Iconic Scene Research Articles

Static Actors, Silent Singers

Abstract Aeschylean actors could be silent and motionless on the stage for a notoriously long time. My paper reconsiders this curious phenomenon from two mutually related angles. First, it enquires into how spectacles of inactivity had to affect the overall musical and movement design of the plays in which they were originally embedded. Building on these findings, the paper then historicises how the iconic scenes quickly entered the theatrical repertoire and also changed with it through the fourth century BC. By the 430s, the actors’ displays of inactivity could still look quite identical to their Aeschylean archetypes, but they had been reassigned to minor characters, meaning to the second or third-best soloist. In this and other ways, fourth-century actors reused traditional elements of the repertoire by adapting them to the monodic trends of their day.

An AI-powered approach to the semiotic reconstruction of narratives

This article presents a novel and highly interactive process to generate natural language narratives based on our ongoing work on semiotic relations, providing four criteria for composing new narratives from existing stories. The wide applicability of this semiotic reconstruction process is suggested by a reputed literary scholar’s deconstructive claim that new narratives can often be shown to be a tissue of previous narratives. Along, respectively, three semiotic axes – syntagmatic, paradigmatic, and meronymic – existing stories can yield new stories by the combination, imitation, or expansion of an iconic scene; lastly, a new story may emerge through reversal via an antithetic consideration, i.e., through the adoption of opposite values. Targeting casual users, we present a fully operational prototype with a simple and user-friendly interface that incorporates an AI agent, namely ChatGPT. The prototype, in a coauthor capacity, generates context-compatible sequences of events in storyboard format using backward-chaining abductive reasoning (employing Stable Diffusion to draw scene illustrations), conforming as much as possible to the user’s authorial instructions. The extensive repertoire of book and movie summaries available to the AI agent obviates the need to manually supply laborious and error-prone context specifications. A user study was conducted to evaluate user experience and satisfaction with the generated narratives. The preliminary findings suggest that our approach has the potential to enhance story quality while offering a positive user experience.

Antinomianism as Iconism: The Living Images of the Frankists

Emerging in the context of messianic Sabbateanism in Eastern Europe, Frankism’s main characteristics are its stern opposition towards rabbinic Judaism and its rigid antinomism. Frankist doctrine and Frankist practice straightforwardly reversed the Law to its opposite. Frankist leaders, and in particular Jacob Frank (1726-1791) himself, employed strategies that took advantage of the multiform contact situations of religious traditions within the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth by metaschematic subversion of religious forms. Frank refused to hide what he claimed to be the true faith, and openly and publicly presented himself as an opponent of the established rabbinic tradition. The open, visible, and public presentation was intended to be an affront by ostensibly/iconically opposing its aniconic stance. Anti-aniconism performed iconically was a deliberate and virtuously employed strategy in the struggle about messianic and eschatological issues. The emphasis on visibility and the deliberate establishment of iconic scenes within Frankist practice also breaks with the Sabbatian conduct of occurring in the environs of the traditional community and not being sharply distinguished from the ‘correct’ faith. In my article, I will argue that Frank deliberately employed hyper-iconism and living images (tableaux vivantes) to fulfill his messianic role.

From Os Lusíadas to Luzitayonn: An analysis of Canto VII of Camoes’ epic, and its Konkani translation by Olivinho Gomes

