KALEIDOSCOPE JAZZ CHAIR

‘Kaleidoscope Jazz Chair’ can foremost be described as an experimental film, one which plays with technique, aesthetics and representation. For instance Eames’s iconic fiberglass chairs are artistically presented through a kaleidoscope as well as technically represented through stop-motion cinematography (which effectively produces the appearance of animated chairs dancing in and around the film frame). The film essentially has two parts, with the first showing fast moving images of chairs, objects and materials; and the second part showing Eames’s office, of which projects images dissolving into a sequence of stop-motion shots of Charles and Ray seated in multi-coloured chairs. Chairs first appear in a coded way and then take on a life of their own in that they become animated or mechanised. For instance, we observe the objects assembling themselves, (much like ‘people’), and we have them appear, reappear, self-stack, order and reorder themselves throughout the films sequence. This is all created through the effect of stop-motion cinematography (one aspect of the film which I found to be most interesting). In defining stop motion cinematography, dictionary.com states that it is essentially an ‘effect’ carried out while shooting, in which “the performers stop their motion and the camera is stopped while an object or performer is added to or removed from the scene, with camera movement and action then resumed for the remainder of the scene of which is often used to create an illusion of sudden appearance or disappearance of persons or objects”. Series of objects are broken down into decorative patterns in this short film, and as each frame is spliced against one another what is ultimately produced is frame by frame presentation of still shots, that when filmed in rapid succession gives fluidity to space, time and motion and consequently gives the illusory appearance of movement with the chairs.

Another interesting aspect in ‘Kaleidoscope Jazz Chair’ is its interest in the ‘sublime’, and of sublimity in the domestic space. In Senses of Cinema Jean Epstein’s theory of de-familiarisation and the sublime seems most fitting to my perspective of the presence of the ‘sublime’ in Eames’s film. Epstein notes that in the process of de-familiarisation what occurs is the object of attention seems to change ‘form’ under the steady and cautious gaze of the spectator. Epstein argues that the object “…reveals anew it’s moral character, it’s human and living expression when reproduced cinematically”. Here Epstein’s concept revolved around seeing an everyday occurrence brought to focus through representation, thus drawing attention to those objects or acts that are ordinarily taken for granted because of their associations with the banal (e.g. just like those associations commonly made with office furniture such as the chair). My suggestion here is that the redesigning and re-represented of the chair, of which has been both animated and aesthetically ‘tweaked’ through e.g. experimentation with tonal variations, allow the Eames’s in this film, to illuminate this idea of ‘cinematic representation’ (as one which has the power to elevate the subject or object out of the realm of the banal and ordinary). For instance, although the images of chairs start of in 1950’s and 1960’s primary colours, these are soon dominated by the presence of secondary colours which begin to emerge. These bright colours become interspersed in the sequence highlighting a moment where the ‘domestic’ or past attitudes towards the ‘domestic’ (as a prosaic space) is transformed and portrayed as that which is ‘infinitely transformable’, (for it has now entered the realm of the sublime).

For some reason i am unable to put up my references-- but dictionary.com has the 'stop-motion' defintion, and the Senses of Cinema article entitled "Sublime Moments" has Epsteins quote. My Apologies!