Balkis Island, une cartographie imaginaire

Created in collaboration between Yona Friedman, a theoretician of architecture and Jean-Baptiste Decavèle, a photographer and a videographer, this exhibition transposed the fictitious geography of an island situated in the far north of Canada to the middle of the Lake of Vassivière in Limousin. Visitors were invited to discover the mapping of the imaginary Balkis…

From Roy,NM to Ray,W (Les Morgans)

Just a short notice about an update of the post « Did you hear about the Morgans ». The Making Of on the DVD gives more information about the map of  Google that appears in the movie. Une simple annonce à propos du billet sur « Où sont passés les Morgan » dont le contenu a été actualisé grâce…

Predator – McTierman

Predator is a 1987 movie directed by John McTiernan. In Val Verde, a country bordering Guatemala, a joint task force, led by Major Alan « Dutch » Schaefer (Arnold Schwarzenegger), is assigned to rescue hostages in the jungle. The group is hunted by an extraterrestrial creature: the Predator. Two spatial machineries appear in the movie. One is…

Short Cuts in Los Angeles

Short Cuts, another movie of  Robert Altman (see this post about The Gingerbread Man), is adapted from short stories of Raymond Carver transposed to Los Angeles.  When the stories of Carver about several couples were independent, Altman connects them by inventing family or neighborhood links or by making a character the cause of events that…

Die Hard 2 / 58 minutes pour vivre – Harlin

After the Nakatomi Plaza (see this post), the Washington Dulles International Airport is the new John McClane’s playground in this second opus of the Die Hard series directed in 1990 by Renny Harlin. Terrorists try to exfiltrate Ramon Esperanza, a general in exile from Val Verde, awaiting his trial in the United States. There are…

The ‘Manitoba’ No Reply / Le Manitoba ne répond plus

As already shown in this post, geographic space plays a fundamental role in the work of Hergé. In The ‘Manitoba’ No Reply, first volume of The Secret Ray from The Adventures of Jo, Zette and Jocko, published in 1952, the liner SS Manitoba indicates its position by radio, remains silent for 20 hours and send…

The Midwich Cuckoos/Le village des damnés

Suggestion proposed by M. Miller in this comment. In John Wyndham’s science fiction novel, The Midwich Cuckoos, 1957 (later filmed as The Village of the Damned, 1960) a circular line is plotted on a map to determine the area around the village of Midwich in which people are mysteriously falling unconscious. One watching private stepped forward…

The Parallax View / A cause d’un assassinat – Pakula

The Parallax View is a 1974 thriller film directed by Alan J. Pakula. Newspaper reporter Joe Frady (Warren Beatty) is investigating a secret organization, the Parallax Corporation, whose objective is political assassination. A cause d’un assassinat est un thriller dirigé par Alan J. Pakula en 1974. Le reporter de presse Joe Frady (Warren Beatty) enquête…

M (Fritz Lang 1931): Murder and Modern Mapping

M (dir. Fritz Lang 1931) tells the story of a serial killer who preys on children in 1930s Berlin, and who is on the run from police and an organized crime syndicate. The film begins with the murder of Elsie, the eighth child to be murdered. At the crime scene police find a paper bag…

Maps by Shannon Rankin

Shannon Rankin  is an American artist born 1971 in California who lives and works presently in Rangeley, Maine, USA. She created several series of artworks with maps as raw material, maps she cuts, disintegrates, sticks, connects with threads, pins…  As she writes on her homepage: « I deconstruct maps to create new geographies, suggesting the potential…

Polichinelle mouillé, le tueur du métro – Fajardie

« Who is the murderer of the subway? Who is this man who pushes innocents under the train? And who are its victims? » Such is the plot of the thriller written by Frederic H. Fajardie in 1982. Police inspector Padovani (recurring character in the work of Fajardie) investigates. During a briefing with his staff, he says:…