A Coffin Cinema--construction subproject

Initiative

Vampire is an amazing creature who draws people’s attention from medieval ages. Until now, there is still a discussion about the existence of vampires. In my opinion, vampire is a creation of human’s imagination. Even if there are vampires in the world, they are possibly not as charming as described in novels and movies. In that sense, the vampires we know live in the world of films and literature.

Therefore, the most suitable building for vampires is cinema, the place where the first “visible” vampire was born. And the cinema must be 100% percent in vampire style, filling with the atmosphere of death and the power of darkness.

At first, I was trying to build an anti-Christian church which worships devil spirits, because the first vampire Dracula was cursed to be a vampire due to his betrayal of God. Perhaps it would be like the church in Bram Stoker’s Dracula. However, it is rather hard to carry out that plan because there was no scene of the church from the outside in the film. When I was puzzled by that question, Dr. Holmevik provided me an idea—to construct a building like a coffin.

Right! Coffin! Coffin is a great signifier of the undead. A building with the outline of coffin stands for the worship towards death, towards the power of darkness. So I began building a coffin cinema, which provides only vampire films.

Semiotic symbols

Various symbols were employed in this construction to demonstrate the marginalized identity of Jeen Alter, the vampire avatar, who is also the owner of this cinema.

Location

The cinema is located at a relatively remote place of Clemson University Development Island. It is at a corner of the island margin, far from other buildings. And two of its sides face the sea, which stands for the exit of vampires to escape from human society. Its marginalized location also goes with the marginalized identity of the cinema’s owner—vampire Jeen Alter. On the other hand, it helps keep the harmony among buildings on the island by placing it in the corner, because the coffin cinema has completely different style which may look too outstanding and may not fit the landscape if it is located in the crowd of other architectures.

However, the development island is too small. Once the MATRF lab was built up, I realized that the location of my cinema was not remote enough. If possible, I would like to create a forest, and hide the cinema in the middle of the giant trees. As a result, people will not able to see it easily, because vampires are world-weary vagrants.

Actually there is an alternative solution to make the cinema “invisible”—lift it to the sky. However, that does not fit the cinema at all, because it is too close to the heaven, and there is so much light vampires would be burnt. Actually, an ideal location for the cinema would be under ground, as deep as possible.

Huge size
The coffin cinema is about 5 persons tall, but the pillars and the wide steps make it look even taller than its exact height. I was trying to construct a building of vampire nobles, so it has to look magnificent, look like a building of some royal members. And the huge size helps a lot to establish that impression to people. Since it is tall, people have to raise their heads and look upwards to see the whole cinema. Moreover, people may have a sense of pressure because of the building’s height, which clues the owner of the cinema has great powers.

Huge pillar torches around
There are four tall pillar torches made of rock standing at the four points of the bottom step. And there are four piles of fire burning on the top of the pillar torches. Specifically, the four pillars are strictly arranged in order. They are in the same height, and the fires have exactly the same size and shape.

Similarly, the pillar torches are also designed to make the building look magnificent. I was inspired by ancient Greek architectures, like Parthenon which is purely formed by sets of pillars standing in order. Being in order means control and absolute authority. Therefore, again, the huge identical pillar torches clue the owner’s power and superior status.

Additionally, fire in burning on the top clues it is always night there, and the darkness is around the building.

Open cover as entrance
This cinema doesn’t have a door in walls, and the only entrance is the slot of the open cover. I was trying to make the slot as narrow as possible, because I want to make it like a trap, a prison, where it is hard to escape from. It is like once a human turns to be a vampire, there is no way back no matter how regretful he/she is. They cannot escape from the curse, the darkness forever.

On the other hand, in films and nobles, vampires can fly. And only those who can fly are able to enter the cinema. So it requires a superman power to get inside. And it also clues that the owner probably has more super powers than the ability to fly.

Red walls, red floor, red ceiling
The red color is used in the both sides of walls, floor and ceiling of the cinema. That color makes people easy to get excited or even violent. And the red color also reduces the sense of distance. In other words, the room looks smaller if it is in red. And that is why the cinema looks much smaller from the inside than the outside, which is the exact effect I want, because it is a coffin! The smaller viewers feel about the space inside, the better the coffin is.

The wide screen

I took the advantage of the coffin’s shape, and set up a wide screen by connecting three screens together. By doing that, the cinema looks like more technologically advanced, which represents the significance of vampire films, since it has received a large amount of investment.

