This film series centers on the vital interconnections that form our built environments, from imposing giants to the often intangible elements that shape our landscapes and mediate our daily lives. In the age of the Anthropocene, these 'infrastructural beings'—networks of human and non-human spatialized materialities—appear as outsized mosaics, born out of decimation and extraction, some abandoned and others taking shape. They reflect not only the sheer accumulation of concrete, cables, and conduits, and the excavation of the earth in pursuit of energy, but also collective and ruptured histories, subjectivities, and politics.
From dozens of countries and vantage points, filmmakers in this series explore infrastructure through experimentation and research, science fiction, large productions, video art, dance, animation, and architectural renderings. Its a diversity that captures the vastness of infrastructure—its elusive, subjective impacts, meanings, and practices, and its global patterns and shared identities.
Curated by Veronica Jacome
Views From Home: Facing North is a short video first shown as part of Edie Steiner's 2014 exhibition at Gallery 44 Members Space, Toronto, and the recordings continued until a key element in the frame, the site of Ford York, is no longer visible. The project explores the changing view from the filmm
In 'And The Roads Abandoned Their Ends in The Dark' Yasaman Alipour narrates her memories from Iran, her home for twenty-six years, that resurfaced after a visit to Owens Lake in California. The memories are fading away piece by piece, the same as her sense of identifying anywhere as her home after
What was once a simple, Spartan hut in wood and metal sheeting, designed to shelter passing climbers, has today become a cutting edge structure. New forms of architecture high in the mountains seek a strong relationship with the landscape, deliberately contrasting with the environment, to the extent
When we die, there are still some practicalities that need to be taken care of before our time among the living is finally over. In Meanwhile on Earth we enter the world around our end station, an industry of death. It is a place where the existential meets the mundane, the sacred meets the profane.
In 2052, a man wanders through a semi-constructed high rise in pursuit of hidden targets, in a minimalist rethinking of Blade Runner.
HOMO SAPIENS is a film about the finiteness and fragility of human existence and the end of the industrial age, and what it means to be a human being. What will remain of our lives after we're gone? Empty spaces, ruins, cities increasingly overgrown with vegetation, crumbling asphalt: the areas we c
Paris-La Défense, the business district. From the 17th floor of an office building, Pierre is staring out the window: down below, a colleague who was dismissed that morning has been sitting on a bench for hours, alone in the cold. Why won't he go home? From the heights of his office, Pierre w
Known as the "Springboard of Death," the single-lane unpaved road that connects the town of San Francisco to the city of Mocoa in Putumayo has been the site of hundreds of deaths caused by landslides, washouts, and all types of vehicular accidents. An unfinished bridge should have provided a bypass
"Where the City and Water Meet" is a film of interest to those who like to trace urban history or restore its heritage, and to those who plan cities professionally or advocate the citizen's view of planning. It is for sailors, swimmers, stollers, indeed anyone who has felt that special attraction to
The materiality of infrastructure space that relates to production and supply of energy resources in the Baltic States is explored through five material assemblies. The film is composed as sedimentary process reading through the layers of material space that is defining condition of the Baltic State
White flashes in the dark of the night. As though etched out, dabbed in. Flickering specters, ghostly visions. A veritable phantom ride, a film of tension. In carte noire , Michaela Grill's sinister road movie miniature, she continues her cinematic movement from an object's abstraction to its aliena
What does research feel like? How does the place where knowledge is created shape the knowledge itself? And what knowledges remain neglected because we cannot transform them into written words? Academia has become a precarious work environment in which it is difficult to gain a foothold and pursue a
Mined, extracted, and woven, asbestos was the magic mineral. Towns became cities under its patronage, Persian kings entertained guests with its fireproof nature, and centuries of industry raked in the profits of its global application. We now live in the remains of this toxic dream, a dream that wit
When you are a child, you imagine that toys and furniture come to life as soon as you look away. Freud calls this phase "magical thinking" when one half hopes and half fears that things are able to keep a secret from us. In her short film series "Recyclers," animation artist and sound designer Nikki
The Minnesota Experimental City would use the newest technologies in communications, transport, energy supply, pollution control – even domed enclosure – in an attempt to create more livable cities and an improved environment for the 21st Century.
