Mirror City Timelapse (Shainblum, 2013)

Edward Steichen, Sunday Night, 40th Street, 1925.

Hace cinco años vi Koyaanisqatsi (Reggio, 1982): la ciudad, lo urbano, y el frenesí humano..."life out of balance." No tiene diálogo; sólo imágenes y música. Sin embargo cuenta muy bien lo que somos, producto de dos avances tecnológicos--sin los cuales la Revolución Industrial del S.XIX, o la Revolución Informática del S.XX, no hubiesen sido posibles--: la escritura y la agricultura. Koyaanisqatsi es un largometraje hipnótico que, en una de sus escenas más emblemáticas, compara un microchip setentoso con el tejido de la ciudad. La película da cuenta de la poética en el caos que es la experiencia humana.

El cortometraje que cuelgo en este post, continúa la obra maestra de Reggio en Koyaanisqatsi. La pieza se titula Mirror City Timelapse. Las palabras de su autor, Michael Shainblum, son las mejores para describir el corto:

"When I first started Mirror City, I wanted to create a video that was completely out of the norm. I wanted to showcase something unique and artistic, which takes Timelapse photography into a more abstract direction. Mirror City is a visual story through some of the great American cities: Chicago, San Francisco, San Diego, Las Vegas and Los Angeles. These clips were all processed from their original form, into the kaleidoscopic visuals that you see in this video. Many people visit these large cities every day, and all of these places have been shot and filmed, but I wanted to emulate these urban landscapes in a way that nobody has even seen before. I wanted to put man-made geometric shapes, mixed with elements of color and movement to create less of a structured video, and more of a plethora of visual stimulation. The video starts off with simple mirrors and recognizable architecture, as the video progresses, so does the visual stimulation, showing the real abstraction of the piece. I have worked on this piece for an extremely long amount of time. I have spent time mirroring images and videos for the past five years, and I have been working on this specific piece for about four months. I felt it was time to combine Timelapse photography and the simplicity of a kaleidoscope, and create Mirror City."

Mirror City Timelapse from Michael Shainblum on Vimeo.