#072 Arteries of Asphalt, Veins of Steel
This programme was curated by Victor Evink in 2019, as part of his internship at IMPAKT.
In the mid-1960s, as the automobile began to reshape European infrastructure on an unprecedented scale. The Swedish Geographer Torsten Hägerstrand first described practical distance as a function of the time it takes to get from A to B, including additional constraints such as the cost and ease of travel.
To the mind, there isn’t much difference between getting on a train, a car or, especially, a plane (although commuters in traffic jams may object) and teleportation: the enclosed microcosm of the vehicle moving through space with a speed otherwise out of reach for the human body, contracts the physical reality and brings infrastructural hubs (big cities) close by, while pushing isolated areas away.
Films in this programme
Besenbahn
Dietmar Offenhuber
(US 2001, 09:45 mins)
(US 2001, 09:45 mins)
Kaleidoscopic portrait of view on and from the car, morphing into road and highway structures, visualising the car as the basis of scale...
Hoog Catharijne
Henk Gomersbach
(NL 1968, 09:15 mins)
(NL 1968, 09:15 mins)
Commercial impression of the realisation of the mall around Utrecht Central Station to be built as the epitome of Dutch post-war urban...
Hong Kong
Gerard Holthuis
(NL 1999, 18:21 mins)
(NL 1999, 18:21 mins)
Landing planes flying eerily low above Hong Kong’s highrises, filmed from street level, creating a visceral experience of scale.
Interior New York Subway
Billy Bitzer
(US 1905, 05:38 mins)
(US 1905, 05:38 mins)
The camera follows the chart of the New York metro through the dark tunnels, while the visual noise gives a psychedelic effect, as if...
Departure
Lin + Lam
(US 2004, 49:54 mins)
(US 2004, 49:54 mins)
Experimental artistic documentary visualising urban transportation in several Asian metropoles, while narrating the history of...