In the Studio: Visual Creation and Its Material Environments

Description

Studios are, at once, material environments and symbolic forms, sites of artistic creation and physical labor, and nodes in networks of resource circulation. They are architectural places that generate virtual spaces―worlds built to build worlds. Yet, despite being icons of corporate identity, studios have faded into the background of critical discourse and into the margins of film and media history. In response, In the Studio demonstrates that when we foreground these worlds, we gain new insights into moving-image culture and the dynamics that quietly mark the worlds on our screens. Spanning the twentieth century and moving globally, this unique collection tells new stories about studio icons―Pinewood, Cinecittà, Churubusco, and CBS―as well as about the experimental workplaces of filmmakers and artists from Aleksandr Medvedkin to Charles and Ray Eames and Hollis Frampton. Contents Acknowledgments Introduction: Studio Perspectives • Brian R. Jacobson Part One. Formations 1. “The Longed-For Crystal Palace”: Empire, Modernity, and Nikkatsu Mukōjima’s Glass Studio, 1913–1923 • Diane Wei Lewis 2. Regulating Light, Interiors, and the National Image: Electrification and Studio Space in 1920s Brazil • Rielle Navitski 3. Ephemeral Studios: Exhibiting Televisual Spaces during the Interwar Years • Anne-Katrin Weber Part Two. Foundations 4. Estudios Churubusco: A Transnational Studio for a National Industry • Laura Isabel Serna 5. Pinewood Studios, the Independent Frame, and Innovation • Sarah Street 6. Backlots of the World War: Cinecittà, 1942–1950 • Noa Steimatsky Part Three. Alternative Routes 7. The Film Train Stops at Mosfilm: Aleksandr Medvedkin and the Operative Film Factory • Robert Bird 8. Postindustrial Studio Lifestyle: The Eameses in the Environment of 901 • Justus Nieland 9. The Last Qualitative Scientist: Hollis Frampton and the Digital Arts Lab • Jeff Menne Part Four. Studio Futures 10. Made-for-Broadcast Cities • Lynn Spigel 11. The Nature of the Firm and the Nature of the Farm: Lucasfilm, the Campus, and the Contract • J. D. Connor 12. “Make It What You Want It to Be”: Logistics, Labor, and Land Financialization via the Globalized Free Zone Studio • Kay Dickinson Selected Bibliography List of Contributors Index