“The ones who are a real danger are the self-contained types
like you.”
Taking this quote from the film ‘High Rise’ has made me
think more about my project and the direction I would like to go in. My
fascination with tower blocks, from my early childhood in Warsaw to seeing them
looming over horizons wherever I am in London, made ‘High Rise’ seem like the
perfect film to push further my ideas.
However over the past few weeks, while researching the
subject, I have felt as if I am going too far down the wrong path. Despite my
interest in huge buildings, living conditions, communist-era architecture and
so on, I have come to the realisation that I enjoy my work more when it is
focused more on the individual. My idea of a future London with tower blocks
ringed around the perimeter was meant to show how individuals would live,
however I feel the scale of the idea makes these observations less effective,
not so personal.
As a result I have taken the step of altering my idea and
focus on one person. It will still be a commentary on how people live, and will
still be a ‘science fiction’ piece, however I am keen to infuse it with a sense
of deadpan absurdity, not unlike the work of Luis Bunuel.
I have taken the concept of a ‘self-contained’ person and am
revisiting an idea I had a while ago about a man increasingly cutting himself
off from the world but still attempting to live a normal life. It was initially
a comment on social media, but having taken the advice of one of my tutors and
read Jean Baudrillard essay, ‘The Ecstasy of Communication’, I am enthusiastic
about making it into a piece on the tension between how we live and how we
would like to live.
Notes on a narrative of a man who isolates himself
Scene from Luis Bunuel's 'Exterminating Angel', a film where
a group of people are unable to leave the drawing room of a house,
for no apparent reason.
El ángel exterminador (The Exterminating Angel) (1962) Directed by Luis Bunuel [Film]. Mexico: Producciones Gustavo Alatriste
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