CONTROL GAME
Video:2'20"
In the 1980s, the architect Ricardo Bofill designed L’espace d’Abraxas in the eastern outskirts of Paris. The concept of ​​his architecture was to create a utopian city which mixes middle class and working class in this residence of about 250 apartments. In architectural form,this work is evocative an ancient ampitheatre and the building’s envelope takes the form of a half sunken cylinder at its centre. The scale and the form of the building creates a forced sense of collectivity. However, the aim of the architect to achieve a utopian community has not been realised. In fact, what has been created is a monoculture, that lacks the dynamism of the original concept, and is now one of the most deprived estates in the eastern suburbs of Paris.
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There is a contradiction between the concept and the realisation, which is clearly seen when viewing the the building from the front. This incoherence intrigues me. It reminds me of the mass media of today, such as video. Using the resources from the internet, such as screen-shots, image downloads and found footage, everyone is able to reassemble them into their own original story. This has nothing to do with the original purposes of those images. In turn, media content may well be violent according to the original concept of their producers. In sympathy with these phenomena, I made this video combining material from daily life with footage from Youtube, reediting and recomposing them to show a fake power and massive psychological control.