The bleeding cross and the water jar
There is a bleeding cross and a water jar full of blood from the cross in the back of the cinema, which is a copy of the church in Bram Stoker’s Dracula. The reason why I put those in the cinema is because that is the origin of vampirism. And the purpose of that design is to remind people coming to see vampire films with the identity of vampires-- the deserters of God, the marginalized group of mainstream society, the runagates of the human world.
Additionally, I add a fire to the connection of the cross and the sword which doesn’t exist in the original film scene. That fire is the flame of Dracula’s anger and hatred towards Christianity.

Techniques learned

In the beginning, I doubted whether it was possible to construct a complicated building with a few shapes of materials like balls, half balls, cuboids, cylinders and cones. But as playing with the shapes, I got much better at form polygons by combining and overlapping several shapes together. I was able to create various things, by resizing and organizing limited template materials, modifying the texture, color, bumpiness, transparency. For instance, the hexagonal coffin cover is formed by six squares. And I was even able to create liquid effect, such as the water jar and the bleeding cross.

Chapter 8 The Third Dimension

Here I would like to talk about some interesting questions discussed in this chapter:

1. The role of sculptures’ modality in presentation

Example: colors and details of toys

According to the chapter, more realistic and more naturalistic the colors and details are represented, the less pleasure and opportunities of creation children get when they play with the toys. As a result, those toys designed for little children tend to use pure colors and less details, which leaves children more space of imagination and creation.

Similar modality is also used in cartoons designed for children, which use more pure color and less realistic details. For instance, most of Disney cartoons are like this:

On the other hand, cartoons designed for adults can also use pure colors and less realistic presentation. For instance:

Though that cartoon is definitely not suitable for children, but it shows similar mode can also be used to adult audience. It is like a clue. The semiotic modes of colors and brushstrokes can tell people whether the object is designed for pleasure or for other things. When we walk into an art gallery or turn on TV and see images with bright pure color, characters with abstract appearance, we will know it is just for fun. And if it makes a joke about women(Fig 8.5, 244), don’t be mad on the designer, because that is a joke. To the contrary, this sculpture is not joke. We can tell that from its color and realistic details.

2. Is fashion ideological?

Since “toys for young children are abstract, the designers apply a “reduced” the subjectivity of adult world to children’s toys. (254) Here the point is which parts to reduce? In the case of “ethnic family,” the hair difference of “family set” is presented. On the other hand, the ethnic family could have slight difference in the color of their skins, but the toy designers omitted that possible difference, and made the members identical.

However, in the case of French toys, more realistic details are reserved, which is criticized as “action without adventure, without wonder, without joy.”(254) Meanwhile, we have to admit that young children can learn more truth about the “reality” when they play with more naturalistic French toys.

I think of another example, political caricature. On one hand, people know it is just for fun, because it reflects a reduced reality for its pure colors and simple brushstrokes. On the other hand, it is highly subjective and ideological, since it usually carries some critical opinion on social news and political events. And again, it is relatively safer to criticize politicians through caricature, but people know the author says "it is a joke."

My video is on YouTube now

To see it, please go to

http://youtube.com/watch?v=_vVVqXvvdxk

Or search "A Tale of Vampires"

A Tale of Vampires

About the Theme

The purpose of the whole vampire project is to represent marginalized identity of vampires through visual language. On the other hand, it attempts to reveal the essence of vampirism, a mixture of desire, fears, pains and temptations conveyed in the image of vampires in literature and movies.

In Anne Rice’s novels, the encounters with vampires are like the most exciting sexual experiences. In her book Interview with the Vampire, when Louis was asked what it was like when he got the “vampire kiss,” he said “…I can't tell you exactly, any more than I could tell you exactly what is the experience of sex if you have never had it.” (Rice 1977, 14) Seventeen years after the novel, 1994, the film Interview of the Vampire emphasizes the sexual temptation of vampires to humans. For instance, Lestat, the elegant vampire hero in many famous works of vampire themes, such as the film Queen of the Damned and the novel The Vampire Lestat. Either in film or the novel, no human can resist the invitation from him. And even the vampire queen also fell in love with him (Queen of the Damned).

The vampire Lestat is portrayed in the books as being “bisexual, and has male and female lovers as both a vampire and a mortal. He is attracted to whomever most interests him at the time. Most of his early experiences are with male companions.” (Wikipedia) At the same time, in the film his appearance looks quite sexually neutral, which corresponds to the avatar subproject.

About the Story

This is a film of 7.5 minutes long, formulated by clips from four vampire films: Bram Stoker's Dracula, Interview with the Vampire, Queen of the Damned and Dracula 2000.