Luis de Camões displayed his poetic prowess in his magnum opus, The Lusiads. The masterpiece is a unique composition, a combination of historical facts and images from ancient mythology, set in exuberant places discovered by the Portuguese. The extraordinary setting, coupled with the author's opulence of poetic imagination, made The Lusiads one of the greatest epics of European literature, with over a hundred editions and translations into more than a dozen European languages (NLR, [S.d.]). This paper seeks to study the translation exercise to an Indian language (Konkani) undertaken by Olivinho Gomes in Goa. Drawing from Gomes’ translation (Luzitayonn published in 2003), our work aims to interpret select strophes from Canto VII of The Lusiads. The strophes that form the basis of this study paint iconic scenes dealing with Vasco da Gama's arrival on the Malabar Coast and move on to a eulogy of the Indian subcontinent. Many scenes are significant and have featured widely in luso iconography. While retaining ideas inherent to The Lusiads, and the flavour of Camões’ epic style writing, Gomes skilfully adapts his translation to the contemporary Indian audience. Through a deft shift of focus away from other ancient civilisations wherever possible, he attempts to (re)place India in the centre of the narrative. Canto VII of Luzitayonn appears to be retold in places through a translator’s Indian gaze. We understand, however, that this is but a feeble attempt, and Camões’ references continue to majorly structure the text.

Prophet against Empire? William Blake in Australia

Since the posthumous revival of William Blake (beginning in the 1860s, consolidated in the twentieth century), his identification with England, and more particularly with London, has been complicated by his appeal to cultural groups that are themselves ambivalent, at best, in their relationship to empire. While scholarship has increasingly attended to Blake’s dialogues with and receptions outside the Anglosphere, the radically countercultural artist and son of a hosier has simultaneously been assimilated into the iconography of mainstream Englishness. This has been nowhere more evident than in England itself, where he is quoted by politicians of all political persuasions and has been made the subject of blockbuster exhibitions in major institutional venues. For example, the trailer for the 2019–​20 Tate exhibition projects Blakean imagery onto iconic scenes and sites of contemporary London, updating and appropriating Golgonooza for the age of the London Eye. At the same time, and in ways somewhat truer to his own practices, Blake has been celebrated as a kind of patron saint by London-based small presses and outsider artists and writers. Beyond England, complex and sometimes inapposite ideological allegiances have been contracted on his behalf from the nineteenth century onwards. In this essay, we turn to the reception, reproduction, and revisioning of Blake in the settler colonies of Australia, and we find a Blake whose work, mediated through a range of editorial and curatorial lenses, proves unexpectedly amenable to conflicting Australian desires both to affirm cultural fealty to England and empire and to refuse it.

The Battle with Amalek (Exod. 17.8–16): When God Trusts in Man

The battle with Amalek (Exod. 17.8–16) is among the most enigmatic stories in the book of Exodus. Commentators have particularly struggled to understand the meaning of the iconic scene at its heart: Moses raising and lowering his hand(s) (holding God’s staff?). In this essay, I argue that the scene should be envisioned differently from how most commentators have imagined it. A literary analysis of Exod. 17.8–13 shows that Moses raises the staff horizontally using both hands, which are in turn supported by Aaron and Hur’s hands. This portrayal is further reinforced in light of evidence from Egyptian iconography. The proposed understanding of the scene entails a reinterpretation of the story: it is not about using the staff but about supporting it. This conclusion has unusual theological implications, which are further sharpened in light of the role our story plays within the broader wilderness narrative.

Henrik Ibsen and Conspiracy Thinking: The Case of Peer Gynt

Henrik Ibsen and Conspiracy Thinking: The Case of <i>Peer Gynt</i>

The Godfather and Sicily: Power, Honor, Family, and Evil

The Godfather and Sicily: Power, Honor, Family, and Evil

Implementation of art Project "May Night" by M. Lysenko in Author's Directing Design

