Najla Mansour APL8000

8/22/2019 Najla Mansour APL8000

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APL8000 Conceptualizing

LandscapeWeekly diaries for 9 lectures , student response 20/01/2012 Najla Mansour


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APL 8000_ Conceptualizing LandscapeStudent : 110485959 _ Najla Mansour

Friday 13th/10/2011

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What is an Imaginary Landscape?

The imaginary landscape was at first presented by the novels and poems, so peopleused to read about the scene in the story and try to imagine it, the writers tried to descript

it in the best ways, talking about the trees and the green areas, rivers and mountains

...etc, to make the reader attracted to the story and feel every detail in it. But now in these

days, the movies are making it easier to imagine, so people no longer have to read the

words, but they actually can see that directly. Technology has presented a visual scene to

the person which is completely virtual.

For that we can say that there is many way representing the imaginary landscape to

others. If we try to sort it out , we could get .

a) Imaginary Landsc ape represented by Poems ,

Some poets used to descript the nature and talk about it ,most of the time it was

real not imagined by them , but since they present it to the reader in words , they

make the reader imagine that and that's how the picture is imaginary, a good

example could be

b) Imaginary Landscape represented by Stories and Novels,

Some good examples would be : The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tokien

Harry Potterby J. K. Rowling

The Man Who Planted Trees by Jean Giono

" I was crossing the area at its widest point, and after three days walking, foundmyself in the midst of unparalleled desolation. I camped near the vestiges of anabandoned village. I had run out of water the day before, and had to find some.These clustered houses, although in ruins, like an old wasps nest, suggested thatthere must once have been a spring or well here. There was indeed a spring, but itwas dry. The five or six houses, roofless, gnawed by wind and rain, the tiny chapelwith its crumbling steeple, stood about like the houses and chapels in living villages,but all life had vanished. It was a fine June day, brilliant with sunlight, but over thisunsheltered land high in the sky, the wind blew with unendurable ferocity. It growledover the carcasses of the houses like a lion disturbed at its meal. I had to move mycamp. After five hourswalking I had still not found water and there was nothing togive me any hope of finding any. All about me was the same dryness, the samecoarse grasses. I thought I glimpsed in the distance a small black silhouette, upright,and took it for the trunk of a solitary tree. In any case I started toward it. It was ashepherd. Thirty sheep were lying about him on the baking earth." From : The ManWho Planted Trees by Jean Giono Page 1

--------------------Lecture One


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c) Imaginary Landscape represented by Paint ings,

Some examples :

Picture 01- Illustrated by Steven Kellogg, 1988 , From Johnny Appleseed: A Tall Tale Retold

Picture 02an original lithograph by artist Wanda Gag, 1937.


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d) Imaginary Landscape represented by Movies ,

Lots of animation movies in the 21 century started to take a direction to view

imaginary landscape and make it very different than reality ,Some good examples

could be :

Picture 03scene from an animation ( Planet 51 ) 2009 the movie shows imaginary landscape and life on otherplanet that is imagined and inspired by our current world

Picture 04scene from an animation (Princess mononoke ) 2003 the movie shows imaginary landscape and lifein an imaginary period and lots of strange creature appear in the movie .


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social imaginary

- Modern social imaginaries by Charles Taylor

One of the most influential philosophers in the English-speaking world, Charles Taylor is

internationally renowned for his contributions to political and moral theory, particularly todebates about identity formation, multiculturalism, secularism, and modernity. In Modern

Social Imaginaries, Taylor continues his recent reflections on the theme of multiple

modernity's. To account for the differences among modernity's, Taylor sets out his idea of

the social imaginary, a broad understanding of the way a given people imagine their

collective social life. Retelling the history of Western modernity, he traces the

development of a distinct social imaginary. Animated by the idea of a moral order based

on the mutual benefit of equal participants, the Western social imaginary is characterized

by three key cultural formsthe economy, the public sphere, and self-governance.

