Simone Shu-Yeng Chung | National University of Singapore (original) (raw)

Books by Simone Shu-Yeng Chung

The Hard State, Soft City of Singapore, 2020

With Singapore serving as the subject of exploration, The Hard State, Soft City of Singapore expl... more With Singapore serving as the subject of exploration, The Hard State, Soft City of Singapore explores the purview of imaginative representations of the city. Alongside the physical structures and associated practices that make up our lived environment, and conceptualized space engineered into material form by bureaucrats, experts and commercial interests, a perceptual layer of space is conjured out of people’s everyday life experiences. While such imaginative projections may not be as tangible as its functional designations, they are nonetheless equally vital and palpable. The richness of its inhabitants’ memories, aspirations and meaningful interpretations challenges the reduction of Singapore as a Generic City. Taking the imaginative field as the point of departure, the forms and modes of intellectual and creative articulations of Singapore’s urban condition probe the resilience of cities and the people who reside in them, through the images they convey or evoke as a means for collective expressions of human agency in placemaking.

Narrating the City: Mediated Representations of Architecture, Urban Forms and Social Life, 2020

This chapter extends scholarship on city symphonies to include two contemporary city films that p... more This chapter extends scholarship on city symphonies to include two contemporary city films that play homage to Singapore and Seoul – arguably the leading global cities of Southeast Asia and East Asia, respectively. Unlike the early twentieth-century city symphony exemplars from Europe, which are distinctively tied to modernity, these millennial Asian features are clearly products of globalization. While the European films constitute documentations of an emerging global condition, the Asian films interrogate what it means to be a global city. Through a comparative study of Tan Pin Pin’s Singapore GaGa (2005) and PARKing CHANce’s Bitter, Sweet, Seoul (2014), three lines of investigations are pursued: how facets of each city are translated to film; how modes of production of Asian city symphonies differ from their Western predecessors; and how these different approaches illuminate innovations in the conceptualization and realization of the two films. In city symphonies, the city is cast to play itself, emphasizing the axiomatic fact that cities have their own distinct flavour. As such, they highlight characteristics unique to each city and its people. The comparative component is important: a single film may present several aspects of a culture but reading across several films can reveal certain underlying features, common themes and emerging trajectories.

The Hard State, Soft City of Singapore, 2020

Introduction to The Hard State, Soft City of Singapore, ed. Chung and Douglass (Amsterdam Univers... more Introduction to The Hard State, Soft City of Singapore, ed. Chung and Douglass (Amsterdam University Press, 2020).
This chapter outlines how imaginative representations of the city, told through the images they convey or evoke, form collective expressions of human agency in placemaking and the (re)shaping of urban space. Of equal importance are polemical developments that play integral roles in influencing conditions for artistic and social (re)production in Singapore. In foregrounding society-space relations and the city, we argue that physical spaces are subject to a multitude of social imaginings, which are then projected back into urban space to convey individual and shared meanings, identities and purposes. Such diverse ways of conceptualising space, which can sometimes be born out of resistance, present another mode of understanding and experiencing the lived city.

Papers by Simone Shu-Yeng Chung

Programme and Abstracts for the Situating Domesticities Workshop, held at CREATE, NUS 7-8 Decembe... more Programme and Abstracts for the Situating Domesticities Workshop, held at CREATE, NUS 7-8 December 2017 (supported by the NUS HSS Seed Fund)

Visual Studies, 2020

This article discusses the role of drawings in interdisciplinary visual research, especially the ... more This article discusses the role of drawings in interdisciplinary visual research, especially the contribution of line drawings to investigative fieldwork. Citing precedents in Tokyo, the incorporation of sociological and ethnographic methods for architectural research is not new in Japan. RE/MAP 2.0, an exploratory workshop that brought participants from architecture and sociology together, uncovered the hidden realities of sub-metropolitan neighbourhoods in Central Tokyo affected by widespread urban restructuring in the lead up to Tokyo 2020. ‘Careful listening’ complemented the use of visual materials – in particular, researcher-based drawings – for fieldwork documentation. Line drawings produced by the workshop participants, though varied in style and form, contain a critical dimension. They graphically convey, through three case studies, the manipulated legibility of Roppongi, asynchronous spatial inhabitations and movements of street culture groups around Miyashita Park, and the intangible social networks fostered by intermediate wholesalers in Tsukiji for economic survival. Locating this collaboration in the discourse of visual studies practice reinforces the importance of not only interdisciplinary exchanges but also for doing research inclusively.