The author explores the process of embodiment of the Ukrainian classic work "May Night" by M. Lysenko in the author's director's project in the realities of today. The relevance of the study is to begin the process of optimizing the cosmopolitan and national components in the education of the Ukrainian audience. The purpose of the study is to determine the director's concept of the art project "May Night" by M. Lysenko in the context of national specifics of artistic images. It was possible to carry out an artistic reconstruction of the rites of divination on wreaths and mermaids in the context of revealing the idea of musical drama of the work. The research methodology is determined by the need for an integrated approach, which harmoniously combines the following methods: genrestylistic (ideological and thematic content of the director's embodiment), experimental modeling (compositional-architectural construction of the play), interpretive (author's directorial approaches to national characters). Scientific novelty lies in the historically reliable director's interpretation of national images of Ukrainians in accordance with their cultural traditions, mentalities and psychology of different social groups. The author substantiated the genre affiliation of the author's project "May Night" by M. Lysenko as a lyrical-comic domestic opera with elements of mysticism. The realization of the ideological and thematic idea of the project is carried out in accordance with the main archetypes of the Ukrainian mentality, which substantiate the logic of the actions of the characters. The compositional construction of the project consists of two acts and four scenes embodying the real and fantasy world. The Architectonics of the project is substantiated in accordance with the iconic scenes in the dramatic solution of the director's concept, closely related to folk traditions and rituals. Their own directorial approaches in the project implementation, their manifestations in the authentic solution of spring rituals, in the visualization of real and fantastic worlds by synthesizing traditional scenographic design with video projection and special effects are outlined. Prospects for further research of various genres of interpretations of M. Lysenko's work "May Night, or Drowned" in the theatrical aesthetics of dramatic, musical-dramatic, musical theaters are predicted.

Marcel Odenbach's Angels of History: Cross‐Racial Empathy, Racial Violence, and German Appropriation of Black History

Since the 1960s, identifying with African American struggles against oppression has been an important tool for white Germans to show that they are on the right side of history. This cross‐racial empathy is central to Marcel Odenbach's 1999 video installation, “Ach wie gut daß niemand weiß,” in which he juxtaposes two iconic scenes from the protest movements of the late 1960s: West German student Benno Ohnesorg being shot at the demonstration against the Shah of Iran and Martin Luther King Jr. marching in Selma, Alabama. When read through the lens of Walter Benjamin's “Theses on the Philosophy of History,” “Ach wie gut” has the potential to create a constellation of cultural moments that both promote a multidirectional approach to memory and comment on our present political moment by invoking Benjamin's warning about the violence of making history and the danger of taking a solely historicist perspective. Nevertheless, this potential is in danger of being undermined by Odenbach's failure to recognize his own white privilege and his role as implicated subject vis‐à‐vis these histories of struggle.

Defiant Denial is Self-Defeating

In what is arguably one of the most iconic scenes of the comedy film “The Naked Gun”, police lieutenant Frank Drebin confronts his antagonist Vincent Ludwig on top of the stands in a baseball stadi...

Surgeons, surgeries, and operating rooms in television medical series

The longest-running American prime-time television medical series, Grey’s Anatomy represents a society in which gender is not a potential career barrier in surgery. Focusing on an iconic scene of the series, this article brings media studies together with the history- and philosophy of surgery to provide a qualitative analysis of this portrayal on three levels: surgical procedure, protagonist, and place. Following previous studies on medical drama series, the theoretical framework of the article is cultivation theory. Some elements of the genre – like the realistic hospital setting and the authentic usage of medical jargon – might strengthen the likelihood of content cultivation. Finally, I discuss the potential positive and negative effects of the way how this popular series depict female surgical careers.

Come‐hither looks: the Hollywood vamp and the function of cinema

Come‐hither looks: the Hollywood vamp and the function of cinema

Precarious Politics: Friends of Coal, the UMWA, and the Affective Terrain of Energy Identification