Taylorsaccount of these cultural formations provides a fresh perspective on how to read

the specifics of Western modernity: how we came to imagine society primarily as an

economy for exchanging goods and services to promote mutual prosperity, how we

began to imagine the public sphere as a metaphorical place for deliberation and

discussion among strangers on issues of mutual concern, and how we invented the idea

of a self-governing people capable of secular founding acts without recourse to

transcendent principles. Accessible in length and style, Modern Social Imaginaries offers

a clear and concise framework for understanding the structure of modern life in the West

and the different forms modernity has taken around the world.

-Nationalism as a social Imaginary, Negotiations of Social Signification and

Disintegrating discourses in Britain France and Poland

Doctoral Thesis, University of Lyon - Jean MoulinSince 1989, nationalism has once again become a major discursive theme in Europeanpublic and political spaces. Nationalism has thus become analyzed (according toMichael Billing), relegating the complexities of social histories to mere cultural Others.The common origin of the resulting social and symbolical tensions can be found in thepromotion of State-centered nationalist discourses. The dominant discourse on nationalidentity aims for the reproduction of a continuity of traditional national values and histories

in reaction to the threat it perceives in the presence of multiple Others.This transversalstudy presents a social-historical analysis of the endurance of national imaginaries and ofthe modern paradigm of exclusion they reproduce. By elaborating a theoretical frameworkas an open system (Edgar Morin) to make sense of the complex relations between texts,ideology and the social imaginary (Cornelius Castoriadis), the aim of the thesis is theanalysis of the dynamic symbolic promotion, expression and contestation negotiationsof social signification of national imaginaries. Basing on the study of texts expressingthese negotiations, the formation and consolidation of British, French and Polish nationalimaginaries in the late modern period is articulated through this framework. The analysisthen focuses on mainstream political discourses in Britain, France and Poland between2004 and 2009 which is contrasted with the analysis of contemporary texts of popularculture.


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Symbolic Universes

Every one of us has a symbolic universe which constructs the reality we live in. Through

this symbolic universe we peer into social reality. It could be said in simple words that thissymbolic universe is a pair of glasses that you put on to be able to make sense of social

life around us. Without this pair of glasses, we would go start doing all kinds of weird

things , since you cantfigure out and understand why all these things are happening.

Sociologists of knowledge like to talk about two kinds of reality: subjective reality and

objective reality. Objective reality is the reality presented to you by the institution.

Subjective reality constitutes a huge part of our symbolic universe. It is the reality that

everyone feels and perceive when you were born. Individuals that have just been born

into this world have a very skewed view of objective reality and usually reject it (that's why

babies cry all the time). This all changes when the infant receives primary socializationfrom his or her parents. Primary socialization is deemed successful when the individual

subject to socialization achieves a high symmetry between the given objective reality and

his personal subjective reality. Overlapping parts of objective reality and subjective reality,

makes up an individualssymbolic universe.


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Heaven and Hell:

This diaries is discussing the concept of Heaven and Hell as Dostoyevsky mentionedit in his novel "The Dream of a Ridiculous Man" in this story Dostoyevsky sees theheaven in different way, he says one he died he could hear everything but not beingable to see anything , and he even felt that he is on a grave, after a while frombeing on a grave a creature he puts a place for "his " heaven, it is in equal world,perhaps other dimension, it is on other planet, which is just alike with earth, in aparalleluniverse

He wrote

"But we were rapidly approaching the planet. It was growing before myeyes; I could already distinguish the ocean, the outline of Europe; andsuddenly a feeling of a great and holy jealousy glowed in my heart. Howcan it be repeated and what for? "

When he got on the other plant, the other Earth, "the heaven" as he said, he

described it as a glorious place where the sun is always shinning, lots oftrees and a sea shore, bright flowers were everywhere , he describedabout the landscape of the "heaven" saying:

