When we first discussed the creative projects in class, I mentioned doing a “serious” documentary about apocalypse as it is depicted in Islam. However, I was inspired to do something more fun after watching a short animated film from this year’s Doomsday Fest. The main character was a lemon head and the director created simple movements by taking stills of the lemon head traversing different flat images. I employed a similar concept in my animation, however instead of flat images – I used real-life backgrounds from my kitchen cabinets to the picture frames in the Metropolitan Opera.
Category Archives: Ilirjan Gjonbalaj
Timelessness in the Albertine Notes
While reading the Albertine Notes, I – as I’m sure many of my classmates – felt like I was going through a really bad mind trip. But, more importantly, from the beginning of the story when we’re introduced to what Albertine does – I kept thinking about time and questioned if eternity is actually a good thing. Continue reading
Class Presentations
Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.
Thanks to Central ITF Lindsey Freer for the Photos!
Little Boy Jesus
In our last class, we briefly discussed the idea of the boy being a prophet-like figure. By the halfway point of the novel, I wasn’t convinced of this idea at all. However, it all changed as I finished the second half of “The Road.”
Motherless Apocalypse
The topic of sexuality may seem a bit played out by now, but I think it’s important to discuss it in light of the motherless father-and-son relationship in “The Road.”
Morality in the Turner Diaries
There is clearly a shift that takes place after the first half of the Turner Diaries. The first ten chapters highlights the struggle of the Organization while also showing us the building momentum of its members. After Turner is initiated into the Order, however, his conscious is completely shifted and membership in the Organization explodes. Continue reading
Rabbit-Frogs and Lukewarm Christians
Well, I can’t say I wasn’t warned about the Turner Diaries. From the introduction of the book to discussions in class, we were all sufficiently cautioned about the hatred that pervades the text. Nonetheless, it is still an important piece to analyze and what do you know? There is apocalyptic thought woven throughout. Continue reading
Le Grand Macabre
Professor Quinby (and fellow Imagining the End of the World colleagues),
The name of the opera I was talking about before class is Le Grand Macabre by Gyorgi Ligeti. Truthfully, I don’t know much about it. So, in the composer’s own words: “It’s an imagining of the end of the world, but very colorful, very bizarre, populated with medieval imps… It’s a Rabelaisian world, a world full of obscenities, sexual and scatological. People are constantly eating and drinking and leading a very chaotic life. It all happens in a sort of broken-down dictatorship where two opposing parties, both completely corrupt, pursue in reality the same crooked policies… It’s tragic and light-hearted at the same time…It’s not my intention to be provocative, though naturally I enjoy shocking people a bit.””
Here is an advertisement/excerpt on youtube from a London production of it a few years back: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TP3DvIjcpi0
and from the more recent New York Philharmonic production: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pTmr1OqiDY&feature=related
28 Days Later, the Children of Men encountered an Apocalypto
This week, we viewed three films that portrayed the apocalypse through the lens of a post-modern director. They all have hints and obvious influences from the perennial apocalyptic tale, but at the same time tell a story that is much more individualized and complicate traditional gender norms. Continue reading
Enoch’s Violent Potential
In Glorious Appearing, there are two different groups of believers – Enoch and his followers as compared to Chaim, Ray, Abdullah and the remaining soldiers of God. Strozier’s connection between violence and paranoia can clearly be seen in both groups, albeit in different ways. Continue reading