Ella Raidel
‘Somewhere, late afternoon…’_ Video_11 Min., 2007, Channel_A
The Making of 'Somewhere, late afternoon...', Buffalow Meadow, Taipei 2007, Camera: Jake Pollock
An architecture model is used to represent a typical living space found commonly in Taipei. The video image refers to the space of traditional
Chinese landscape paintings as an entry point to probe the relations of nature and culture, and is set up in the contemporary milieu of
Taipei’s urban space. The setup suggests the model as a real building well placed into the oriental landscape, suggesting a harmonious
and ideal relation to the nature. Florescent lights turn on and off in the building and the camera slowly unfold the building complex partially
in order to celebrate the seduction of dwelling in such space and its surrounding. The buildings appear slowly out of the landscape and merge
in darkness to create an act of pure gaze onto the projected image. What rendered is not a complete picture of the building, but a partially
seen object, visualizing the desire of living in contemporary times.
General_
Asian cities are changing themselves to a new face within a relatively short period of time,due to the initiation of modernization and of global economy.
Taipei, without exception, is morphing: buildings are torn down, residential areas are expanding,cities are built in hyper-modernism beyond any
pre- nor post-postmodern, and local histories collide. Any buildings, which where just build, look outdated after a relative short while.
Taipei seems in a hurry the new has replaced the old, and the progressive, the traditional. The surface of the populated city has expanded and sky-raised:
ot only the transformation from the nature to the culturally urban, but also the gardening of concretes, steers, and glasses in artificial landscape.
As a result of spacing among city, the living radically juxtaposes with the dead; the consuming and the leisure activity are cluttered right in front of rumps,
highways, and massive transport systems.