"I suddenly, quite without noticing how, found myself on this otherearth, in the bright light of a sunny day, fair as paradise. I believe I wasstanding on one of the islands that make up on our globe the Greekarchipelago, or on the coast of the mainland facing that archipelago. Oh,everything was exactly as it is with us, only everything seemed to have afestive radiance, the splendor of some great, holy triumph attained at last.The caressing sea, green as emerald, splashed softly upon the shore andkissed it with manifest, almost conscious love. The tall, lovely trees stoodin all the glory of their blossom, and their innumerable leaves greeted me,I am certain, with their soft, caressing rustle and seemed to articulate

words of love. The grass glowed with bright and fragrant flowers. Birdswere flying in flocks in the air, and perched fearlessly on my shoulders andarms and joyfully struck me with their darling, fluttering wings"

On this heavenly Earth some people were living there, they were differentthan normal people on our earth; they were so innocent and sinless,"children of the sun" as he called him,

"And at last I saw and knew the people of this happy land. That came tome of themselves; they surrounded me, kissed me. The children of the

sun, the children of their sun--oh, how beautiful they were! Never had Iseen on our own earth such beauty in mankind. Only perhaps in our

---------------------Lecture two.


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children, in their earliest years, one might find some remote faintreflection of this beauty. The eyes of these happy people shone with aclear brightness. Their faces were radiant with the light of reason and

fullness of a serenity that comes of perfect understanding, I understood itall! It was the earth untarnished by the Fall; on it lived people who had notsinned. They lived just in such a paradise as that in which, according to allthe legends of mankind, our first parents lived before they sinned; theonly difference was that all this earth was the same paradise. Thesepeople, laughing joyfully, thronged round me and caressed me; they tookme home with them, and each of them tried to reassure me. "

Dostoyevsky,didntonly describe the people who live on the heaven, butalso talked about the community there, this "innocent" community, withno hatred or pain, no sadness or shame, an overwhelming place where all

people are living happily together, they know what is joy, they sing anddance. Also in this world people actually understand each other, listen toeach other; they know exactly how to take good care of themselves andpeople around them. He keeps saying that it is a dream, so he reminds usthat the dreams are reflections to our wishes, it is what Dostoyevsky wishesfor this Earth, so he simply wishes "a world of peace, understanding andinnocence"

"Ionly dreamed or felt one sensation that arose in my heart in deliriumand made up the details "

"Granted that I dreamed it, yet it must have been real. You know, I willtell you a secret: perhaps it was not a dream at all! For then somethinghappened so awful, something so horribly true, that it could not have beenimagined in a dream. My heart may have originated the dream, but wouldmy heart alone have been capable of originating the awful event whichhappened to me afterwards? How could I alone have invented it orimagined it in my dream? Could my petty heart and fickle, trivial mindhave risen to such a revelation of truth?"

In this story, the dream wasn't only about heaven and how it is formed,not only a dream of perfection, but also Dostoyevsky wanted to point out tosomething important, he wanted to show the ugly side of humans, howthey got evil. He didn't only determine the heaven but also wanted toshow that even heaven would result in being hell. In his idea both of themare related together. Also he didn't use the world "hell" in this story but hechose to name it "corrupted heaven". He explained how humans aremeant to have their bad side, and wanted to express that people can't begood all the time, once they know the meaning of sin, they will becomesinners. There is no place for perfection in his dream "people are thesame, once they know the lie they would like it and use it" but in this


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dream, Dostoyevskysays that he is the reason of corrupting heaven, " yes,it ended in my corrupting them all!" he says.

In his dream he introduces himself as the source of corruption. Heintroduced the lies and the sin to this innocent people then they just likedthat and started to get used it, after that this small lie resulted with warsand killing. The story basically is not about one day , it happened inthousands of years, which lead to a thought, that Dostoyevskywanted toshow the evolution of humans , they all born sinless and when they growup they know the sin and the lies , they use it , then like it , after years asthey grow up they change and becomes sinners, lyres and some evenkillers. All start with this small lie.

"like a germ of the plague infecting whole kingdoms, so I contaminatedall this earth, so happy and sinless before my coming. They learnt to lie,grew fond of lying, and discovered the charm of falsehood. Oh, at firstperhaps it began innocently, with a jest, coquetry, with amorous play,perhaps indeed with a germ, but that germ of falsity made its way intotheir hearts and pleased them. Then sensuality was soon begotten,sensuality begot jealousy, jealousy--cruelty . . but soon, very soon thefirst blood was shed."

