October 23, 2011
The fourth wall is the imaginary ‘wall’ at the front of the stage in a traditional three-walled box set in a theater, through which the audience sees the action in the world of the play. The idea of the fourth wall was made explicit by philosopher and critic Denis Diderot and spread in nineteenth-century theater with the advent of theatrical realism, which extended the idea to the imaginary boundary between any fictional work and its audience. Speaking directly to or otherwise acknowledging the audience through the camera in a film or television program, or through this imaginary wall in a play, is referred to as ‘breaking the fourth wall’ and is considered a technique of metafiction, as it deconstructs the boundaries normally set up by works of fiction.
The presence of the fourth wall is an established convention of modern realistic theater, which has led some artists to draw direct attention to it for dramatic or comedic effect when this boundary is broken,’ for example by an actor onstage speaking to the audience directly. The acceptance of the transparency of the fourth wall is part of the suspension of disbelief between a fictional work and an audience, allowing them to enjoy the fiction as if they were observing real events. Postmodern art forms frequently either do away with it entirely, or make use of various framing devices to manipulate it in order to emphasize or de-emphasize certain aspects of the production, according to the artistic desires of the work’s creator. The term ‘fifth wall’ has been used as an extension of the fourth wall concept to refer to the wall between critics or readers and theater practitioners.
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October 23, 2011
Self-reference occurs in natural or formal languages when a sentence or formula refers to itself. The reference may be expressed either directly—through some intermediate sentence or formula—or by means of some encoding. In philosophy, it also refers to the ability of a subject to speak of or refer to himself, herself, or itself: to have the kind of thought expressed by the first person pronoun, the word ‘I’ in English.
Self-reference is related to self-reflexivity and apperception. It is studied and has applications in mathematics, philosophy, computer programming, and linguistics. Self-referential statements sometimes have paradoxical behavior.
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October 21, 2011
Michael Manning is a fetish artist based in Los Angeles. NBM has published several collections of his work, including ‘Cathexis’ and ‘Lumenagerie,’ and a series of graphic novels, ‘The Spider Garden’ series. Born in Queens, New York, and raised on Massachusetts’ North Shore, Manning began self-publishing his black & white erotic comix in 1987 while working as an animator and director of short films, commercials, and music videos.
Early exposure to Japanese animation, fairy-tale book illustration, American and European comix, and mythology of many cultures has contributed to the formation of Manning’s style. Manning’s work draws heavily on Japanese influences, being somewhat stylized and almost exclusively black-and-white. His themes are notable, even amongst fetish artists, for depicting potentially taboo subjects such as zoophilia. Many of his images include beings that are mythological (such as centaurs) or at least biologically uncommon, such as hermaphrodites.
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October 21, 2011
Action Comics #1 (June 1938) features the first appearance of Jerry Siegel/Joe Shuster creation Superman. Published on April 18, 1938 by National Allied Publications, a corporate predecessor of DC Comics, it is considered the first true superhero comic; and though today ‘Action Comics’ is a monthly title devoted to Superman, it began, like many early comics, as an anthology. Copies have sold at auction for $1.5 million.
The first issue had a print run of 200,000 copies. Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster were paid $10 per page, for a total of $130 for their work on this issue. They effectively signed away millions in future rights and royalties payments. Starting in 1978, Siegel and Shuster were provided with a $20,000 a month annuity which was later raised to $30,000. Liebowitz would later say that selecting Superman to run in Action Comics #1 was ‘pure accident’ based on deadline pressure and that he selected a ‘thrilling’ cover, depicting Superman lifting a car over his head. It has been compared ‘Hercules Clubs the Hydra’ by Antonio del Pollaiolo.
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October 21, 2011
Blake Snyder (1957 – 2009) was an American screenwriter based in Los Angeles, who became one of the most popular writing mentors in the film industry. The author of three books on screenwriting and story structure, Snyder led international seminars and workshops for writers in various disciplines, as well as consultation sessions for some of Hollywood’s largest studios. His nonfiction book ‘Save the Cat!
The Last Book on Screenwriting You’ll Ever Need’ was written in a no-nonsense and conversational tone, which has resonated with both seasoned and novice screenwriters. The title is a term coined by Snyder and describes the scene where the audience meets the hero of a movie for the first time. The hero does something nice — e.g. saving a cat—that makes the audience like the hero and root for him. According to Snyder, it is a simple scene that helps the audience invest themselves in the character and the story, but is often lacking in many movies.
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October 21, 2011
In a monomyth, (the theory that all myths are the same story) the hero begins in the ordinary world, and receives a call to enter an unknown world of strange powers and events. The hero who accepts the call to enter this strange world must face tasks and trials, either alone or with assistance. In the most intense versions of the narrative, the hero must survive a severe challenge, often with help. If the hero survives, he may achieve a great gift or ‘boon.’ The hero must then decide whether to return to the ordinary world with this boon. If the hero does decide to return, he or she often faces challenges on the return journey. If the hero returns successfully, the boon or gift may be used to improve the world. The stories of Osiris, Prometheus, Moses, and Buddha, for example, follow this structure closely.
Campbell describes 17 stages or steps along this journey. Very few myths contain all 17 stages—some myths contain many of the stages, while others contain only a few; some myths may focus on only one of the stages, while other myths may deal with the stages in a somewhat different order. These 17 stages may be organized in a number of ways, including division into three sections: ‘Departure’ (sometimes called ‘Separation’), the hero’s adventure prior to the quest; ‘Initiation,’ the hero’s many adventures along the way; and ‘Return,’ the hero’s return home with knowledge and powers acquired on the journey.
