Author Archives: Ilirjan Gjonbalaj

Gjonbalocalypse

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When we first discussed the creative projects in class, I mentioned doing a “serious” documentary about apocalypse as it is depicted in Islam. However, I was inspired to do something more fun after watching a short animated film from this year’s Doomsday Fest. The main character was a lemon head and the director created simple movements by taking stills of the lemon head traversing different flat images. I employed a similar concept in my animation, however instead of flat images – I used real-life backgrounds from my kitchen cabinets to the picture frames in the Metropolitan Opera.

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Morality in the Turner Diaries

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There is clearly a shift that takes place after the first half of the Turner Diaries. The first ten chapters highlights the struggle of the Organization while also showing us the building momentum of its members. After Turner is initiated into the Order, however, his conscious is completely shifted and membership in the Organization explodes. Continue reading →

Rabbit-Frogs and Lukewarm Christians

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Well, I can’t say I wasn’t warned about the Turner Diaries. From the introduction of the book to discussions in class, we were all sufficiently cautioned about the hatred that pervades the text. Nonetheless, it is still an important piece to analyze and what do you know? There is apocalyptic thought woven throughout. Continue reading →

Le Grand Macabre

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Professor Quinby (and fellow Imagining the End of the World colleagues),

The name of the opera I was talking about before class is Le Grand Macabre by Gyorgi Ligeti. Truthfully, I don’t know much about it. So, in the composer’s own words: “It’s an imagining of the end of the world, but very colorful, very bizarre, populated with medieval imps… It’s a Rabelaisian world, a world full of obscenities, sexual and scatological. People are constantly eating and drinking and leading a very chaotic life. It all happens in a sort of broken-down dictatorship where two opposing parties, both completely corrupt, pursue in reality the same crooked policies… It’s tragic and light-hearted at the same time…It’s not my intention to be provocative, though naturally I enjoy shocking people a bit.””

Here is an advertisement/excerpt on youtube from a London production of it a few years back: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TP3DvIjcpi0

and from the more recent New York Philharmonic production: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pTmr1OqiDY&feature=related

28 Days Later, the Children of Men encountered an Apocalypto

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This week, we viewed three films that portrayed the apocalypse through the lens of a post-modern director. They all have hints and obvious influences from the perennial apocalyptic tale, but at the same time tell a story that is much more individualized and complicate traditional gender norms. Continue reading →