Part 1

The Origin of Vampirism

The first part represents the origin of vampires, and probably the most popular explanation is provided by the novel Dracula by Bram Stoker in 1897. In 1462, Prince Dracula of Transylvania led battles defending Christianity against Moslemism. Meanwhile his beloved Princess Mina Murray committed suicide when she heard false news spread by the enemy that Dracula was killed.

And when Dracula came back from the battlefield, seeing his princess’ body lying on the floor, and he was told by the bishop that Mina’s soul was damned because of God’s law. He felt so angry to his unfair fate that he committed to betrayal towards God, joined the devil to “avenge hers with all the powers of darkness.” After drinking the blood out of the core of the Cross, he became the first vampire who has to walk in the shadow forever.

In this story, from the very beginning, the vampire came out as a deserter of God, a man disappointed with the good, and a heretic believing in nothing but revenge. So he hates, he kills, he renounces the mortal world, he becomes a symbol of unruly, marginalized, perhaps world-weary vagrants. But these vagrants must have handsome faces, noble manners, enticing bodies and outstanding talents. So even they are deserters, they are elegant devil nobles deserters, which is adopted as a signifier of marginalized identities in modern popular arts.

Part 2

The Vampire’s Kiss

The vampire’s kiss is the most common and sure-fire method of becoming a vampire. It is “a sanguinary bite (or "kiss") of a vampire is its method of perpetuating its breed, and those rising from the dead to become vampires are subject to the will of the vampire that originally bit him/her.” (http://vampires.monstrous.com)

Usually vampires will give the bite on the victim’s neck, deep and sexually enjoyable, like a lover’s kiss. However, once the victim drank the vampire’s blood and transferred to be the same kind. The new born vampire is a child of the old one, since they have the same blood. In Queen of the Damned, Magnus said “Drink, my son…to be the blood of my blood, the flesh of my flesh” when he fed Lestat with his blood. This process is somehow like incest, a sex between close relatives, which is the taboo of taboos. However, it is vampires’ nature to break the taboo, or we say, live regardless of taboos. In that sense, vampires are sexual heretic, who are doomed to be marginalized by the mainstream world.

Meanwhile, there are plenty of lesbian, gay and bisexual vampires in films. Lestat, for instance, is sexually interested in men and women. And it turns out to be a slave master relation between the victim and the vampire master, because the master has strong mental domination over his/her victims. (The victims “can only exert an independent will during the daylight hours or when the master vampire consciously releases his control. Only the death of the master vampire can free the victim from its curse and only if he has not killed to sustain his blood feed.”) (http://vampires.monstrous.com)

Part 3

The Crush on Vampires

There is no doubt that humans have an uncontrollable crush on vampires, which is represented in many films. They seem to be driven by their instincts, totally lost control of themselves from the first sight to vampires. In Dracula 2000, when Dracula appeared in that CD shop, all girls cannot help look at him. And Lestat said that “no one can refuse me” to Louis when he tried to remember his happy times in Interview with the Vampire.

That magic is a part of the “dark gift” of vampirism, which enables vampires to get living blood from humans. Moreover, it increases the mysteriousness of vampires, and the romance with them feels more dangerous but enchanting. Like it is said in Bram Stoker’s Dracula, the theater girl was “being loved by death.” She gave up her blood, her life and her soul to the darkness, and get into the arms of the evil.

That thought is far away from Christian believes, even standing on the opposite side of mainstream ideology. As a result, people who hold artifacts of vampirism are marked with the label of uniqueness, counterculture and deserter.

Part 4

The vampire philosophy

Vampirism grants vampires immortal life, but they are also doomed to stay in the shadows. However, that may be the hardest for vampires who are still reluctant to leave human society. In Queen of the Damned, Lestat attempted to play violin with a human girl, but his mentor Magnus stopped him, killed the girl and her father. Although vampires have great powers like telepathy, superhuman strength and resilience, they are so vulnerable in days that they must conceal their identities, remaining in the darkness as long as they live.

However, it is very painful for vampires with a human heart to live in that way. Even if they have immortal life, it turns to an eternal curse and endless suffer. So vampires usually think about some philosophical questions. For instance, In Interview with the Vampire, Louis is plagued by common philosophical, such as "What are we?", "Is there a God?" and "What happens after death?" And he raised those questions to the oldest vampire Armand, and he was told that “God does not exist”, “we are nothing but vampires” and “we are the only real evil left.”