Later the story progresses and the writer talks more about how peoplestart to make unions and turn against each other , start killing animals andcut the trees. Also the animals escape to the forest and feared the people.Suddenly Dostoyevskytakes a different direction in his story he started toform the change based on our current Earth, the "heavenly Earth" in hisdream is converted into the reality. The land was divided, countries werecreated. He even mentions the flags. Which rise up the idea thatDostoyevsky wanted to express that the world we live in is just a result of ourhumanity. And the world we already know is formed because of us. He thought that"We" are the reason of all the pain on earth; "We" are the reason of the wars and

the killing. But it is not because we are bad, it is just because we are"humans" after all, and all this is part of us. The innocence and the sin areboth sides of one coin which is the human being. And it is a one directionway that we can't return to the start. And we can't regret it because it is"life".

"They became acquainted with sorrow and loved sorrow; they thirsted forsuffering, and said that truth could only be attained through suffering.Then science appeared. As they became wicked they began talking ofbrotherhood and humanitarianism, and understood those ideas. As theybecame criminal, they invented justice"


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"Knowledge is higher than feeling; the consciousness of life is higherthan life. "

At the end of the story, Dostoyevskyexplains that it is not hell the way wealready lives on our Earth, it has it bad sides but not totally bad, it isnormal and it is how it is going to be anyway because of our nature."children of the sun" explains that to him, when he goes there and shoutthat he is the reason of the pain they live in and he asks them to kill himand punish him, to put him on a cross ( pointing out to the bible) becausehe is the source of the sin.


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Picturesque:

Picturesque architecture had been fashionable from the 1700s to 1800s, had beeninspired by many landscape painters such as, Claude Lorrain and Salvatore Rosa

Rather than being a rigidly identifiable design, the picturesque movement is an artisticmovement which started because the English love of natural which was a new startfor the landscape design which took its form during the last decade of the 18thcentury." So says Janet Wright inArchitecture of the Picturesque in Canada.

The Picturesque was concerned with the variety and irregularity of nature, particularlyin the play of light and shadow. Though interest in the design and composition of thelandscape was paramount, its influence on architecture was significant. As thestructure itself was viewed as a minor component in the total scheme, it was allowedto display a more eclectic style than previously accepted.

The Importance of Landscape in Picturesque Architecture

The Picturesque building was seen only in relation to its surroundings, rather than asan isolated object. The landscape itself would be rough and natural rather than

artificial and controlled and the ensuing vistas were of primary importance.

As designers and architects sought to orient the principal rooms and windowstowards sunlight and the outdoor views, interiors became more irregular in plan.However, most exterior elevations remained symmetrical. The positioning of nearbytrees, the use of chimneys, recessed wall planes or bow windows all contributed tothe play of light and shadow that was a crucial element of the Picturesquestrategy.

--------------------Lecture three.


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A 'terrifying alpine scene: the Devil's Bridge on the St Gotthard Pass. As the eighteenth century progressed, the

emotions aroused by the passage of the Alps changed from fear to excitement.


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"A scene from Salvator Rosa as illustrated inThe English Landscape Garden. Frank Clark wrote that 'scandalous

legends of lawlessness' became encrusted around the artist."

"The gardeners were trying to capture the emotions experienced during the Grand Tourafter leaving the sunny plains of France and Italy; they had ascended the Alps to the very

roof of Europe. Suspended between earth and sky they had seen with fearful fascination

the complex pattern of the earth at their feet.Mountains, roaring cascades, the evidences

of the convulsive forces of nature in these vast ranges, filled them with sensations of awe

which they never afterwards forgot".

Savage Rosa was the best artist who could translate this kind of emotions into a painting,

he captured the outlaw of those who had been endangered in the mountains. He filled it

with nice trees, lots of rocks, cliffs, and enabled the traveller to have another experience,

completely a new one away showing the horror in a scenery way appreciating its

importance.


