A Portrait of My City: multiple views

1. A Portrait of My City:multiple views Linda Lai SM1012

2. City portraits: some sample possibilities • The empirical city • The subjective city • City as an allegory • City as an imaginary space • City as signs: surface + what’s underneath; what we see and what they mean… • City as an Inventory of Demographics

3. the empirical city • City that can be experienced via the five senses Hearing Seeing Hearing & seeing via walking Seeing/hearing with an angle See/hearing with a perspective

4. the empirical city • As writings, it has the following characteristics: Emphasis on details Emphasis on relations between details (similarities, contrast, continuity, disjunctions, parallels) Emphasis on shapes/structures/patterns formed by details Emphasis on “changes” of details over time Emphasis on process

5. the empirical city • As writings, it has the following characteristics: Emphasis on how details become… Events Incidents Or related to… General phonomena

6. Example (1) • introductory chapter of Songs of Everlasting Regret by Wang Anyi (王安忆之《长恨歌》第一章) organization of details benefits from organized viewing细节的组织靠赖有层次和有秩序的看: > use of a camera eye 借助摄影镜头的语言 > use of a viewing process一步一步的看、留意程序 > developed via divergent & lateral thinking pattern and process 以扩散式和横向思考的互相配合去确保持续的发展 > alternating between the objective & the subjective 主客观互相 交替、观察与解释联想结连 > details complemented by (and adding up to) the showing of the full view or landscape 细节累叠又不断述说全景去扣住读者 > “show-not-tell” principle 重展示而不重概括说明

7. Example (2) • P.K. Leung’s “Images of Hong Kong”梁秉钧的《形象香港》∶ Organization of details emphasizes > an active seeing/ hearing subject in movement (in the process of walking and looking at the city) – see also notes on “poetics of discovery” on the web 细节的组织强调一个占据空间的身体以现在进行式去潜入城市的内部去游走观看 （请参照网上“发现诗学”的笔记） > collage effect resulting from alternating between seeing, hearing, thinking, recalling, remembering, questioning, debating – all via the use of concrete descriptive details 并凑效果由几个交替着的行动（听、看、想、回顾、策问、感叹等等）所生产的具体细节构成

8. Example (3) • “Vision Invisible: the happy journey” (4 letters) by Tung Kai-cheong (Dong Qizhang) 董启章的〈韦纯在威斯堡的快乐旅程〉 Organization of details (selection and emphasis) based on: > an assumed reader (in this case mother) 书写的对象 > an assumed relationship based on who the reader is 作者与书写对象的关系 > alternation between seeing/hearing (empirical details) and reflections / emotional responses 观察、经验、回顾、引申、抒发的融合交替 > form of writing: e.g. a personal letter as opposed to a daily journal, a police report or an archaeological document 书写的体裁 （比方说：个人书信跟日记、警察报告、考古日志等都各有一套语言、语调、或内容上的取舍）

9. Tips for Project B: choice of location • Try not to do the whole of Hong Kong, the entire HK Island, Kowloon Peninsula or the New Territories • Try not to do an entire district. If you really want to, make sure you have a good method to organize your material: • E.g. a journey (of a walk, a bus trip, a task), OR a map • Recommended: a spot • N/S/E/W, front/back/left/right, 360º panoramic view • Passing away of time • Points (single actions), lines (process, development, evolvement) • Planes: relations (cause & effect), comparison and contrast (speed, motion)

10. Tips for Project B: preparation Create a mind map before you set out your two field studies… *Divergent thinking *Lateral thinking recall the mind map we did in class

11. Tips for Project B: preparation Organization: Refer to the 3 literary examples Also, each form offers a different set of conveniences and methods: e.g. poetry (episodic structure, parallel and contrast, emphasis on images and sound patches, collage, free association) e.g. letter (organize details around personal experiences) Concrete details are important Good details are those that make us look differently (beware of just reproducing a “typical” account)

12. City as an allegory • Example: Xi Xi’s “story of the fertile land” 西西的《肥土镇的故事》 -- alien vision: emphasis on strangeness and incomprehensive quality of events --a child’s perception and understanding