Again, vampires go to the side of darkness, and they don’t see the existence of God. On the other hand, since vampires believe that they’ve already learned the very essence of life and death, they acquire a detached attitude towards mundane life, which forms world view of vampires.

About the Colors and Music

Again, there are three theme colors in the film, red, black and white. In the beginning, Dracula’s armor and helmet are totally red, the blood on princess’s face is red, the candles and the angel statuary on the wall are white, and the blood spreading in the church is red. Overall, the lighting of the film is so dark that it is sometimes hard to tell the character’s expressions. In this part, the actors mainly used body language.

The music in the beginning is from the film Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and the background music in later parts is Slept So long from Queen of the Damned. The original music in those four films is greatly different. Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Interview with the Vampire are famous for the classic symphony, while Queen of the Damned and Dracula 2000 used rock & roll a lot. As the story of the films, music also represents different characteristics of vampirism.

In the ancient time, vampires are the damned and the powerful creatures, while in modern age, they can be rock stars (Lestat in Queen of the Damned), or a dangerous dream lover (Dracula 2000). But whenever it is, wherever they go, they are thirsty for blood, struggling with immortal lives, and dying for an ending of the sufferings. And the music fits into those feelings. In the symphony, there is sadness in the female aria, anger, and struggle in strong beats. And it conveys a mixed feeling of unruly, aggression and dissipation， which is an exact reflection of the mood of the vampire deserters.

References:

Wikipedia entity: “Lestat de Lioncourt” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lestat_de_Lioncourt)

Anne Rice, Interview with the Vampire, New York: Ballantine Books, 1977, c1976.

Vampire website: http://vampires.monstrous.com/the_vampire_kiss.htm

Chapter 7 Materiality and meaning

In the beginning part of this chapter, it talks about the roles of production technologies in the development of the relations between "representation and reference." (218) There are three main technologies--technologies of the hand, recording technologies and synthesizing technologies. As technology evolves, human acquires more and more positive abilities in modifying and manipulating signifiers.

Moreover, we can establish "new semiotic means, new signs, new texts, new images, new visions, new worlds," (218) which can be used to build up new representations, with less reference to reality.

However, the ability granted by synthesizing technologies leaves another potential problem to the reliability of representation. For example, Photoshop and other image editing software enable us modify photos, and we need to think about whether an image is real before we need it in news reports and other genres require naturalness and reality. But back to the age of photographing, it is safe to carry out “seeing is believing” to news photos.

Therefore, as technologies evolve, not only the relation between representation and reference is being challenged and deconstructed, but also the criteria of truth and fake turn to be vulnerable.

Later, it talks about the role of different visual elements, such as brushstrokes, materials and colors. Whether they can be considered as “semiotic mode?” Which kinds of representational functions they serve to realize? And in which ways they can represent the signified?

Color is definitely an important element in visual communication, since human’s eyes are among the species who are most sensitive to colors. In the terms of value, saturation, purity, modulation, differentiation and hue, colors can specify and convey some certain kinds of emotion, feelings, hints and information.

Chapter 6 The meaning of composition

This chapter talked about the spatial arrangement of semiotic units, and the meanings of different arrangements. In most places in the world, people are used to reading from left to right, from top to bottom. Therefore, some reading conventions are generated, practiced and institutionalized.

In the text, it argues that the unit on left is "Given," and the unit on right is "New," the thing on top is "ideal" and the thing at bottom is "real." Here, "Given" means something already existed even before the visual argument is made, so there is hardly anything can be or need to be criticized or changed. In other words, we can only take it as "given." But "New" is something emerged after the “Given,” and it may have some problems the viewers can make comments. In that sense, if God is put on the left of the image, we don't need to doubt the meaning of God, because he is "presented as commonsensical, self-evident." Meanwhile Adam and Eva who are on the right side are "problematic", "contestable”,” the information at issue." (181)

But for the culture in which people read from right to left, the function and meaning of the left-right arrangement are reversed like the website design on page 182.

On the other hand, it argues that things on the top represent the "Ideal," which is "presented as the idealized or generalized essence of the information," and the "Real" on the bottom is supposed to present "more specific information, more down-to-earth information or more practical information." I guess the reason why we have that visual convention has something to do with the way humans live. Specifically, human walks on the earth and cannot get close to the sky. And we have to look up to see the sky where the sunshine and other source of life is from.

