Suchergebnisse

In this article I discuss how various collective art projects involving artists and curators using the city as an exhibition site have transformed artistic discourse in Iceland. Chantal Mouffe´s conception of public space as a battleground and art practices as agnostic interventions into this space raise questions about the branding and commodification of art and cultural institutions. Mouffe believes that despite the unrestrained commercial control of the urban landscape, artists still have the possibility of intervening in the political and economic status quo. Employing Mouffe´s analyses as a guiding principle, the study confirms that the permanent value of art in public spaces need not be limited to individual artists' form, style or content, but may be capable of mobilizing political, critical and artistic discussions within the urban community.

This article surveys the ouevre of the Icelandic writer Jakobína Sigurðardóttir (1918-1994) on the occasion of her centenary. Various aspects of her novels, short stories, poetry and memoirs are examined, including the ways in which she presents time in her texts – time as it pertains to individual life spans and the interaction of different generations, as well as time in the life of a nation which could be said to have switched abodes in the course of the 20th Century, moving from rural to urban settings, and during this time the island nation attained sovereignty and independence. narrative is a key element in treating time and historical shifts, and attention is paid to the ways in which Sigurðardóttir both renews realist traditions and resorts to more radical narrative forms, pulling the reader into an active dialogue on gender and generational issues, on social justice and equality, as well on the routes and conditions which connect and mould places of dwelling – individual houses as well as the abode of the nation.

Á mannöld (e. anthropocene), þegar loftslagsbreytingar af mannavöldum ógna framtíð okkar og boða endalok þeirrar heimsmyndar sem við þekkjum, vaknar óhjákvæmilega sú spurning hvort pláss sé fyrir bókmenntir, eins og við höfum þekkt þær. Fyrstu tveir áratugir tuttugustu og fyrstu aldar hafa einkennst af æ fleiri örforlögum sem fara gegn straumnum, en starfsemi þeirra grundvallast á breyttu viðhorfi til bókmennta, bókaútgáfu og bókarinnar sem slíkrar. Þau vinna út frá hefð framúrstefnunnar og stefna að því að umbylta ríkjandi fagurfræði og menningarstarfsemi. Þær breytingar sem verða á bókmenntavettvanginum með tilkomu örforlaga fela í sér áherslur sem lagðar eru á: bókverk, takmarkað upplag, tilraunakennd form og fagurfræði, stefnumarkandi texta og gjörninga og loks annars konar dreifingu verka. Þessi stefnubreyting á menningarvettvanginum er í takt við svokallaða valsældarhyggju (e. alternative hedonism) sem einkennist af aukinni vistvitund og felur í sér að einstaklingur finnur nautn í því að neyta minna og á annan hátt. Ég mun leitast við að sýna fram á hvernig starfsemi örforlaga tengist gagnrýni slíkrar valsældarhyggju á kapítalisma og hvernig hún er ein athyglisverðasta birtingarmynd nýrrar umhverfisverndarorðræðu í bókmenntum Norðurlanda.

The article addresses the early years of film in iceland, where the goal is to deepen our knowledge of the main participants in introducing and promoting cinema in iceland at the turn of the 19th century. Two years spanning a three-year period mark the beginnings of the age of film in iceland. The former is 1901 when the Dutch filmmaker F. A. Nöggerath came to film iceland and icelanders for an English film company. The latter year is 1903, when the Norwegian, Rasmus Hallseth and the Swede David Fernander, traveled around the country to screen films for the first time in iceland. These two visits mark the emergence of cinema in iceland. iceland-ers had little prior knowledge of the new medium, which was getting to be widely known around the world, apart from the coverage of newspapers and stories of lucky icelanders who had experienced film screenings abroad. Shows using a predecessor of film, the magic lantern, were held by Sigfús Eymundsson and Þorlákur ó. Jo-hnson in the 19th century. After the introduction of films in 1903, several people put together funds to buy Hallseth's and Fernanders' equipment and began to exhibit films on their own. However, daily performances did not happen until Reykjavik Biograftheater (later ,,Gamla Bíó") was established in 1906. After several attempts by various parties to hold regular screenings in Reykjavik, one could say that cinema did not properly settle in iceland until the establishment of Nýja Bíó in 1913.

This essay offers a succinct but comprehensive overview of Icelandic cinema from its early 20th-century emergence to the present day. Split into two parts, the first half focusses on filmmaking in Iceland prior to the founding of the Icelandic Film Fund in 1978, which was to establish a continuous local film production for the first time. Prior to that filmmaking in Iceland boiled down to the occasional efforts of local amateurs, albeit often quite skilled ones, and professional filmmakers visiting from abroad. Indeed, the few silent feature films made in the country all stemmed from foreign filmmakers adapting Icelandic literature and taking advantage of its photogenic landscapes. The first Icelandic feature was not made until 1948 and although immensely popular, like those that followed in its wake, the national audience was simply too small to sustain filmmaking without financial support. Although this changed fundamentally with the Icelandic Film Fund, which instigated contemporary Icelandic cinema and the subject of the essay's second half, the Fund's support proved insufficient as the novelty of Icelandic cinema began to wear off at the local box office in the late 1980s. The rescue came from outside sources, in the form of nordic and European film funds, whose support was to transnationalize Icelandic cinema in terms of not only financing and production but also themes and subject material. These changes are most apparent in Icelandic cinema of the 1990s which also began to garner interest at the international film festival circuit. In the first decade of the twenty first century, however, American genre cinema began to replace the European art film as the typical model for Icelandic filmmakers. Hollywood itself also began to show extensive interest in Icelandic landscapes for its runaway productions, as did many other foreign film crews. In this way Icelandic cinema is increasingly characterized by not only national and transnational elements but also international ones.