The site for all writing assignments for SDSU Anthropology 439, Summer 2009; also, an archive of postings from Anthro 439, Summer 2007.
Saturday, May 26, 2007
The Surrealists's Ball at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London
A good time was had by all at the first cineTREK in London for the summer 2007--a stalwart troupe of SDSU students, undergraduates and graduate students, and a couple of interloping culture-vultures from Pace College and Butler University, came along for the evening event that featured actresses dressed as lobsters, victrolas patched through ipod mixing boards, bizarre Punch and Judy shows, William Burroughs-as-William-Tell-Oops, splash violence videos, and, in one room from which our troupe was barred owed to a paucity of tickets--a levitating woman! All done in the spirit of Salvador Dali, Luis Bunuel (I know the "n" is wrong, but I am on a Windows system here in the UK and don't have a clue as to how to execute an enye), Meret Oppenheim, Man Ray, and André Breton. Thousands of Londoners, and our new, intrepid, and posh SDSU expatriate Londoners braved the throngs to live a night of Euro-art inspired madness--if Yahoo, and even GQ blog about these outings, then there must be something curious going on!
On another note... as FIE is closed and I don't have access to my webservers to update the calendar, here are some cool things to do in the coming days--doublecheck to make SURE they do not CLASH with British Life and Culture or ORIENTATION events before you go to one of these....
1. 3 cineTREKS/5 cineTREKS if you blog it as well! Race and Cultural Studies Lecture Sara Ahmed THE CULTURAL POLITICS OF HAPPINESS closest underground: New Cross TUBE station tuesday, 5:30 to 6:30
2. 3 cineTREKS/5 cineTREKS if you blog it screenings of ZIZEK at ICA cinema
this coming Tuesday nite, may 29nth, on BBC1: free! watch IMAGINE with Alan Yerntob from 10:35 to 11:25--a documentary on surrealism! relate two elements of the documentary to the SURREALISM BALL and get two cineTREKs!!!
Ever seen a dead puppet show? Ever heard a piano solo last 40 hours? Ever sipped a fine pinot and hobnobbed with a thousand of your fellow avant-garde junkies dressed as everything from a lobster telephone the personification of signifier/signified whilst perusing the attractions at the Victoria and Albert Museum in Kensington? Then you obviously didn’t go to the Surrealist Ball last Friday. What could be more bizarre than walking out of a hallway displaying catholic relics from the Middle Ages and into room with an occultish and arcane levitation performance? In a museum whose purpose it is to display cultural artifacts from the past and present, this night was truly a triumph of a subculture and proved that many of today’s performers and artists and performance/artists still have a spirited curiosity into all things uncanny.
A lobster crossed with glass images of Jesus, silver sculptures of lions, and relics containing what was believed to be the remains of mistic saints??? Its almost as if you were viewing a magic show litered with misdirection and trapped doors, not to mention an unseen preformance of a levitation act!!! What kind of circus show is this? A current surrealists' movement... or one to many glasses of wine. After an exploration with my fellow Americans, I found myself influenced by both. You wouid think the gentleman with the chicken hat would be the source of confusion. My confusion stemmed from the look seen on the face of each character as they brushed by. Wait... was it... no. Hit with a large dose of culture shock, my so called "normal" attire was the culprit. I was the outcast. I was the one out of place. I stood out like a sore thumb with my blue jeans, tennis shoes, and fashionable sweater. My disposition deserved to be displayed in a glass case next to the relics.
cineTREK™ is the one & only and infamous online blog for students and faculty in literature.sdsu.edu's summer program in london, england--it is a diverse and enlightened group of graduate students and undergraduates. All participating globetrotting students are taking a brilliant course in british life and culture, taught by the inimitable john makey. the rest of the group is divided between students interning with various british firms while another ambitious collective is presently learning about the cultural anthropology of film and film culture in and around london--their commentaries make up the bulk of this blog.
3 comments:
“Hello? Oh, it’s for you. It’s a lobster.”
Ever seen a dead puppet show? Ever heard a piano solo last 40 hours? Ever sipped a fine pinot and hobnobbed with a thousand of your fellow avant-garde junkies dressed as everything from a lobster telephone the personification of signifier/signified whilst perusing the attractions at the Victoria and Albert Museum in Kensington? Then you obviously didn’t go to the Surrealist Ball last Friday. What could be more bizarre than walking out of a hallway displaying catholic relics from the Middle Ages and into room with an occultish and arcane levitation performance? In a museum whose purpose it is to display cultural artifacts from the past and present, this night was truly a triumph of a subculture and proved that many of today’s performers and artists and performance/artists still have a spirited curiosity into all things uncanny.
A lobster crossed with glass images of Jesus, silver sculptures of lions, and relics containing what was believed to be the remains of mistic saints??? Its almost as if you were viewing a magic show litered with misdirection and trapped doors, not to mention an unseen preformance of a levitation act!!! What kind of circus show is this? A current surrealists' movement... or one to many glasses of wine. After an exploration with my fellow Americans, I found myself influenced by both. You wouid think the gentleman with the chicken hat would be the source of confusion. My confusion stemmed from the look seen on the face of each character as they brushed by. Wait... was it... no. Hit with a large dose of culture shock, my so called "normal" attire was the culprit. I was the outcast. I was the one out of place. I stood out like a sore thumb with my blue jeans, tennis shoes, and fashionable sweater. My disposition deserved to be displayed in a glass case next to the relics.
The above comment is from Samuel Sandoval done on Nathan's computer.
-sam... out.
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