This book dives into the mise-en-scène of contemporary China to explore the “becoming cinema” of Chinese cities, societies, and subjectivities. Set in the wake of China’s radical and rapid period of urbanization and infrastructural transformation, and situating itself in the processual city of Ningbo, the book combines empirical, ficto-critical, and philosophical methods to generate a dynamic account of everyday life as new forms of consumer culture bed in. Harnessing a Realist approach that allows for different scales of analysis, the book zooms in on five architectural assemblages including: surreal real estate showrooms; a fragmented history museum; China’s “first and best” Sino-foreign university; a new “Old town”; and weird gamified “any-now(here)-spaces.” Together these modern arrangements and machines for living cast light upon the broader picture sweeping up greater China.
Author(s): David H. Fleming, Simon Harrison
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Year: 2020
Language: English
Pages: 235
City: Cham
Preface
Getting Started: And Learning from Our Students
References
Acknowledgements
Contents
List of Figures
Chapter 1: Introduction
Notes Towards a Method
Notes on Terminology 1: Films and “The Cinema”
Notes Towards a Vertiginous Method
On the State of a City
Ningbo-a-Go-Go
Structure of Approach and Synopsis of Chapters
References
Filmography
Chapter 2: Shi-Story and Theory
1935: From Zunyi to New York, Paris and Beijing … via Hollywood and the Screen Body
Regarding the Cinematisation of Cities and Life
Towards a Theory of Chinese Cinematicity
From Cinema to Shi-nema via Assemblage Theory
Fractal Modelling
A Fractalactic Case Study: Or, “The House Always Wins”
Concerning Individuals and Their Freedom
4E Psychogeography
References
Filmography
Chapter 3: Commercial Overground Shi-Nema: Some Notes on Cinematicity and Its Propensity for Selling Dream (Un)Real Estate in Contemporary China
On Aspirational Commercial Cinema
Real (Estate) Aspirations and the Gendered Properties of Property
China Moulds Hearts and Designs Cities for Living
Staging (Trans)actions: Or, Actualising the Dream
SAS´ in the City
From Commercial Mainstream Shi-nema to In-dependent Art Shi-nema
References
Filmography
Chapter 4: In-dependent Art Shi-Nema: Decomposing the Main Melody via Monu-mental Time-Images
Architecture and/as Cinema
Contemporaries and Counterparts
Museums and World Expos: A Postsocialist (Post)modernity?
Assemblage Art/Theory
Independent Time-Image Shi-nema
Ningbo’s Monu-mental Hybrid-Image Historical Museum
Cracked, Crystalline, Cinematic Walls
Assembling a Playful Architectonic Cinema
Cracked Cine-Crystals
Conclusions
References
Filmography
Chapter 5: Transnational Sci-Fi Shi-nema: Or, Diary Notes from “Westworld” Regarding Neoliberal Dulosis, “Academic” Automatons and the Franchised Post-historical University in the Era of Global “Excellence”
Sci fi and Simulacra Cinema/Shi-nema
Notes from Westworld: (Video) Casting Call
Western History in Three Acts, Ages or Concepts
Back to the Future (of Cool Britannia)
Notes from Westworld II: Arrival on Set
Notes from Westworld III: Invasion of the Body Snatchers
EX Men versus the Yes Men
The Student Experience
Planet Starbucks and the “RUOK” Zoo
Conclusions
References
Filmography
Chapter 6: Shi-Nematic Games (Casino Capitalism)
Shi-t(rick) Chinese Cinema
Let There Be Lights … and Keys
Spot the Difference, Cat and Mouse
The Price is Right, Speed Dating Designers, the Pied Piper, Golden Eggs and Talking Birds
Ningbo Expo
The Peacock, Capitalist Carpet and Wheel of (Starbucks’) Fortune
Legendary Games: The七夕节日(Qixi) Festival and the Hunger Games Scramble
References
Filmography
Chapter 7: Epilogue: Disneyfied Dreamwork Shi-nema—Tracing a New “Old” Path Through the Inauthentic “Traditional”
Hybrid Huallywood Cinema
The New Old: Or, the Past Is a Foreign (and Exotic) Land
The Old New: Or, the Future Is a Familiar (and Nearby) Land
Farewell to Ningbo: Or, a Picture Postcard Featuring a Picture of a Picture
References
Filmography
Index