Scroope: Cambridge Architecture Journal 24 (Future Domestic), 2015

'Still Walking' is set up to sensitively capture family dynamics within a real physical setting o... more 'Still Walking' is set up to sensitively capture family dynamics within a real physical setting of the Yokoyama house, as the family home is arguably the primary setting. Alongside an overview on developments to family homes and houses in Japan in the first half of the twentieth centu-ry, this article explores how Kore-eda’s strategic interior shots can convey valuable information. They not only carry sufficient visual data to enable the interior layout of the property to be reconstructed in plan to support a spatial critique, but also offer anthropological insight into the rituals and commonplace practices that bind a family together.

Completed in 1920, the Coliseum Theatre holds the distinction of being the longest-running cinema... more Completed in 1920, the Coliseum Theatre holds the distinction of being the longest-running cinema in Malaysia. Located on a main thoroughfare in downtown Kuala Lumpur, it sits strategically on the territorial boundaries of the Indian Muslim textile trade, Chinese retail shops, and neighbourhood mosques. Throughout its near-centennial existence, the striking neoclassical building and its compound have continuously served as a social hub for British officers who patronised its eponymous café during the colonial era, the street vendors that occupied its square in the mid-twentieth century, an active migrant community of cinema-goers and, more recently, as a space of gathering for local supporters when the cinema came under threat of compulsory purchase by the federal government. The Coliseum’s urban and social history discloses its capacity to perform as a site showcasing a politics of accommodation behind this façade of modernist consumption. At the same time, visual spatial analysis demonstrates how its iconic architecture continues to exert a presence beyond its immediate surroundings, serving as a landmark for wayfinding at street level. This case study adumbrates the heterogeneous layers of unspoken tensions and sensitive negotiations that enrich our understanding of a historic building such as the Coliseum and its sociocultural significance beyond the architectural fact.

Since localities are primarily relational and contextual, the higher degree of plasticity it hold... more Since localities are primarily relational and contextual, the higher degree of plasticity it holds over physical space inadvertently requires innovative methods to capture the dynamic relationships and intricate networks operating in localities, as well as implicit ones sustained across multiple sites. Existing literature consistently emphasizes geographical unevenness in the depth and breadth of ongoing neoliberal restructuring strategies, made discernible by their variegated implementation and impact on space. It is therefore on ground level, where the imposition of extra-local forces on the everyday lives of individuals is either embraced or resisted, can the various conditions supporting the constitution (or reconstitution) of a locality be particularized and scrutinized.

By adopting a context-led approach to frame a reading on localities, it becomes possible to plot each locality’s unique relational matrix and the extent of its sphere of influence. Moving image, together with cinematically-derived methodologies formulated for advancing studies on space, have proven to be effective for exploring complex phenomena in almost aspects – political, social, economic, historical and cultural. Films can support a spatial approach to understanding localities on a qualitative level: embedded within mere functional information, there exists an additional dimension which, through proper excavation, offers a heuristic means for exploring the depth of lived experience. To illustrate, an autopsy is performed on an establishing shot of an old coffee shop featured in the Singapore documentary film Old Places (2011) to reveal discernible layers of space that can be used to structure a reading on the properties of that locality.

Feature essay published in catalogue accompanying the 'Five Trees Make a Forest by Donna Ong' exh... more Feature essay published in catalogue accompanying the 'Five Trees Make a Forest by Donna Ong' exhibition at NUS Museum, Singapore (10 March - 4 September 2016)

Written, directed and edited by Kore-eda Hirokazu, 'Still Walking' (2008) marks his sixth feature... more Written, directed and edited by Kore-eda Hirokazu, 'Still Walking' (2008) marks his sixth feature since he made the transition from documentary filmmaking thirteen years ago. For him, the project departed from his hitherto objective style of storytelling because it was conceived as a tribute to his late mother. While the film characters are fictional, the small details that contribute to the observable nuances in their interactions are based on his personal memories. Although a contemporary Japanese family forms the film’s subject matter and is viewed from the perspective of a Japanese filmmaker, the themes addressed are undeniably universal ones, encompassing social perceptions on non-traditional family structures, concerns about aging and how death within a family affects the ones left behind.
'Still Walking' is set up to sensitively capture family dynamics within a real physical setting. Since roughly three-quarters of the film takes place inside the compound of the Yokoyama house, the family home is arguably the primary setting. Alongside an overview on developments to family homes and houses in Japan in the first half of the twentieth century, this article explores how Kore-eda’s strategic interior shots can convey valuable information. They not only carry sufficient visual data to enable the interior layout of the property to be reconstructed on plan to support a spatial critique, they offer an anthropological insight into the rituals and commonplace practices that bind a family together.