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Contested Landscapes:

Landscape is not considered as a reaction to human activities; it is created by people, toserve the people themselves. The way people understand and react to the world around

them is based on particulate elements such as time and place. The way the human make

their mind is considered dynamic and variable ambiguous. Landscape is not only involved

with them but also contested all the time. People always travel, as tourists, doing

business worldwide , as migrant workers or political or economic refugees resulted in

exchange the culture of landscape worldwide . On the other hand lots of people who live

in the same landscapes grow up understanding significance of landscape in totally

different way. The contributors tackle contested notions of landscape to explain the key

role it plays in creating identity and shaping human behaviour.Contested Landscapes, Movement, Exile and Place, Barbara Bender

Phenomenology:

The story of Edgar Allan Poe is called TheFall of the House of Usheris considered as

an excellent model to light up the phenomenology in Architecture.

The story is about a man visited one of his old colleagues whom didn't see for years.Describing the first impression saying:

..With the first glimpse of the building, a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit.I say insufferable; for the feeling was unrelieved by any of that half-pleasurable, becausepoetic, sentiment, with which the mind usually receives even the sternest natural imagesof the desolate or terrible..withan utter depression of soul which I can compare tono earthly sensation more properly than to the after-dream of the reveler upon opium-.Whatwas it that so unnerved me in the contemplation of the House of Usher?(p.171)

The writer didn't let the reader feel only the gloom while reading , he follow it up withcrumbling and virulent Landscape that created a weird atmosphere. He addedthat had no affinity with the air of heaven, but which had reeked up from the decayedtrees, and the gray wall, and the silent tarn (p. 172), he arrives at the unsatisfactoryconclusion that while, beyond doubt, there are combinations of very simple naturalobjects which have the power of thus affecting us.(p.171)

After that Edgar Allan Poe starts describing the smells in the sense so it mixed and make

a perfect view that we can't only imagine but also sense. Also he made a detailed

discretion of the textures in the view, everything was very specific and very much realisticway that made perfect invasion.

-------------------Lecture five.

-------------------Lecture four.


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The crumbling condition of the individual stones. In this there was much that remindedme of the specious totality of old woodwork which has rotted for long years in someneglected vault, with no disturbance from the breath of external air shaking off my spiritwhat must have been a dream, I scanned more narrowly the real aspect of the building.

After detailing the scene, the story's character concludes that this house belongs to thefamily for that reason their blood seems to run in it for decays. And the man believes thatthis house represents Mr. Usher the owner- upon the vacant eyes windows and hissick body.

The idea that the sensations in us is also affected by the objects around us, which formthe individuality the underplaying substratum- the human is connected to them, isimplied in the sense that people suffer when they are walking in a dark street. Thecommon objects known since childhood, are not common anymore, they look aggressive

and gloomy:

Muchthat I encountered on the way contributed, I know not how, to heighten the vaguesentiments of which I have already spoken. While the objects around me .werebutmatters to which.I have been accustomed from my infancy while I hesitated not toacknowledge how familiar was all this- I still wondered to find how unfamiliar were thefancies which ordinary images were stirring up.Ifelt that I breathed an atmosphereof sorrow. An air of stern, deep, and irredeemable gloom hung over and pervaded all(p.173).Similar manufactures of emotions and subsequent ideas arise from Mr R. Usher, whoexplained that Hewas enchained by certain superstitious impressions in regard to the

dwelling(p.175). For many years he has not ventured throughout the house, because offear. He was morally influenced by the shape of the house and the materials surroundinghim over the year.Headmitted, however, although with hesitation, that much of the peculiar gloom whichthus afflicted him could be traced to a more natural and far more palpable origin to thesevere and long continued illness.- of a tenderly beloved sister(p.175)Regarding the philosophical background in this story it is still considered as a clearexample of immateriality in architecture in the previous scene. And we want to highlightthe significance of all the surroundings also the substances in all levels. After finding theclues of the coming death before the character enters the house, the writer had put somethinking about how his imagination would torment him further than the sublime.


