Leslie Thornton (b. 1951)
Novel City (2008)
DURATION: 7 minutes (color, sound)
In Novel City, Thornton revisits her 1983 film Adynata, which explored questions of the Other through what Thornton has termed an "Orientalist spectacle" that was "intended to bring about a critical self-response, a simultaneous attraction and repulsion that provoke an instance of cultural self-awareness." In her new work, Thornton confronts the economic and cultural transformation of contemporary China, evoking a new spectacle of capitalism run amok. Thornton shoots from her window of the Jin Jiang Hotel in Shanghai, the site of Mao's 1972 meeting with Nixon, and projects images from the earlier movie, creating a layered landscape of alienation and dislocation.
- Description from EAI
RESOURCES:
These videos are being made available for noncommercial and educational use only.
All rights to this recorded material belong to Leslie Thornton. Used with permission of Leslie Thornton.
In Novel City, Thornton revisits her 1983 film Adynata, which explored questions of the Other through what Thornton has termed an "Orientalist spectacle" that was "intended to bring about a critical self-response, a simultaneous attraction and repulsion that provoke an instance of cultural self-awareness." In her new work, Thornton confronts the economic and cultural transformation of contemporary China, evoking a new spectacle of capitalism run amok. Thornton shoots from her window of the Jin Jiang Hotel in Shanghai, the site of Mao's 1972 meeting with Nixon, and projects images from the earlier movie, creating a layered landscape of alienation and dislocation.
- Description from EAI
RESOURCES:
These videos are being made available for noncommercial and educational use only.
All rights to this recorded material belong to Leslie Thornton. Used with permission of Leslie Thornton.