Published in 2015 in Scroope 24 (Future Domestic), Cambridge Architecture Journal, pp.22-37.

This year forms a landmark anniversary for the recently concluded Busan International Film Festiv... more This year forms a landmark anniversary for the recently concluded Busan International Film Festival (BIFF), an event which has become synonymous with the dynamic reputation actively cultivated for this port city. In the span of two decades, this annual affair has surpassed its humble origins as a local project initiated by committed cinephiles which, with decentralized state support, organized screenings of curated films across four independent cinemas in Nampo-dong’s theater district to emerge as a leading film festival in Asia. Unbeknownst to casual tourists who still associate the BIFF Square in Nampo-dong as its primary venue, most of its scheduled events are now held at Centum City following the
inauguration of the iconic Busan Cinema Center complex, designed by acclaimed architecture practice Coop Himmelb(lau) in 2011. The planned relocation was in response to ever-increasing attendance by industry professionals and general cinema-goers alike. Since tourism and the multi-media industry are identified as among the key sectors that could propel the city’s regeneration and resuscitate Busan’s economy in the
current millennium, the former Sujeong airport site was thoroughly redeveloped and relaunched as Centum City, the designated film and media hub for Busan. Located on the western periphery of Haeundae-gu, this newly constituted sub-centre, like the recent resort-cum-commercial skyline hemming Haeundae’s famed beach, conveys an image that is devoid of colonial or industrial vestiges. ...

This paper discusses the contribution of cinematic milestones in instigating spatially-motivated ... more This paper discusses the contribution of cinematic milestones in instigating spatially-motivated efforts to measure the effects of modern life in quotidian circumstances by reviewing through two distinct instances how Japanese domestic interiors in Tokyo were recorded and read respectively. In the 1930s, architect Kon Wajirō’s innovative form of mapping traces of spatial occupation on plan can be read as embodying pioneering Soviet filmmaker Dziga Vertov’s concept of ‘life caught unawares’ as exemplified in Man with the Movie Camera (1929). Critically incorporating the innate temporal feature of films, Kon’s intricate drawings performed as dynamic snapshots of inhabitants’ movement patterns delineated as sensuous paths carved by voids between objects in an interior setting.

As subjective spatial experience is articulated through physical and sensorial contact with the built environment, films themselves could prove to be the most suitable heuristic device for capturing the essence of a place by encouraging audiences to phenomenologically engage with the embodied and enworlded space of film. The legacy of French ethnographic filmmaker Jean Rouch on French New Wave Cinema which conversely defined the cinematic style of Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-hsien is reflected in the realism depicting the spaces of Tokyo in his film Café Lumière (2003). By adhering to lengthy takes and long shots, the space of film is saturated with diegetic and non-diegetic audiovisual details. The nuances of spatial engagement are meaningfully glimpsed as momentary human experiences.

Therefore the transcultural encounters resulting from these interdisciplinary exchanges are evidenced and reciprocated in the cinematic methodologies applied for the spatial autopsies of Kon Wajirō’s drawings and Hou Hsiao-hsien’s films.

The article discusses how the intertextual relationship between film, performing arts, literature... more The article discusses how the intertextual relationship between film, performing arts, literature, and the liberal capitalist structure of the Malay film studio system was exploited by British colonialists and Malay intellectuals alike to encourage the formation of nationalistic aspirations in the 1950s and 1960s. Although Malay epics were seen to portray a particularly Malay-centric view of feudal societies, they imply a wider political objective when the production histories of three epic films – the legend of Hang Tuah (1956), his nemesis Hang Jebat (1961), and the folktale Raja Bersiong (1968) – are reviewed. Malaysia's first Prime Minister's incorporation of plays in his political campaigns and forays into film suggests his belief that the media could be instrumental in projecting an indigenised national identity. Created for a wide cinematic audience, such films encouraged cinemas’ function as the space of convergence where members of Malaysia's plural society could participate in the undifferentiated cinematic experience.