Precarious Politics:Friends of Coal, the UMWA, and the Affective Terrain of Energy Identification Sylvia Ryerson (bio) Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 1. Rocky Adkins, then Democratic House majority leader for the Kentucky House of Representatives, speaking at a pro-coal rally in 2012 (Tom Hansell, "The Narrative of Renewal: 'If We Can't Mine Coal, What Are We Going To Do?'"https://dailyyonder.com/the-narrative-of-renewal-if-we-cantmine-coal-what-are-we-going-to-do/2018/10/10/), Adkins is now senior adviser to the governor of Kentucky, Andy Beshear. Photograph by Tom Hansell / After Coal, 2012. In the iconic scene of Harlan County USA, Barbara Kopple's 1976 Academy Award–winning documentary film, shots are fired in the dark at striking miners and their wives, and Kopple's camera is knocked to the ground. The moment captures the violent escalation of the Brookside Strike of 1973–74, organized by the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) against Duke Power, the owner of the Eastover Coal Company's Brookside Mine in Harlan County, Kentucky. In the early morning darkness, the battle lines are clear. The predominantly white UMWA miners and their wives on the picket line confront the company-hired [End Page 719] "gun thugs" working to bring in scabs and break up the strike. With an active membership of 213,113 and 1,329 local chapters nationwide, in 1973 the UMWA remained one of the largest and most powerful labor organizations in the country, and the Appalachian coalfields had long played a central role in the union's history.1 The Brookside Strike gained symbolic significance and moral authority by contextualizing itself as a clear continuation of the Harlan County mine wars of the 1930s known as "Bloody Harlan," the nearly-decade-long battle that first established the UMWA in Eastern Kentucky. Kopple films a local UMWA rally during the Brookside Strike, where the songwriter Florence Reece comes to the podium. Her husband, Sam Reece, was a Harlan County miner and union organizer in the 1930s, and the retaliation they faced inspired Florence to pen the now-famous social justice anthem "Which Side Are You On?" As she sings her renowned verses to the 1970s crowd, Come all you poor workersGood news to you I'll tellHow the good ol' unionHas come in here to dwell Which side are you on?Which side are you on? If you go to Harlan CountyThere is no neutral thereYou'll either be a union manOr a thug for J. H. Blair Which side are you on?Which side are you on?2 Released some forty years later, the 2015 documentary film Overburden follows the fight against mountaintop removal coal mining (MTR) in the Coal River Valley of southern West Virginia, and across the Central Appalachian coalfields of Kentucky, Virginia, and Tennessee. The drama climaxes at a 2009 anti-MTR rally held outside a Massey Energy–owned coal processing plant near Coal River Mountain, the site of an impending MTR job. The "anti-MTR" activists are met by dozens of "pro-coal" miners and supporters, in an emotional confrontation. As the anti-MTR activists demand that the state intervene to halt the blasting, pro-coal supporters shout back angrily "go home tree huggers!" and wave Massey Energy flags. Thirty-one arrests are made, as the anti-MTR protestors attempt to block the road to the plant.3 Again, the [End Page 720] battle lines are clear—but the political allegiances have completely changed. While the picketers of the Brookside Strike held signs reading "Duke Power Wants Rate Increases for Customers, Poverty for Coal Miners" and "Duke Power Co. Owns the Brookside Mine, But They Don't Own Us," the miners at the 2009 protests held signs reading "EPA = Equal Poverty for All" and "If You're Against Coal Then Turn Off Your Lights."4 In a stunning reconfiguration of roles, this scene played out over and over again in protests and rallies across the coalfields beginning in the early 2000s. The question "Which side are you on?" remained ever present in the coalfields, but the sides were redrawn: one was...

Visualizing the Stanley-Livingstone Meeting: The Birth and Lives of an Iconic Scene in Print Media and Beyond since 1872

Visualizing the Stanley-Livingstone Meeting: The Birth and Lives of an Iconic Scene in Print Media and Beyond since 1872

A Comparative Analysis of Gravediggers’ Scene in Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Vishal Bhardwaj’s Haider

The Gravediggers’ scene in Hamlet performs a dramatic function with the melding of seriousness and comic element. The scene which takes place in the most gripping moment of the play is probably one of the most famous in Shakespeare plays. Apart from serving as a comic relief in the rise of the action, the Gravediggers’ scene also delves in to some of the major themes of the play. This scene also provides a wide scope for direction and performance in theatre and film. Vishal Bhardwaj’s Haider is a modern day adaptation of the play Hamlet which is set amidst the turmoil of Kashmir. The movie was released in 2014 and its main cast includes Shahid Kapoor (Haider), Tabu (Ghazala), Sredha Kapoor (Arshia) and Kay Kay Menon (Khurram). The Gravediggers’ scene in Hamlet is one of the most famous and well acclaimed iconic scenes in Shakespeare plays. This paper will attempt a comparative analysis of Gravediggers’ Scene in Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Vishal Bhardwaj’s Haider.

