"to grasp its secret, you should not then begin with the city and move inwards towards the screen; you should begin with the screen and move outwards towards the city."
"...american reality. it was there before the screen was invented, but everything about the way it is today suggests it was invented with the screen in mind, that it is the refraction of a giant screen."
- jean baudrillard
"choosing the theme from the constitution inalienable right to pursuit of happiness. van extemporized on the theme that among these inalienable rights is that of munching popcorn at his neighborhood cinema palace. his impassioned plea, spoken off the cuff at the last minute not only brought down the house but successfully quashed the anti-popcorn forces. for some time thereafter he was referred to in the theatrical circles as popcorn van driesche"
- star cinema
james ferraro's fascination with baudrillard and simulacra, the spirituality of trash media, and the bewitching nature of "the screen" have been frequently visited throughout his career, expressed in his movies "welcome to candyland" and "rapture in adrenaline", and in albums like "hacker track" and "on air" amongst others, the tangible slicing of post 70s sound bites of the american zeitgeist creates a blur between our world and his fictionalized universes. an album in particular that focuses on cinema's (and the screen in particular) placement within his deconstructed petri-dish of plastic culture is "star digital theatre: movies for p.t. cruisers", a particularly attractive conduit for discussing this vein of ferraro's work through images of open air cinemas, neon signboards, and the nostalgic P.T cruiser. released in 2007 as a CDr, it is one of his dreamiest albums, soaked in ferraro's signature brand of hallucinatory compositions rupturing through the churning apparition of contemporary americana for over an hour. [gnosis can be found in america’s parking lots]
as with all of ferraro's early work, his albums are an audiovisual journey combining both the music and the intricate weirdness of his album art to create blueprints for navigating the ghosts and landmarks of his other worlds. from the distant backdrop of the pyramid shaped luxor hotel beaming its torch into the bedazzled night, to the star theatre that stands front and center, playing 'movies for P.T cruisers'. the theatre in the image here is actually the 'STAR CINEMA' in stayton, oregon, established circa 1913 as the "stayton theatre", the building was relocated and redesigned into the "star theatre" that we see in the album cover.
the back cover is that of an empty hall, with a collage on the screen containing what appears to be jim carrey's character in "the mask", a child wearing a beret, and other figures. the accompanying liner notes for the album are a treat to read, with brief descriptors of non-existent movies that i would kill to watch one day, movies which the album is providing the soundtrack to with both of its parts, and in a way i think they do capture the mood of what is written and described in these blurbs, in both their tempos and ambience. from the ridiculously alien world of "baby dreams inc." to the uplifting and mystical "pinball drive", it's what i'd imagine a cosmic infusion into parodied american media would sound like, advertisements for different parallel universes that appeal to innocence, freedom, and driving off into the sunset inebriated. listening to this album and reading its liner notes slowly manifested a certain itch in the back of my mind after nearly a month of incessant revisits.
MOVIE 1 : BABY DREAMS INC. ( MR.STAR TOWER IN BABYTOWN )
in the lane of lights the midnight shadow talks you can enter the screen, in a city operated by babies no paradise is off limits, babydreams inc. is forever yours and forever of the stars that power it’s violet skies.in the steamy nights the twinlke dances on the outer head of the rim.the warm winds tell mr. startower all he has to know to get by on his visit to babytown. so GAA GAA GOO GOO which means “welcome to earth” in this mysterious world of baby dreams inc.
MOVIE 2 : MIDNIGHT PACIFIC FANTASY PRESENT’S : PINBALL DRIVE
and so a few days into writing this post, i had gone to the theaters to watch alejandro iñárritu's new movie "digger", an experience which to me was actually further elevated while having this album in the back of my mind for the past few weeks, a renewed fascination for the cinema-going experience, especially when alone, that fed back into how much this album meant to me. there is much to be said about the unique solitude of the theatre, one that is truly grasped when momentarily stepping outside the bright images and taking in the walls, speakers and chairs all cloaked in this mute darkness. roland barthes in his text "leaving the movie theatre" elucidates well the unique spaces that our hearts navigate in the physical act of going to the movies.
"what does the darkness of the cinema mean? (whenever i hear the word cinema, i can’t help thinking hall, rather than film.) not only is the dark the very substance of reverie (in the pre-hypnoid meaning of the term): it is also the color of a diffused eroticism; by its human condensation, by its absence of worldliness (contrary to the cultural appearance that has to be put in at any legitimate theater)... it is in this urban dark that the body’s freedom is generated...it is because i am enclosed that i work and glow with all my desire."
