. In consequence, the envelope is created both by people themselves and by their surroundings. In this presentation, I will use a phenomenologically informed approach to investigate spatialized activities. Thus I will show how the process of envelopment produces social control in ways that are hard to recognize and trace. Presenting video recordings taken in railway terminals in Germany and Scandinavia, I will demonstrate the subtle ways in which people relate to their spatial-material-social environments, thus opening a new perspective on how to understand issues of social control: a perspective that takes perception, bodies and materiality into view.

I am really looking forward to meeting many people who I haven’t met for two or three years – the AAG meeting usually is a very good occasion to get back into touch.

Der Himmel über Oslo.

Monday, January 21st, 2008

regenbogenfarben im abendhimmel über osloIch habe zwar noch kein Nordlicht gesehen, aber das war auch schon mal nicht von schlechten Eltern…
leuchtende Farben einer Wolke(Beide Bilder sind bis auf den Ausschnitt und etwas Kontrast nicht bearbeitet.)

The Darjeeling Limited – colorful trains.

Sunday, January 20th, 2008

Back in Darmstadt, one of the first things I did was to go to the movies. There wasn’t much interesting on show, but the newest movie of director Wes Anderson caught my interest. Not necessarily because it was done by him (although I quite enjoyed The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou), but more so because I really liked the main cast. Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody, and Jason Schwartzman – I like all three of them, and I was curious how three egos like theirs would interact on the big screen. (They are cast as unlike brothers who just lost their father and are searching for their mother in the Indian hinterland.) I am still unsure how to rate this movie. I think the idea, the casting, and the camera work are all well done. However, I was not entirely satisfied by the script and/or the directing. The story and the characters did not catch me emotionally, they remained somewhat on the surface, not touching deeper emotions. Perhaps this is the case because they were on the search for authentic emotions themselves? I do not know. Nonetheless, this movie was quite entertaining. And it was very colorful indeed. The design of trains and clothes ranges from beautiful via charming to hilarious.
IMDb entry | Trailer