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October 21, 2011
The Hero with a Thousand Faces (first published in 1949) is a non-fiction book, and seminal work of comparative mythology by Joseph Campbell. In this publication, Campbell discusses his theory of the journey of the archetypal hero found in world mythologies. Since publication, Campbell’s theory has been consciously applied by a wide variety of modern writers and artists. The best known is perhaps George Lucas, who has acknowledged a debt to Campbell regarding the stories of the ‘Star Wars’ films.
Campbell explores the theory that important myths from around the world which have survived for thousands of years all share a fundamental structure, which Campbell called the monomyth and ‘the hero’s journey. ‘In a well-known quote from the introduction to ‘The Hero with a Thousand Faces,’ Campbell summarized the monomyth: ‘A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.’
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October 19, 2011
The Rapture is a dance-punk band based in New York City. The band mixes influences from many genres including post-punk, acid house, disco, electronic music, and rock, pioneering the post-punk revival genre. The Rapture formed in 1998 by keyboardist Chris Relyea, drummer Vito Roccoforte and guitarist/vocalist Luke Jenner. In 1999 the band released its debut ‘mini-album’, ‘Mirror.’ Following this release, the band relocated to New York. They were finally joined by Matt Safer having gone through five keyboard players and two bassists in an eighteen-month period. After touring extensively for two years, the band released the six-song EP ‘Out of the Races and Onto the Tracks’ on the Sub Pop label, with the lead track featuring in the film adaptation of the Bret Easton Ellis novel ‘The Rules Of Attraction.’
The Rapture were forerunners of the post-punk revival of the early 2000s, as they mixed their early post-punk sound with electronic and dance elements via their collaboration with the celebrated New York production team DFA. Multi-instrumentalist Gabriel Andruzzi joined the band in 2002. Their first full-length record, ‘Echoes,’ was released to critical acclaim in 2003. The Rapture released their second full-length album, ‘Pieces of the People We Love,’ on Universal Motown Records in 2006. Paul Epworth, Ewan Pearson and Danger Mouse produced the album.
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October 19, 2011
Little Dragon is a Swedish electronic band, formed in Gothenburg in 1996. It consists of Swedish-Japanese singer Yukimi Nagano (vocals, percussion) and her close high school friends Erik Bodin (drums), Fredrik Källgren Wallin (bass) and Håkan Wirenstrand (keyboards). Little Dragon’s first release was the single ‘Twice/Test’ in 2006. The following year, the band signed with the larger British indie label Peacefrog Records and released their self-titled debut album. Their second album, ‘Machine Dreams,’ was released in 2009, followed by their third album, ‘Ritual Union,’ in 2011.
The band’s name was inspired by the ‘Little Dragon’ nickname Nagano earned due to the ‘fuming tantrums’ she used to throw while recording in the studio. ‘It’s a little exaggerated but there is some truth in it,’ Nagano said. ‘But we’ve grown up a bit and I realized you can’t have a fit every day because otherwise you won’t be able to stand each other.’
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October 18, 2011
Cool “Disco” Dan is the pseudonym of graffiti artist Dan Hogg (b. 1969). His standard mark, a particularly styled rendering of his name, has proliferated in the Washington metropolitan area, notably on surfaces along the route of the Washington Metro Red Line.
He has been spraying his tag since 1984. Part of the Go-Go scene of the 80’s in Washington; he managed to avoid being jailed or killed unlike a lot of his contemporaries by devoting himself to graffiti rather than becoming involved with drugs or gangs. The pervasiveness of his mark was reported frequently in the local press.
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October 18, 2011
Borf was a graffiti campaign seen in and around Washington, D.C. during 2004 and 2005, carried out by John Tsombikos while studying at the Corcoran College of Art and Design. This four letter word was ubiquitous around the Northwest quadrant of Washington, and ranged from simple tagging to complete sentences to two-color stencils to the massive defacement on an overhead exit sign from the Theodore Roosevelt Bridge to Constitution Avenue. Tsombikos was arrested after tips led police to his latest tag.
The campaign attracted widespread attention without first explaining its motivations. According to Tsombikos and subsequent Borf communiqués, both the nickname ‘Borf’ and the Borf face belonged to Bobby Fisher, a close friend of Tsombikos’ who had committed suicide. In a video shown in 2006, the Borf Brigade – the group claiming responsibility for the graffiti spree – asserted that capitalism and the culture of aesthetics created alienation and feelings of worthlessness that contributed to the 16-year-old’s suicide. The group said that they used other peoples’ property to commemorate and pay homage to their deceased friend. The graffiti usually had overtones of anti-authority sentiments and youth liberation.
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October 18, 2011
Multistable perceptual phenomena are a form of perceptual phenomena in which there are unpredictable sequences of spontaneous subjective changes. While usually associated with visual perception, such phenomena can be found for auditory and olfactory percepts. Perceptual multistability can be evoked by visual patterns that are too ambiguous for the human visual system to recognise with one unique interpretation.
Famous examples include the ‘Necker cube,’ ‘structure from motion,’ ‘monocular rivalry’ (two different images, optically superimposed), and ‘binocular rivalry’ (perception alternates between different images presented to each eye), but many more visually ambiguous patterns are known. Since most of these images lead to an alternation between two mutually exclusive perceptual states, they are sometimes also referred to as bistable perception.
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