inter-disciplinary.net

This paper explores how foundational differences in spatial philosophies shape the regionally spe... more This paper explores how foundational differences in spatial philosophies shape the regionally specific attitudes in the production of place. While the cultivation of a Continental ontology prioritized the temporal component, oriental epistemology historically relied on units of measure devised in relation to the body for organizing space centred on ancient Chinese hegemony. Even traditional practices such as Fengshui, ostensibly a social ethos for addressing the environment, contribute to an organizing system for structuring human experience within a hierarchical framework that determines individual fate. The inherent feature underpinning society in East Asian cultures is defined by relationships between human beings conducted within space as prescribed in Confucian doctrines and the negotiation of the individual through social interactions as articulated in Buddhism. Over time these traditions, inspired by Marxian ideology, evolved from being folk beliefs into a heuristic inquiry termed Fudo (Japanese; Chinese: Fengtu) that reinforces the anthropocentric nature of oriental spaces.

Sociologists claim that the ethnic Chinese community in the United Kingdom cannot be spatially de... more Sociologists claim that the ethnic Chinese community in the United Kingdom cannot be spatially defined. The first reason is that the widely scattered Chinese catering businesses–still
the main source of employment for incoming Chinese migrants – makes the Chinese community too dispersed to form residential enclaves. Secondly, the evasive nature of the ethnic Chinese population towards government assistance and strong sense of ethnic solidarity also makes them an “invisible community”. The Confucian philosophy governing their way of life further reinforces patrilineal links oriented towards ancestral villages in China. Recent renewed interests in the future of London’s Chinatown as the result of a recent development plan has prompted this report to investigate whether a spatial pattern of occupation by the
Chinese community exists in Chinatown, or if it is simply an intelligent urban artifice exploited for touristic and commercial purposes.

Unlike its historical East End predecessor which has never been exclusively Chinese, present day London Chinatown can be qualified as a “persistent enclave”. Whilst it crucially accommodates co-ethnic businesses and facilities for the oriental population, it is not the sole centre for the Chinese community.

At the outset, studies on the Chinese have been confounded by their lack of assimilation into host society, inconsistent methods of data representation from the population census and high levels of suspicion by the immigrant community when conducting fieldwork. By first understanding historical developments in London’s two Chinatowns and concepts pertaining to Chinese ethnography, this helps substantiate the demographic data, changing land use and household occupation by the Chinese community in Limehouse around 1890 and Soho today. The global and local relationship for these two areas are also analysed syntactically through spatial maps derived from Booth’s Map of Poverty of 1889 and a current axial map of London
respectively.

The spatially-oriented case study of Soho’s Chinatown identifies through a public survey a collective mental representation of its neighbourhood area that differs from its administrative designation. Pedestrian movement studies suggest that there is a distinct spatial and temporal pattern of occupation amongst the ethnic Chinese which differs from non-Chinese tourists and locals which can be syntactically measured.

The findings support the view that a complex social and spatial relationship exists between the two disparate groups that utilise Chinatown. Whilst its commercial success is crucial to maintaining Chinatown’s public profile, it also allows it to continue to function as an important centre for the Chinese community.

The Hard State, Soft City of Singapore, 2020

With Singapore serving as the subject of exploration, The Hard State, Soft City of Singapore expl... more With Singapore serving as the subject of exploration, The Hard State, Soft City of Singapore explores the purview of imaginative representations of the city. Alongside the physical structures and associated practices that make up our lived environment, and conceptualized space engineered into material form by bureaucrats, experts and commercial interests, a perceptual layer of space is conjured out of people’s everyday life experiences. While such imaginative projections may not be as tangible as its functional designations, they are nonetheless equally vital and palpable. The richness of its inhabitants’ memories, aspirations and meaningful interpretations challenges the reduction of Singapore as a Generic City. Taking the imaginative field as the point of departure, the forms and modes of intellectual and creative articulations of Singapore’s urban condition probe the resilience of cities and the people who reside in them, through the images they convey or evoke as a means for collective expressions of human agency in placemaking.