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Green Cities: (Urban Utopias definition)

Example: Masdar City, Abu Dhabi UAE, by Foster and Partners

The aim of the project was to find a solution to address the issues of global warming and

pollution. As the pressure on the world's natural recourses is increasing rapidly, the future

of the earth should be developed by a clean sustainable environmental management.

This project is supposed to be one of the best in finding alternative sources of energy.

Covering 640 hectares, a new city will be built with technological breakthroughs as a

microchip network of connections bringing together the talent and the expertise resources

to develop a sustainable future. Special electronic Zones will attract partners from all over

the world; from tiny start ups to major co-operations. From the construction fees onwards

, the first Masdar Project will create sustainable local employment.; Eventually hosting apopulation of 47500. The first step for the project sets the whole project, the base of a

power plan, that will deliver the energy required for fulfill all of the buildings in this new

city. It will be a compact high density city, completely free from cars. And a role model for

energy consideration. "Zero Carbon Emissions" and"Zero Waste" ; "compared to average

urban levels, fossil fuel Consumption Zero on site " all waste will be recycled. And the

consumption of Desalinated water will be reduced by 80%. Cycling and walking will be

another way to travel from place to place. Also the master plan was studied carefully that

no one will be far more than 200 meters from essential facilities such as shops. A fully

automated a personal electric transits system will provide a flexible and comfortablealternative to private cars. A rail way will link the Masdar city with the center of Abu Dhabi,

and the surrounded important places. It was designed under considering the local climate

and the cultural conditions; particularly its solar movements and the directions of the

winds. The city orientation captures the sea breath from the north while protects it from

the desert winds on the opposite direction. The side that faces the airport was protected

to reduce the noise. Court yards and wind towers are placed to bring cool breathes into

the city almost everywhere. Even the materials used were sustainable.

Waste-water will be used to water the plants in the city and all the green areas. The

Masder city as a project itself is a challenge to stop wasting the energy and do some

conservation while also enhancing the quality of life.

-------------------Lecture six.


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Heritage, Memory, Belonging:

This diaries is going to relate the subject of the lecture to an old valley in Syria calledthe "Christians Valley" or as its local name " Wadi AL-Nassara". It is found on the

border with Lebanon, around Homs, the area extending to the south coast of Syria.It is

known with its amazing nature and its landscape that is very much different than the

whole city of Homs which is near the desert. The landscape and the housing is mixed

together in wonderful way.The famous KraK De Chevaliers, and Saint George

Monastery, and many other historic sites are located in there. Wadi Al Nassara is

inhabited mostly by Christians, naming is because of it. The old houses there are built

using basalt stones, these housing have their own style different from the old housing in

the city in details, but also known to be court yard housing. The landscape in general is

old, but not listed as heritage place, most of these old houses are demolished and rebuilt.

Below some photos shows the general Landscape in the area.

-----------------Lecture seven.


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Three Natures:

First Nature: wilderness:

Wildernessor wildlandis a land which has not been customized by people. It may

also be verified as: "The most unbroken, peaceful wild natural areas left on Earth

those last truly wild places that mankind doesn't not organize and have not controlled

it adding the roads or any other manufacturing communications." could be found in

conserved, estate, ranches, state forests, national parks and even in urban areas

along rivers, gulches or otherwise undeveloped areas". These areas were considered

important for the existence of ecological studies. Wilderness is always valued in

cultural and spiritual views. A lot of writers believed that wilderness areas are very

important for the human strength and inspiration.

Rewilding ...

What is Rewilding?

Rewilding is preservation on a magnificent range; biologists envisioned it right after

finding out that the most protected areas on Earth were too little and isolated so they

were not enough to save species in the future. Rewilding as a preservation process is

planned around the "three C's: Cores, Corridors, and Carnivores".

- Core protected areas enlarge habitat.

- Corridors connect protected wilderness in order to allow migration and

other forms of movement to prevent genetic bottlenecks.

