URBAN SURFING II B/w

This work confronts the spectator with a contemporary vision of the city. It is the result of an investigation of the borders of psychological perception of the urban environment while at the same time exploring and testing the frontiers of the language of video as the medium for its artistic representation. The project operates in the zone of conflict between the perception of a real documentary image of the urban environment, the common knowledge about it and individual, ever changing memories.

It is an attempt to translate the perceived energy from the city into an energized perception of the city. In many ways like the energy of the ocean is perceived in its waves and while surfing you are not enjoying the view but in actual fact sensing and using this energy. Thus, the accelerated navigation of urban dwellers through the cityscape, like surfing on an ocean wave, leaves them, focused as they are on their daily duties, only time for the associative scanning of striking details and the landmarks linked with it. As a result the generally accepted concept of a city as a clearly structured architectural ensemble gives way to a dynamic, fragmentary and individual perception of the urban environment.

Video fragments from Tokyo and Paris are united into one powerful stream. The initially continuous, almost meditative movement is covered by an enormous wave of images that invades the entire surface of the screen. By the force of gravitation as it were, the images overlap, rescale, regroup, disintegrate into separate parts and establish new formations. Recognizable and logical architectural elements are transformed into abstract structures. Some realistic details are missing, some are misplaced or set in another context and then, just as a wave, scatter into tiny fragments. The audio stream changes according to the same principle and strengthens the effect of movement.

This video forms part of an ongoing project, URBAN SURFING, each separate series of which may be compared to a wave.