Circa 1948
Circa 1948 is a storyworld created by the artist Stan Douglas and the National Film Bord’s Digital Studio in Vancouver. It features an interactive art app for iOS devices, an interactive installation at the Tribeca Film Festival and also a website that frames the story and characters of the app. [1]
Formal Analysis and Interactivity
The work depicts two different communities that no longer exist. [2] It takes the viewer back to a postwar Vancouver. On the one hand, there is the old Hotel Vancouver on the West side, home to many war veterans, a location that was much wealthier in comparison to the ethnically diverse Hogan’s Alley, on the East, which was as Douglas described [3]: “basically an ethnic slum where the laws of the city had been suspended. There was bootlegging, gambling, prostitution.” [4]
Circa 1948 app allows the users to navigate at will both spaces by touching, tapping and tilting the device. They enter a real-time 3D photorealistic space where all illustrations have been digitally rendered. [4] The viewer has to tap on objects to activate the dialogues from the ghosts of the past and collect the different fragments that make up the story. What the user hears and sees depends on what path they choose, making it a different experience for everyone. [3] That gives the narration a non-linear characteristic which is one of the things that stands out from Stan Douglas' work. ) Because of this there is no beginning or ending to the story, nor will the user get the whole story either, they will always be “in the middle.” [4]
The interactive installation presents the viewer with the same scenes but in a very different way. With the app the user can have a view into the past through their devices but in the installation the user can actually step into the past, they become part of the story, one can even say they are one more character that now lives in that postwar environment. [3] The installation consists of a cube into which the user steps and using their body as an interface they move around the world that is projected onto the walls that are around four metres wide by three metres high. They encounter the same two locations and the same characters divided by race and income. [5]
Circa 1948 website is simply and introduction to the app. It presents the viewer with their two main locations and characters. It also provides a background of the period of time in which this story takes place, the late 1940s, when economic recession and corruption are the focus points for the story told.
Historical Context and Meaning
History plays a big role in Douglas’ piece. Circa 1948 is not replicating any time in history; it is replicating what Vancouver was like right after the Second World War. It was a seminal period, it was a time of hope, it was a time where a lot of change was in the air. There was all kinds of issues going around at this time: the Cold War, immigration and integration problems, a housing crisis, racial divides and dealing with a banking system that was in trouble. [5] One outstanding characteristic of this postwar period is the reorganization of urban life and one of the purposes of the piece is to make the user acquire a sense of the physical culture of this place and time and how these people lived; it is telling what has not really been told in textbooks, what was silent but refused to remained quiet. [3]
But Circa 1948 is not only depicting that past, it is building a bridge between the past and the present and exploring how they inform each other. The same issues that haunted the past are present now. A banking system dealing with trouble, a housing crisis, problems with race, and terrorism can be the replacement of the Cold War, although they come form different causes they are all formally similar. [3]
References
- ↑ Tribeca Film festival http://tribecafilm.com/filmguide/5328608ba32a610c91000001-circa-1948
- ↑ Circa 1984 Website http://circa1948.nfb.ca/
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 Circa 1948, History will not be Silent http://opendoclab.mit.edu/wp/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Circa-1948-Presskit_Tribeca_-LR.pdf
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 'It's not a game, it's a story' http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/apr/22/stan-douglas-vancouver-circa-film-new-york
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 NFB’s Circa 1948 project at Tribeca Film Festival http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/visualarts/2014/04/23/nfbs_circa_1948_project_at_tribeca_film_festival.html
External Links
http://canadianart.ca/news/2013/10/17/stan-douglas-nfb-in-production-on-new-3-d-art-app/
Circa 1948 Tribeca Installation http://vimeo.com/93152113
Wiki Authors
- Farnoosh Shahrokhi
- Elizabeth Villalva