- Carnivores--large predators or "keystone" species--regulate the ecosystem,

ensuring stable relationships throughout the food chain.

Caroline Fraser's first book,God's Perfect Child: Living and Dying in the Christian

Science Church, was selected as a New York Times Book Review Notable Book

and a Los Angeles Times Book Review Best Book.

She has written widely about animal rights, natural history, and the

environment, and her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York

Review of Books, and Outside magazine, among others. She is a co-editor of the

environmental website, iWild.org.

-----------------Lecture eight.


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www.rewildingtheworld.com

This website is made by scientists around the world who wanted to warn people of

the threatening disappearance of many species, from birds and polar bears to rareinsects, tigers, and flowers. If the damage continue happening, more than half of all

species of animals and plants may vanish by the end of this century support

ecosystems that provide the food, water, and natural defences besides climate

transformation.

Now Caroline Fraser offers the first ultimate relation of an imaginative movement to

face this crisis: rewilding. Overwhelming in scope and ambition, rewilding tends to

save the creatures by restoring habitats, and brokering peace between people and

predators. "Travelling with biologists and conservationists, Fraser reports on the vast

projects that are turning Europe's former Iron Curtain into a greenbelt, creating

transfrontier Peace Parks to renew elephant routes throughout Africa, and linking

protected areas from the Yukon to Mexico and beyond." An inspiring story of scientific

discovery and grassroots action, Rewilding the Worldoffers hope for a richer, wilder

future.


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Who killed the electric carAll over California electric cars started to appear on

roads in 1996. Quiet and fast were basic key elements for getting people to like them

as well as the fact that they do not produced exhaust and do not need any gasoline,

but ten years later, these revolutionary cars roughly disappeared.

'Who Killed the Electric Car' is a documentary which unfolds a complex set of events

around the development and demise of the modern electric car. The story stems from

California from the early 1990s to 2006. Chris Paine, the film maker has woven

together interviews and archival footage of over 65 people involved with the events.

The story begins to open out with a short history of the first electric cars was invented

in the twentieth century. These electric vehicles were killed off nearly 100 years ago

as gas/petroleum motorized internal burning engine (ICE) cars became cheaper. The

biggest problems with the gas and the petrol vehicles were that they demonstrating

smog, high child asthma rates, CO2 emissions and global warming.

The movie then produces the story of the contemporary EV in 1987 when 'General

Motors' and the 'SunRaycer', won the solar world challenge of electric car race which

took place in Australia. Roger Smith "General Motor's CEO", built a prototype

practical electric car as a challenge, later it became known as the 'Impact' when it

was announced in 1990. The design project had stretched to small scale manufacture

cars with the aim that it would give GM several years lead over any contestant car

companies.

(CARB) "The Californian Air Resources Board" considered this as a way to resolve

their air feature trouble and in 1990 which passed the Zero Emissions Vehicles (ZEV)

Mandate. The ZEV Mandate thought that increasing numbers of vehicles sold would

have to be Zero Emission Vehicles. For the car companies, there were only two

options: "obey the law" or "be against it". At the end, they decided they would do both.

The film exposes the variety of possibilities that caused killing the reality of the

electric car, as well as showing what efforts the EV took trying to save it.

The oil industries were about to lose huge income if the EV sales raise and they co-operated with others to stop the electric car.

---------------Lecture nine.


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One of the things discussed in the movie is how the car companies argued the use of

coal for electric cars power would create worse emissions than using fuel. Energy

experts refused this point of views as the electric train is intrinsically more, and uses

"regenerative braking" to recharge its batteries. EVs cause less pollution even if the

electrical energy comes from coal. Furthermore, the emissions of coal fired power

plants can be controlled and regulated in ways not possible for vehicles, as the

number power plants is miniscule compared to the number of gas powered vehicles.

The car companies also discussed the fact that they would not be able to meet the

standers of the "ZEV Mandate" in both the technical and the financial ways. Both car

and oil companies gained and the Federal Government managed to sue the State of

California to turn over the Mandate.