Narrating the City: Mediated Representations of Architecture, Urban Forms and Social Life, 2020

This chapter extends scholarship on city symphonies to include two contemporary city films that p... more This chapter extends scholarship on city symphonies to include two contemporary city films that play homage to Singapore and Seoul – arguably the leading global cities of Southeast Asia and East Asia, respectively. Unlike the early twentieth-century city symphony exemplars from Europe, which are distinctively tied to modernity, these millennial Asian features are clearly products of globalization. While the European films constitute documentations of an emerging global condition, the Asian films interrogate what it means to be a global city. Through a comparative study of Tan Pin Pin’s Singapore GaGa (2005) and PARKing CHANce’s Bitter, Sweet, Seoul (2014), three lines of investigations are pursued: how facets of each city are translated to film; how modes of production of Asian city symphonies differ from their Western predecessors; and how these different approaches illuminate innovations in the conceptualization and realization of the two films. In city symphonies, the city is cast to play itself, emphasizing the axiomatic fact that cities have their own distinct flavour. As such, they highlight characteristics unique to each city and its people. The comparative component is important: a single film may present several aspects of a culture but reading across several films can reveal certain underlying features, common themes and emerging trajectories.

The Hard State, Soft City of Singapore, 2020

Introduction to The Hard State, Soft City of Singapore, ed. Chung and Douglass (Amsterdam Univers... more Introduction to The Hard State, Soft City of Singapore, ed. Chung and Douglass (Amsterdam University Press, 2020).
This chapter outlines how imaginative representations of the city, told through the images they convey or evoke, form collective expressions of human agency in placemaking and the (re)shaping of urban space. Of equal importance are polemical developments that play integral roles in influencing conditions for artistic and social (re)production in Singapore. In foregrounding society-space relations and the city, we argue that physical spaces are subject to a multitude of social imaginings, which are then projected back into urban space to convey individual and shared meanings, identities and purposes. Such diverse ways of conceptualising space, which can sometimes be born out of resistance, present another mode of understanding and experiencing the lived city.

Programme and Abstracts for the Situating Domesticities Workshop, held at CREATE, NUS 7-8 Decembe... more Programme and Abstracts for the Situating Domesticities Workshop, held at CREATE, NUS 7-8 December 2017 (supported by the NUS HSS Seed Fund)

Visual Studies, 2020

This article discusses the role of drawings in interdisciplinary visual research, especially the ... more This article discusses the role of drawings in interdisciplinary visual research, especially the contribution of line drawings to investigative fieldwork. Citing precedents in Tokyo, the incorporation of sociological and ethnographic methods for architectural research is not new in Japan. RE/MAP 2.0, an exploratory workshop that brought participants from architecture and sociology together, uncovered the hidden realities of sub-metropolitan neighbourhoods in Central Tokyo affected by widespread urban restructuring in the lead up to Tokyo 2020. ‘Careful listening’ complemented the use of visual materials – in particular, researcher-based drawings – for fieldwork documentation. Line drawings produced by the workshop participants, though varied in style and form, contain a critical dimension. They graphically convey, through three case studies, the manipulated legibility of Roppongi, asynchronous spatial inhabitations and movements of street culture groups around Miyashita Park, and the intangible social networks fostered by intermediate wholesalers in Tsukiji for economic survival. Locating this collaboration in the discourse of visual studies practice reinforces the importance of not only interdisciplinary exchanges but also for doing research inclusively.

Scroope: Cambridge Architecture Journal 24 (Future Domestic), 2015

'Still Walking' is set up to sensitively capture family dynamics within a real physical setting o... more 'Still Walking' is set up to sensitively capture family dynamics within a real physical setting of the Yokoyama house, as the family home is arguably the primary setting. Alongside an overview on developments to family homes and houses in Japan in the first half of the twentieth centu-ry, this article explores how Kore-eda’s strategic interior shots can convey valuable information. They not only carry sufficient visual data to enable the interior layout of the property to be reconstructed in plan to support a spatial critique, but also offer anthropological insight into the rituals and commonplace practices that bind a family together.

Completed in 1920, the Coliseum Theatre holds the distinction of being the longest-running cinema... more Completed in 1920, the Coliseum Theatre holds the distinction of being the longest-running cinema in Malaysia. Located on a main thoroughfare in downtown Kuala Lumpur, it sits strategically on the territorial boundaries of the Indian Muslim textile trade, Chinese retail shops, and neighbourhood mosques. Throughout its near-centennial existence, the striking neoclassical building and its compound have continuously served as a social hub for British officers who patronised its eponymous café during the colonial era, the street vendors that occupied its square in the mid-twentieth century, an active migrant community of cinema-goers and, more recently, as a space of gathering for local supporters when the cinema came under threat of compulsory purchase by the federal government. The Coliseum’s urban and social history discloses its capacity to perform as a site showcasing a politics of accommodation behind this façade of modernist consumption. At the same time, visual spatial analysis demonstrates how its iconic architecture continues to exert a presence beyond its immediate surroundings, serving as a landmark for wayfinding at street level. This case study adumbrates the heterogeneous layers of unspoken tensions and sensitive negotiations that enrich our understanding of a historic building such as the Coliseum and its sociocultural significance beyond the architectural fact.

