The fluid after-dark...(4/12)

L'Ignorance de nostos...(14/1)

Chapter 2 of l’ignorance written by Kundera is interesting. It is a very typical demonstration of Kundera’s literal writing. He rooted the idea of ignorance, the crux of the work. Nostos or la retour is characterized a form of artistic sensation in the Western culture. According to the logic of Kundera, nostalgia appears to be a form of ‘malade’ I would say…it is the missing link. The term nostalgia is used to be a very dramatic yet dreaming mirage idea to me. The first very impressive recognition of the word came to me via the work of Tarkovsky named ‘nostalgia’. Because we have never had a utopian land, we have the luxury to enjoy and experience ‘nostalgia’. The term itself carries a sense of a respect to the origin, or the motherland. More than an expression of an unreachable sensation of need and comfort desired, the feeling of nostalgia calls for a self-modeling process to a meaning of existence to a certain extent. Nostalgia is a good expression of existentialism I would say. Kundera cited a very true relation of the past and the future in the issue of nostalgia. I think of the same. It becomes a consensus of life, and every individual has to face it and live it. Interestingly, Kundera also quoted the story of Ulysses as a classic journey of retour and the contemplating mode of a ‘nostalgian’. One shall only feels nostalgic during a journey, a physical or a psychological journey. When a record of this mode of mental dynamism is signed on a graphpaper, the dancing wave assimilates the winding journey one is engaging. I share part of the thought of Kundera, especially when I am terminating the state of wandering in France and I share an identity of a generation of ambiguity growing up in the borrowed time at the borrowed place. We keep on searching. It is ignorance perhaps. The sorrow of Kundera is ‘to-be-ignored’, or perhaps rather 'to ignore the ignorance'. When he has to admit a consensus, he ignores. When nostalgia becomes a mixed feeling of forgiveness and ignorance, it is unstable, it is uncertain, and it is painful. My exotic adventure is materialistically a dolce vita, and this is a unique exposure of independency versus alienation. Normatively, the existence of a rootlessly sentiment choruses the nostalgia of the ideal land. Youth is one irrepressible source of nostalgia, either when we are young or when we are not young. This is the beauty of a pair of flying wings. When nostalgia resists from sentimental addiction, it is self-actualisation. But definitely, it remains a disturbance of memory before the metamorphosis is completed. Homeland would it be where that it needs a compass to control, or as Kundera said ‘verfremdungseffekt’.

Die Eroberung Der Strasse...(1/7)

During my last visit to Germany, I visited the exhibition at Schirn Kunsthalle in Frankfurt...From a German perspective, the exhibition compared the capital of Berlin with the metropolitan of Europe, Paris. Both cities carried a symbolic role in the European history, and the essence of the show is how the reform of the two cities can be resembled to each other. My bias prevails an urban modelling of European metropolitans should be chaired by Paris, especially when we reviewed the reconstruction in the 19th and 20th centuries. The exhibition focused the mission of Haussmann in the late 19th century in Paris, and has chosen important landmarks including:
- Gare Saint Lazare, the oldest station in Paris;
- Place de l'Opera, the centre of theatre and arts;
- Rue de Rivoli, the widen and elongated road at the heart of the centre;
- Place d'Etoile, the milestone of Paris la grand ville with the star-like intersections extending into the edges of the city, an extension of the centralised-philosophy of Paris in France or Europe in the Belle Epoque;
- Gare d'Orsay, the first station of electric train, and a symbol of the debut 20th century architecture in Paris (see my earlier blog on the architect Victor Laloux);
- Bois de Boulogne, a redesign of the city park by Jean Charles Alphand and a remodelling of the Parisian lifestyle to 'parking' and 'pique-nique';
- Hotel de Ville, all about facade and the beauty of decorative facade, a reconstruction of the municipal structure in 1882 by Theodore Ballu & Jacques Boucher des Perthes.

The exhibition provided an alternative perspective to me about the 1900 World Expo in Paris. I was looking for information about the event for months, and surprisingly some displays and maps showcasing in the exhibition enabled me to have more idea about the preparation and the layout of the Expo. The Expo created not only a full demonstration about the power of nations in debut 1900, but its governmental influence on architecture and infrastructure in Paris formulated a 'new' Paris. Skylines including Tour Effiel, Pont Alexandre, Petit et Grand Palais, Gare d'Orsay, Gare de Lyon etc. recorded a new chapter of the history of the city which can last long.
The exhibition did not really compare in details the urban planning and development of Paris and Berlin, but intentionally putting together the development of landscape and city infrastructure like the drainage system, the public transport system and landmarks, the exhibition is interesting to visitors. There were also advertising posters and drawings of the two city landscapes under impressionists in the old days. I do not know when the above-mentioned city buildings and features became the subjects of painters and artists, but they were right, they captured the spirit of the city, or I should better say, the city in the past. Their works differentiate from the tourist-favourites scenery selling now on Rue Rivoli.