Alan Lloyd was chairman of CARB from 1999 until 2004 and he was on the head of

charge for changing the ZEV Mandate. He influenced the failing of the Mandate's

supplies on the automakers in a strong way, and gave favor to unverified technology

regarding the "hydrogen fuel cell" and "sidelined battery electric vehicles". Four

months before these decisions were made Alan Lloyd could be accused of an unfair

opinion; he became chairman of the "California Fuel Cell Partnership".

The film shows how the "Federal Government" and "oil companies" exchanged the

gas and battery electric cars with hydrogen fuel cells. Interviews with hydrogen

experts gave information why fuel cell vehicles are not possible to be accessible for

another 20 years, if ever, while battery electric technology is available now, has been

rapidly improving since the mid 1990s and is cost effective.

CARB gave some concessions to the automakers one of them was they would keep

making EVs better so it meets the communal demand. Of course, automakers were

already manipulating the public demand by putting out some poor advertisements,

using unprofessional team and exaggerating the limits of the car to potential leases.

They assumed that the vehicles had a limited driving variety of 60 miles per chargeand that customers would not want to 'pay a lot' for a car that 'does less'. This point of


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view was doubtful by others as the average daily exchange is only 29 miles, the

battery technology quickly enhanced to raise driving range outside 100 miles per

charge, and mass manufacture of the cars would further bring down the cost of

production.

US automakers have won some original concessions in the Mandate In 1999, so they

started shutting down their EV programs. GM bought the rights to the production of

the Hummer, as they saw it would bring some more money in. In 2002 the highest

Federal tax credit for an EV had been $4000. In 2003 the same tax credit for a 6000+

lbs vehicle had been $100,000. Of course, many people who worked for the "US

Federal Government Bush Administration" had been former board members or

executives of oil and car companies.

In 2004, as EV leases had expired, the car industry started taking back its EVs and

sent them to crushing services as if to remove any record of their being in the minds

of the people. Chris Payne, the film maker, took a helicopter and flew over "GM's

Proving Ground in Mesa", Arizona, and was able to record about 50 crushed EV1s.

In 2004 until 2005, there have been many rational and emotional public protests to

stop the crushing of the EVs. Seventy-eight EV1s had been found in "Burbank"

waiting to be killed. The protesters managed to make a list of 80 buyers for those

EV1s and offered GM 1.9 million dollars to put those back on the road. GM did not

react to this offer.

The movie maker gives a judgment on the suspects up for killing the electric

car:

- Suspect: Poor Battery Technology - Verdict: NOT Guilty;

- Suspect: Oil Companies - Verdict: Guilty;

-Suspect: Car Companies - Verdict: Guilty;

-Suspect: Government - Verdict: Guilty;

-Suspect: CARB - Verdict: Guilty;


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-Suspect: Consumers - Verdict: Guilty;

- Suspect: Hydrogen Fuel Cell - Verdict: Guilty.

Even though the contemporary EVs were killed, the movie ends up giving details for

the current environment since the future is being reformed when new electric and

hybrid cars are becoming more popular.

"Higher oil prices"," further entanglements in the Middle East" and the increasing

"threat of global warming" are increasing the stress to decrease the US reliance on

basic oil.

A new EV group called 'Plug-In America' is working with people across the political

range such as "National Security Hawks", "Evangelical groups" and "green groups" toannounce the Hybrid Vehicle as the green next step for green vehicle .

The movie shows that using the solar and wind powers to create the electricity would

decrease the carbon pollution of a switch EVs. Many companies are trying to get

adapted to the changes and build new cars based on energy alternatives. At this

point, Stan and Iris Ovshinsky steal the show as Stan shows off the new battery and

solar power technologies created by him that are advancing quickly although they are

not being controlled by the oil companies like in the past. Smaller car companies are

producing professional vehicles such as the "Tesla" and others are doing their own

conversions of gas cars to electric or hybrids to plug-in hybrids. Finally, we are given

a reminder of the January 2006 State of the Union Address, where George Bush

confesses that 'America is addicted to oil'.

Documents

Najla Mansour APL8000