Since localities are primarily relational and contextual, the higher degree of plasticity it hold... more Since localities are primarily relational and contextual, the higher degree of plasticity it holds over physical space inadvertently requires innovative methods to capture the dynamic relationships and intricate networks operating in localities, as well as implicit ones sustained across multiple sites. Existing literature consistently emphasizes geographical unevenness in the depth and breadth of ongoing neoliberal restructuring strategies, made discernible by their variegated implementation and impact on space. It is therefore on ground level, where the imposition of extra-local forces on the everyday lives of individuals is either embraced or resisted, can the various conditions supporting the constitution (or reconstitution) of a locality be particularized and scrutinized.

By adopting a context-led approach to frame a reading on localities, it becomes possible to plot each locality’s unique relational matrix and the extent of its sphere of influence. Moving image, together with cinematically-derived methodologies formulated for advancing studies on space, have proven to be effective for exploring complex phenomena in almost aspects – political, social, economic, historical and cultural. Films can support a spatial approach to understanding localities on a qualitative level: embedded within mere functional information, there exists an additional dimension which, through proper excavation, offers a heuristic means for exploring the depth of lived experience. To illustrate, an autopsy is performed on an establishing shot of an old coffee shop featured in the Singapore documentary film Old Places (2011) to reveal discernible layers of space that can be used to structure a reading on the properties of that locality.

Feature essay published in catalogue accompanying the 'Five Trees Make a Forest by Donna Ong' exh... more Feature essay published in catalogue accompanying the 'Five Trees Make a Forest by Donna Ong' exhibition at NUS Museum, Singapore (10 March - 4 September 2016)

Written, directed and edited by Kore-eda Hirokazu, 'Still Walking' (2008) marks his sixth feature... more Written, directed and edited by Kore-eda Hirokazu, 'Still Walking' (2008) marks his sixth feature since he made the transition from documentary filmmaking thirteen years ago. For him, the project departed from his hitherto objective style of storytelling because it was conceived as a tribute to his late mother. While the film characters are fictional, the small details that contribute to the observable nuances in their interactions are based on his personal memories. Although a contemporary Japanese family forms the film’s subject matter and is viewed from the perspective of a Japanese filmmaker, the themes addressed are undeniably universal ones, encompassing social perceptions on non-traditional family structures, concerns about aging and how death within a family affects the ones left behind.
'Still Walking' is set up to sensitively capture family dynamics within a real physical setting. Since roughly three-quarters of the film takes place inside the compound of the Yokoyama house, the family home is arguably the primary setting. Alongside an overview on developments to family homes and houses in Japan in the first half of the twentieth century, this article explores how Kore-eda’s strategic interior shots can convey valuable information. They not only carry sufficient visual data to enable the interior layout of the property to be reconstructed on plan to support a spatial critique, they offer an anthropological insight into the rituals and commonplace practices that bind a family together.

Published in 2015 in Scroope 24 (Future Domestic), Cambridge Architecture Journal, pp.22-37.

This year forms a landmark anniversary for the recently concluded Busan International Film Festiv... more This year forms a landmark anniversary for the recently concluded Busan International Film Festival (BIFF), an event which has become synonymous with the dynamic reputation actively cultivated for this port city. In the span of two decades, this annual affair has surpassed its humble origins as a local project initiated by committed cinephiles which, with decentralized state support, organized screenings of curated films across four independent cinemas in Nampo-dong’s theater district to emerge as a leading film festival in Asia. Unbeknownst to casual tourists who still associate the BIFF Square in Nampo-dong as its primary venue, most of its scheduled events are now held at Centum City following the
inauguration of the iconic Busan Cinema Center complex, designed by acclaimed architecture practice Coop Himmelb(lau) in 2011. The planned relocation was in response to ever-increasing attendance by industry professionals and general cinema-goers alike. Since tourism and the multi-media industry are identified as among the key sectors that could propel the city’s regeneration and resuscitate Busan’s economy in the
current millennium, the former Sujeong airport site was thoroughly redeveloped and relaunched as Centum City, the designated film and media hub for Busan. Located on the western periphery of Haeundae-gu, this newly constituted sub-centre, like the recent resort-cum-commercial skyline hemming Haeundae’s famed beach, conveys an image that is devoid of colonial or industrial vestiges. ...

