Coping (with) Mechanisms, 2019
Screening Programme, Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism, South Korea
‘Low Text - 5: Commercials’, Am Flutgraben, Berlin, Germany
‘Technology & Creativity’, Nordic Winter Symposium, Nida Art Colony, Lithuania
HD Single-channel video (6’)
There is a legendary tale that poet Guy de Maupassant, who detested the Eiffel Tower, would eat lunch in its restaurant every day, because it was the only place in Paris where one could avoid seeing the iconic structure. The question of how to hide from towers, and how skyscrapers can invade our personal and private space, frames this essay film, exploring the patriarchal symbolism of the architectural form and the self-advertising nature of the capitalist power structure. The work's consideration of adaptations between humans and mechanisms speculates, additionally, on the possibility for subversion in relation to the building structure and in a wider political sense. London, Paris, and Detroit currently locate the thought exercise of evading these tall buildings; various means of ‘coping’ are in evidence. Architecture, in this case, is conceptualised as a lens and mirror to society and human behaviour.
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