Thus, things on the sky seem mysterious to us, and ancient people used to look for answers to things we were not able to understand from the sky. Far before science was developed, astrology, the theory about sky was invented and spread in western world, which could be seen as a proof that people are used to seeking answers from the sky--the top part of their visions. To the contrary, things on the earth which are beside us instead of above us look more real, more down to earth, and more vulnerable to being realized. Accordingly, the instant coffee is more easily to get than the romantic atmosphere above. And that's why the exact product was put on the bottom, because to put in the bottom means the product is easy to approach.

And the sequence of center to margin is a combination of top to down and left to right orders.

Question:

1. Whether the film makers and painters arranged the visual units in films and paintings when creating them? Or maybe they just happened to do it in that way?

2. Whether there are other ways to perceive the arrangement of visual units in the figures in the chapter?

Visual language in Downfall

This is really a depressing movie. During the class, it spreads a feeling of oppression and despair in the classroom. And I had difficulty getting recovered from that depressed feelings after the class dismissed. In that sense, it is an impressive film, because it successfully conveyed messages to the viewers through a series of visual languages.

1. High walls

Most part of the film is taken inside of enclosed rooms. Hilter and other main characters were living and working in a seamless underground building. And there are even high building around the small exit house of the basement. Until the end of the film, there was no sky, no green trees and other things which can make people feel alive.

2. Small rooms

Hilter and his soldiers lived in a small basement where they had to stand closely to have meetings. And the metal doors don't insulate sound well, so that people can hear each other clearly, which provided a lack of privacy and safety.

3. Monotone colors

The theme color of the film is gray or some color close to gray. The soldiers wore gray blue and gray green uniforms, secretary ladies wore gray yellow or gray shirts. And the basement had gray metal doors, gray walls; the street and battlefield were full of gray smoke of gunpowder. As a result, the whole city was in gray, even the air looked gray.

Additionally, people's faces looked more and more close to gray in their last days, especially for Hilter. His face was terribly pale at the end of the film. This poster also has gray as its theme color.



4. Different colors

However, there are two women wearng clothes different from gray, who are Eva Braun and Magda Goebbels. And they appeared and behaviored differently from other women characters.

Eva showed up in several different pretty clothes in the film, and she was almost always smiling even when she knew she was going to die with Hilter. She was the one who prevented nothing wrong happened, and had herself enjoy the last fun of her life.

Magda wore a dark red woman's suit throughout the film, and she also wore earrings and necklace all the time. She behavoired in good manners, the children followed her, and she got a special award from Hilter. It looked like she always had things in control. Even when she killed her six children by herself, she finished it with a great composedness of mind.

Their dressing hinted their special status in Gemany and close relations with Hilter. And it is a little scary for these two women to dress themselves well under that circumstances. Their dressing gives viewers the impression that they were crazy. If Eva was not crazy, how could she kept dancing when bombs explored outside? If Magda was not crazy, how could she kill her six children one by one? If they were not crazy, how could they dress like everything was like before?

5. Close shots

Close shots were heavily used in the film, especially when it told stories about Hilter. According to Kress and Leeuwen, close shots invoke personal attachment between the roles and the viewers, which helps the viewers consider characters as human beings. In other words, through the heavy use of close shots, the film maker wants to represent Hilter and other roles as common men and women who also have fears and worries.

When looking at Hilter's face so closely, we can easily see the dark circles around his eyes, the deep wrinkle on his forehead. Sometimes he just looked like a small old man suffering from insomnia instead of a Nazi monster. On the other hand, it leaves a question for people to think about--if an old man can become a sanguinary killer, what can those ambitious young men do when they got the chance?

6. Close shots to Hilter's hands

There are a lot of close shots to Hilter's hands in the film. When the first bad news came, Hilter's hands cannot stop shaking and drawing circles. When he went into the hall to attend the big meeting, his put his hands behind his back so that they wouldn't be seen by other people. But the camera went to his back and took a close shot to his hands, which enabled the viewers to see Hilter's weakness.

And when Hilter went out of the basement to meet young men staying to defend Berlin, the camera focused on his shaking hands again. No matter how Hilter pretended to be calm and self-collected, he cannot help to be nervous and restless, because he is a human after all.

7. The war medal


That medal appears in the film for a lot of times. The Nazi Generals wear it on their collars; the child volunteering in the street battle won one; and in the battle hospital, soldiers were given that kind of medal before they went to the final battle.

That medal was the sign of battle achievement in the past, and it became the stimulus of self sacrifice which encourage people to participate in a hopeless battle for the sake of Nazi Germany. At the same time, the meaning of the medals was greatly reduced.