- rolland barthes
barthes describes the watching of a movie as a genuinely hypnotic experience, one we enter to escape the repetition of regular life, and its anesthetizing rhythms and vacuums, the prerequisites for entering hypnosis are already there as we aimlessly roam on the streets, or drift through cyberspace, where we encounter walls of trailers, movie posters, letterboxd review screenshots and the like. the real magic of film shines brightest in the darkness of the cinema hall, it brings about a depth of engagement with the film that on one hand is owed to the large screen and massive soundscapes built by the array of speakers, and on the other by its distance from the outside world, it is here we are allowed to wander about farthest through the screen and into wonderland with subliminal anchors of the surrounding architecture tied to our eyes and ears, keeping us in touch with the loneliness of the hall. dwelling in the double fascination of the image and the hall elevates the ritual of movie-going. and it is here where i feel ferraro's inclusion of the P.T cruiser as a mobile space comes through. the car is the cocoon, and the windshield our screen. this seclusion opens up ferraro's invitation "you can enter the screen", as the dark walls and towering speakers fade into our car's upholstery and music system, and the projector screen replaced by a pane of glass.
in anne friedberg's paper "urban mobility and cinematic visuality" she brings the role of the automobile as a cinematic space to the forefront, echoing the same distancing and solitude of the cinema hall, and replacing the fictionalized visual object playing on the projector screen with the real world. traversing LA's post-war architecture through the lens of accommodating the rising adoption of the automobile, through drive-in restaurants, carwashes, and theatres, there is a traceable influence on the trajectory of cinema and the car with respect to aspect ratios, the removal of unnecessary boundaries, and also the battle between the miniaturized television set and the large projector screen as a mode of viewing film. three grades of the same frame of perceptions are present here, the hall and its screen for motion pictures, the car and its windshield for the outdoors, and the windshield as a frame for the movie itself with the introduction of the drive-in theatre.
"the drive can avail itself of the potentials of psycho- geographical drift, the situationist derive. driving transforms the mobilized pedestrian gaze with new kinetics of motored speed and with the privatization of the automobile ‘capsule’ sealed off from the public and the street. but the visuality of driving is the visuality of the windshield, operating as a framing device."
- anne friedberg
the drive-in theater opened up a whole new avenue for cinemas competing with the television sets growing popularity, with campaigns around it pushing the message of getting out of the monotony of the four walls of ones house, and to go outside and bask in the excitement of the open air after dusk, while maintaining the comfort and privacy of ones own vehicle. innovations such as single speakers assigned to every individual vehicle wired to their own posts which could be pulled through the window improved the accessibility and enjoyment of this viewing model. there was a new appeal to view the outside not directly, but rather in the distance and familiarity of our capsules. a distance that added an engagement with the very act of immersion, a space for self reflection during the act of witnessing. this is something the back cover of the album captures extremely well, the vacant theatre and the vehicle share the same special liminality of watching a movie with no one else around, and as a result being occasionally reminded that you are watching, a feeling that brings up a meditative fuzziness to my chest and head.
like many of ferraro's other dreamier albums in the summer head-rush series, this too is an invitation to get into head-spaces that transport us to the wonderful worlds conveyed through his album artwork and liner notes, where i feel it separates itself however is the additional depth with which it describes these worlds, filled with more intent through the description of the unique and separate universes of the movies, an experience best fleshed out in the dark isolation of a parked car in a mall basement.
"the vehicle becomes a kind of capsule, its dashboard the brain, the surrounding landscape unfolding like a televised screen"
- jean baudrillard
friedberg draws a parallel between the skyscraper being an architecural monument to aspiration much like cathedrals and clocktowers (and pyramids shooting a beam of light into the sky), and the windshield of our cars feeding into our desires for pure immersion. a state of deep awareness of all the objects of hyperreality around us, exemplified by its movement across panes of glass, and from a boundary of separation, sheltered within sheet metal with a speaker system and a steering wheel. one of ferraro's most vivid outputs, and a great album to accompany one in the exercise of looking out in awe, and in spotting the angels hidden in the divine glow of junk culture on jumbotrons and newspaper ads, interceded by a highway of wires and radio waves all coalescing into a sea of noise.