This paper discusses the contribution of cinematic milestones in instigating spatially-motivated ... more This paper discusses the contribution of cinematic milestones in instigating spatially-motivated efforts to measure the effects of modern life in quotidian circumstances by reviewing through two distinct instances how Japanese domestic interiors in Tokyo were recorded and read respectively. In the 1930s, architect Kon Wajirō’s innovative form of mapping traces of spatial occupation on plan can be read as embodying pioneering Soviet filmmaker Dziga Vertov’s concept of ‘life caught unawares’ as exemplified in Man with the Movie Camera (1929). Critically incorporating the innate temporal feature of films, Kon’s intricate drawings performed as dynamic snapshots of inhabitants’ movement patterns delineated as sensuous paths carved by voids between objects in an interior setting.

As subjective spatial experience is articulated through physical and sensorial contact with the built environment, films themselves could prove to be the most suitable heuristic device for capturing the essence of a place by encouraging audiences to phenomenologically engage with the embodied and enworlded space of film. The legacy of French ethnographic filmmaker Jean Rouch on French New Wave Cinema which conversely defined the cinematic style of Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-hsien is reflected in the realism depicting the spaces of Tokyo in his film Café Lumière (2003). By adhering to lengthy takes and long shots, the space of film is saturated with diegetic and non-diegetic audiovisual details. The nuances of spatial engagement are meaningfully glimpsed as momentary human experiences.

Therefore the transcultural encounters resulting from these interdisciplinary exchanges are evidenced and reciprocated in the cinematic methodologies applied for the spatial autopsies of Kon Wajirō’s drawings and Hou Hsiao-hsien’s films.

The article discusses how the intertextual relationship between film, performing arts, literature... more The article discusses how the intertextual relationship between film, performing arts, literature, and the liberal capitalist structure of the Malay film studio system was exploited by British colonialists and Malay intellectuals alike to encourage the formation of nationalistic aspirations in the 1950s and 1960s. Although Malay epics were seen to portray a particularly Malay-centric view of feudal societies, they imply a wider political objective when the production histories of three epic films – the legend of Hang Tuah (1956), his nemesis Hang Jebat (1961), and the folktale Raja Bersiong (1968) – are reviewed. Malaysia's first Prime Minister's incorporation of plays in his political campaigns and forays into film suggests his belief that the media could be instrumental in projecting an indigenised national identity. Created for a wide cinematic audience, such films encouraged cinemas’ function as the space of convergence where members of Malaysia's plural society could participate in the undifferentiated cinematic experience.

inter-disciplinary.net

This paper explores how foundational differences in spatial philosophies shape the regionally spe... more This paper explores how foundational differences in spatial philosophies shape the regionally specific attitudes in the production of place. While the cultivation of a Continental ontology prioritized the temporal component, oriental epistemology historically relied on units of measure devised in relation to the body for organizing space centred on ancient Chinese hegemony. Even traditional practices such as Fengshui, ostensibly a social ethos for addressing the environment, contribute to an organizing system for structuring human experience within a hierarchical framework that determines individual fate. The inherent feature underpinning society in East Asian cultures is defined by relationships between human beings conducted within space as prescribed in Confucian doctrines and the negotiation of the individual through social interactions as articulated in Buddhism. Over time these traditions, inspired by Marxian ideology, evolved from being folk beliefs into a heuristic inquiry termed Fudo (Japanese; Chinese: Fengtu) that reinforces the anthropocentric nature of oriental spaces.

Sociologists claim that the ethnic Chinese community in the United Kingdom cannot be spatially de... more Sociologists claim that the ethnic Chinese community in the United Kingdom cannot be spatially defined. The first reason is that the widely scattered Chinese catering businesses–still
the main source of employment for incoming Chinese migrants – makes the Chinese community too dispersed to form residential enclaves. Secondly, the evasive nature of the ethnic Chinese population towards government assistance and strong sense of ethnic solidarity also makes them an “invisible community”. The Confucian philosophy governing their way of life further reinforces patrilineal links oriented towards ancestral villages in China. Recent renewed interests in the future of London’s Chinatown as the result of a recent development plan has prompted this report to investigate whether a spatial pattern of occupation by the
Chinese community exists in Chinatown, or if it is simply an intelligent urban artifice exploited for touristic and commercial purposes.

