The colour of the past

Toutes proviennent de paris1914 où on retrouve des photographies couleurs du début du 20ème de Paris et ses environs. [Remarquons les chevaux sur les quais de Seine.]

Quai de Seine, Paris, Sans date

Jardin des Invalides, VII° Arrondissement Paris, 1909

Le départ du dirigeable Zodiac III, Bétheny, 28 Août 1909

Pop Palimpsests

A palimpsest comes from the ancient Greek palimpsesetos, literally meaning “scraped clean and used again.” Archeologist Paul Basu used the notion to express how the constructed past is a projection of our present mindset: “practical and discursive memories from different periods become intermeshed such that one period is remembered through the lens of another.”

The History Channel's latest ads dabble in similar ideas: different times in same spaces are superposed suggesting we forget but need to remember, as well as marking how the black and white past is a creation of the colourful present.

Basu, P. 2007. ‘Palimpsest Memoryscapes: 

Materializing and Mediating War and Peace 

in Sierra Leone’ in F. De Jong; M. Rowlands 

(eds), Reclaiming Heritage: Alternative Imagina-

tions in West Africa, Walnut Creek, CA: 

Left Coast Press p. 234.

C'était un rendez-vous: Space, Speed, Mapping

Meat

This is a literal (hence difficult) short documentary called Le Sang des Bêtes by Georges Franju about animal slaughter and meat production. Although filmed in the late 1940s in two slaughterhouses and meat markets near Paris, this should be footage to think how we (whether in France, Canada or Italy) today (or in the 1940s) consider animal-slaughter (whether that of a horse, calf or lamb) and the ethics/responsibilities and labour behind it. 

Do we inflict more 'pain' today than yesterday on the animals we eat (how can this be assessed)? Are we more alienated from the meat we eat? Where do the butchers killing these animals come from today? What are the contemporary methods used to kill these animals? What implications do these questions have on today's food production and consumption?

Everyone's Watching

Shibuya, Tokyo (Japan), 2012
Les Archives Nationales, Paris (France), 2010
Pelourinho, Salvador de Bahia (Brazil), 2011
Imperial Palace, Kyoto (Japan), 2012

Vacuuming The Cosmological Threats of Dirt: Simulated Pigeon Shit in Las Vegas

Las Vegas' strip is an accumulation of anything's simulacra displayed in such a way that it can fit in a perfect picture frame. Wonderfully consumable, a Barthesian wonderland and very stimulating for four days, Las Vegas' simulacra is never dirty - tacky but never dirty - and always honestly thought-out, so it becomes very exciting when dirt is included in the equation.

After taking a cab from a convention center filled with electronics to Paris where I had a drink in a plastic-Eiffel Tower, I walked through a Hector Guimard-themed Casino to wait for a car to take me to Venice. Behind twenty other humans waiting for motorized saviors at the Paris (there's an unsaid ban against walking in Vegas), I noticed fake pigeon dung covering the Victor Baltard-inspired marquee. This isn't anecdotal.

As mentioned before, like the rest of Vegas, nothing is here by happenstance, everything is the result of recent thought-out and human-powered decisions. The water like every carpet and every tree was selected and transported by a group of rational humans less than thirty years ago. It is the most honest, and arguably rational, materialization of a late 20th century cultural phantasma composed of all and any signs and simulations. So seeing man-made fake pigeon dung in Vegas is very very meaningful. Perhaps it represents the American stereotype of Paris which includes more pigeon dung than the one they have for Venice (where there is no fake pigeon shit). Or perhaps Paris' train stations are the only ones worth reproducing for a hotel in Vegas hence the inclusion of its pigeons... 

Whatever the possible reasoning this instance adds an exciting new dimension to my research on pigeons and dirt as "matter out of place": the fact is that the matter signifying the presence of dirt (the pigeons) on the Las Vegas Paris' marquee is 'clean' (it isn't actual shit, but paint) and so beyond matter or context, this sanitized representation of dirt authenticates simulacrum by vacuuming any of the cosmological threats implied by the actual things it signifies.

And this is what is so charming about Las Vegas.

Embroidering Socialite: Mourir Auprès de Toi

Olympia Le-Tan has created an enterprise, called Olympia Le-Tan, that embroiders and sows with ribbon, string and felt some of the most beautiful clutches I've seen. Following the 'return' of the done-by-hand-with-love movement, all the embroidering is done by a cute Japanese girl in the 2nd arrondissement in Paris, and results in products selling for a month's worth of the legal minimun wage in France (SMIC).

She's also a great extroverted socialite, so if you want any information about  her date of birth, who her parents are, when she's in New York or Paris, what she looked like when she was 6, or who her favorite manga character is, just go check out her blog.

In any case earlier this year she worked with Spike Jonze and Simon Cahn on a felt embroidered-based short. Since the clutches' designs are reproductions of vintage book covers and their success based on a lot of socialite hyping, the filming was done in the setting of most Litt majors' and other American tourists's wet dreams, Shakespeare and Co. Like the clutches, while the result is remarkable by its aesthetic and required manual labor, Olympia's unabashing use of her person, socialite connections and stereotypes make it hard for me not to think of this as a marketing strategy more than an honest creation.

Paris: Crise de Foie

 

L'américain in Paris

I've been in Paris for 24 hours and there's a shocking quota of Americans (and perhaps, but honestly not so sure, anglo peeps) that can't switch their thank yous for mercis. Come on everyone knows merci. Maybe it's particular to the Marais and les Halles but come on, even the daftest of Frenchies is able to switch his native semiotic reflexes for a thanks when in an English speaking country.

I'm not a puritan but I'm all about integration - so if you loved all that Hemmingway and Shakespeare and co. give more than the muted buildings a chance. merci.