Agonistic Entanglements of Art and Activism: #RhodesMustFall and Sethembile Msezane’s Chapangu Performances

ABSTRACTThis article reflects on some of the limitations and challenges of recent student protest movements in South Africa, with a specific focus on their activism on issues of cultural politics. It articulates the dominant modes of cultural activism of these movements, taking the #RhodesMustFall campaign as a defining instance in this regard. Revisiting one of the first victories of #RhodesMustFall, the removal of the statue of Cecil John Rhodes from the University of Cape Town’s main campus in 2015, it finds that another, very different and, in many ways, opposing form of cultural activism asserted itself in an artistic performance by Sethembile Msezane. It is argued that during this iconic scene of contemporary student protests, an uneasy tension thus came to exist, provoking fundamental questions regarding activist styles of cultural contestation and modes of subjectivity. Through Jacques Rancière’s notion of the politics of aesthetics, Msezane’s performance is taken to harbour a critique of the dominant activist modes of #RhodesMustFall, affirming the important role of creativity and imagination within radical political movements. Inversely, a critique of artistic interventions from the perspective of a #RhodesMustFall style of cultural activism is formulated, based on Fredric Jameson’s redemptive reading of philistine attitudes. Although #RhodesMustFall and Msezane’s performance are thus conceived in agonistic terms, it is argued that the tension between art and activism should be endorsed as a productive one, allowing for processes of self-critique, self-correction, and self-reinvention within social protest movements.

REPRESENTATION OF INDONESIAN CULTURE DIVERSITY IN DJARUM 76 TELEVISION ADVERTISEMENT

Cigarette industry is well known in Indonesia, therefore cigarette advertisements are common in television. Although there are regulations regarding cigarette advertisement recently, back in 1990s, cigarette advertisements were frank. The article aims to find out the construction of Indonesian cultural diversity representation in Djarum76 television advertisement. This article uses a qualitative design research method. Constructionist representation by Stuart Hall is used as the analysis approach in this research. The result of this research showed by analyzing 10 iconic scenes and the lyrics of trademark song from Djarum 76 advertisement, the advertisement visually constructs the Indonesian culture diversity, specifically East Java culture. Dominantly, the scenes visualize the iconic places in Indonesia. Therefore, it can be concluded that Djarum 76 wants to be seen as iconic as the cultural places and arts in the television advertisement while subconsciously, Djarum 76 leads the target market to believe in what the lyrics of the advertisement said. Hence, despite we are absorbed with the visual of the advertisement that is showing the beauty of certain places or arts, we also hear the enchanting lyrics which attached in our minds.

Blue Jeans Stage and Screen

Scholars of Victorian and Edwardian theatre necessarily piece together their accounts of ephemeral performance through manuscripts, reviews, and other responses preserved in print and visual culture. However, films made between 1895 and 1935 offer frequent, unexpected, and sometimes curiously skewed glimpses of the Victorian and Edwardian stage. This essay focuses on John H. Collins’s 1917 silent film adaptation of Blue Jeans, Joseph Arthur’s melodrama, popular from its New York debut in 1890. The melodrama is perhaps most famous for ‘the great sawmill scene’. This iconic scene, an early example of an episode in which a helpless victim is tied to a board approaching a huge buzz saw, turns a mundane setting into a terrifying site for suspense, violence, and attempted murder. Whilst the film made alterations and abridgements, the overall effect was to preserve the play’s distinctive features. Our essay shows how the stage version is preserved within Collins’s film adaptation so that the cinematic artefact gives unique access to the Victorian theatrical work. Films not only preserve Victorian forms in modern media and extend the reach of Victorian culture, but also open a new resource and methodology for understanding Victorian and Edwardian theatre.

The Other Battle of Algiers

The Other Battle of Algiers