Unlike its historical East End predecessor which has never been exclusively Chinese, present day London Chinatown can be qualified as a “persistent enclave”. Whilst it crucially accommodates co-ethnic businesses and facilities for the oriental population, it is not the sole centre for the Chinese community.

At the outset, studies on the Chinese have been confounded by their lack of assimilation into host society, inconsistent methods of data representation from the population census and high levels of suspicion by the immigrant community when conducting fieldwork. By first understanding historical developments in London’s two Chinatowns and concepts pertaining to Chinese ethnography, this helps substantiate the demographic data, changing land use and household occupation by the Chinese community in Limehouse around 1890 and Soho today. The global and local relationship for these two areas are also analysed syntactically through spatial maps derived from Booth’s Map of Poverty of 1889 and a current axial map of London
respectively.

The spatially-oriented case study of Soho’s Chinatown identifies through a public survey a collective mental representation of its neighbourhood area that differs from its administrative designation. Pedestrian movement studies suggest that there is a distinct spatial and temporal pattern of occupation amongst the ethnic Chinese which differs from non-Chinese tourists and locals which can be syntactically measured.

The findings support the view that a complex social and spatial relationship exists between the two disparate groups that utilise Chinatown. Whilst its commercial success is crucial to maintaining Chinatown’s public profile, it also allows it to continue to function as an important centre for the Chinese community.

spacesyntaxistanbul.itu.edu.tr

In the evolution of urban conditions, defensive sociological structures fequently construct their... more In the evolution of urban conditions, defensive sociological structures fequently construct their own spatial boundaries, resulting in the creation of unintentional voids in the form of neglected public spaces. Current landscape urbanism projects address this stigma by changing people's perception and engaging the public through direct programmatic masterplanning. The concept for this submission instead focuses on the idea of the 'stage' on a human scale by seeking to subvert the public as 'audiences' into participants in the space as 'stage actors'. The experiment was to conduct direct action interventions in unsanctioned tipping grounds in East London. By the simple act of staging and rearranging the existing rubbish heap to resemble the familiar interior of a domestic space, it challenges the local community to notice these spaces and to react to these installations. Four different sites yielded different responses. The level of interface was informed by the existing site geography (convex spaces and axial lines); the local community (society and beliefs); sense of civic consciousness (human behaviour and government policies); and the notion of speed. Allowing for a more organic and sensitive negation of such 'undesirable' spaces will invoke a more proactive involvement from the city's inhabitants. The audience will derive a truer measure to describe the reality of the city by means of immediate experience of the 'performance'.

Since localities are primarily relational and contextual, the higher degree of plasticity its hol... more Since localities are primarily relational and contextual, the higher degree of plasticity its holds over physical space inadvertently requires innovative methods to capture the dynamism of relationships and intricate networks within a locality, as well as implicit ones sustained across multiple localities, and render them in a visible format. Existing literature consistently emphasizes the geographical unevenness in the breadth and depth of neoliberal restructuring strategies, made discernible by their variegated implementation and impact across different sites. In the context of East Asia, at least, the exogenous origins of neoliberalism, compounded by the respective countries’ complex colonial history and active neo-colonial policies, have effected variant forms of neoliberalism. It is therefore at ground level, where the imposition of extra-local forces on the lives of individuals is either embraced or resisted, can the various conditions supporting the constitution (or reconstitution) of locality be particularized and scrutinized.
By adopting a context-led approach to frame a reading on localities, it becomes possible to plot each locality’s unique relational matrix and establish the extent of its catchment. In this age, films are increasingly employed for recording transformations around us since their speed can oftentimes be difficult to digest in situ. The moving image, together with cinematically-derived methodologies formulated for advancing studies on space, have proven to be effective for exploring complex phenomena in almost all aspects – political, social, economic, historical and cultural. Films can support a spatial approach to understanding localities on a qualitative level: embedded within mere functional information, there exists an additional dimension which, through proper excavation, offers a heuristic means for exploring the depth of lived experience. The fact remains that the spatial and relational matrices of localities perpetually fluctuate; the challenge rests on identifying effective tools for capturing the milieu which are invaluable for spatial autopsies.

Keywords
Framing localities; context-led approach; cinematically-derived methodologies; spatial autopsies.

7th International Symposium on Locality and Humanities: Neoliberalism and Locality
22-23 October 2015
Organized by Center for Locality and Humanities, Korean Studies Institute, Pusan National University