Citylife 2, a video emphasizing the abstract nature of the geometry so prevalent in the contemporary urban grid. Shooting at night, the splices and overlays of the illuminated train cars, streetlights and window reflections create a vocabulary of images in a video collage that becomes a meditation o
The film depicts the lives of the two sole residents of an abandoned company town while unfolding a complex labour history and revealing the vestiges of environmental degradation. Combining large format cinematography and an inquiry into the archival record, it interlaces past and present. In the 35
In TASTE OF CEMENT, Ziad Kalthoum composes a striking essay on what it means to live in exile in a war-torn world with no possibilities to return home. In this poetic, observational film, director Ziad Kalthoum takes us into the lives of Syrian construction workers rebuilding post-war Beirut. Their
The Depth Beneath, The Height Above consists in an exploration of the high alpine region of Robiei, southern Switzerland. Conceived as a sensory piece, the film particularly focuses on the existing relationships between the humans, animals, infrastructural and natural elements that compose Robiei's
The ongoing environmental clean-up of the Superfund designated Gowanus Canal is good news, but what poisonous consequences have emerged in the process? Flotsam is a short expereimental film that imagines a present where living, working, and playing in or near the Gowanus is not a threat to human and
Tropical fruits and vegetables radiate on a blizzard-struck street corner in Brooklyn, NY. A visual oxymoron, tugging at the edge of an interconnected and collapsing global order.
Detecting the unseen patterns of weave codes, datasets, and orchestrated gestures, Patterns Against Workers renders visible the entanglements of economic, political, and engineering forces, which manifest in the operating systems of our glowing screens. By delving deep into the histori-cal-material
After the largest mining dam breaks in history, further dam collapses threaten millions in Brazil. A state counselor confronts the government's modus operandi, while dam refugees resist the mining companies' abuses in their threatened communities.
Two Texas sisters fled to the metaverse at the onset of the pandemic, creating The Enclave, a cyber-haven for 'like-minded women'. Years later, the suburb is on the verge of bankruptcy, and owner Moni Calvioni is crowdfunding to save her digital utopia. With no awareness of online culture, she and h
"Janus" is a performance piece created by Matter Design and CEMEX Global R&D, inspired by the Roman god of thresholds who looks both to the past and the future. This animated double concrete sculpture debuted at the American Academy in Rome, embodying Janus through a performance that combines sonic
The lives, dreams and destinies of extraordinary characters unfold amidst the ruins of a semi- abandoned mining town.
COSMOSAPIENS charts the intersection of astrophysics and existentialism. Faced with the magnitude of the Universe, a group of scientists who live and work at the Special Astrophysical Observatory, located in an isolated village in the Caucasian Mountains, seek meaning through science, philosophy, an
An experimental documentary, The Lanthanide Series examines the materiality of the digital world, combining approaches of non-fiction narrative essay, abstract visual and sound exploration, and the history of black mirrors. Each chapter of the film is based on one of the fifteen metallic chemical el
Set in a mineral landscape, a man collects minerals and struggles to get them to the summit of Crassier. Alone, he continues the absurd struggle to keep this artificial mountain growing.
"Cityscape" is an impressionistic documentary film intended to create a social awareness of the need to design safer cities and urban environments for women.
Created alone in the desert, imaginary structures are built and destroyed through seeking out the edges of an unknown landscape. We keep finding ourselves at the center of something. Shot on a LomoKino, 35mm to digital
High school student and poet, Chasity Hunter, experienced intense flooding in her New Orleans neighborhood during both Hurricane Katrina and recent summer rainstorms. Inspired to find out how safe her city really is, she investigates her city's infrastructure and questions water experts, finding her
Elements is a continuation, both stylistically and programmatically, of Luukkaankangas – updated, revisited (2004) . In this work data images animated in loops on the Web site "Alaska Weather Camera Program" show occupied terrains in deserts of ice. At the same time Elements does not make refe
Three young squatters set out to occupy an abandoned bank. While waiting for the period to elapse from which they will be able to assert their right to domiciliation, they invest the building with their memories and performative games.
The video Luukkaankangas – updated, revisited deals with the traffic landscape of the motor highways and motorways in Finnland. They represent the dispositiv of today's mobility that implicates a specific understanding of space. They form transit spaces without defining a historical or geograp
A voyage into the far west of Brazil leads us to a monumental structure - petrified at the centre of the savannah. Inspired by the epic construction of the city of Brasília, the film uses this history to imagine it otherwise. Through the geological traces that lead us to this monument, the fi
Spatial Bodies depicts the urban landscape and architectural bodies as an autonomous living and self replicating organism. Domesticated and cultivated only by its own nature. A vast concrete vegetation, oscillating between order and chaos. Influenced by the Japanese Metabolism movement in the 60's a
Finding access to the deeper levels and truths of a stretch of land via the surreal, the digitally alienated. Thus is the aim behind Lukas Marxt's Imperial Irrigation , whereby digital surrealism is anchored in an experimental documentary intent, while text and sound levels snarl the multiple layers
An experimental scifi documentary focusing on the question of what will remain visible and what will be left to tell if humans vanish from the world, from the image. Landscapes and architecture become mummified relics of a former human presence.
A trip behind and beneath the street-level skin of the city on the hidden paths of industrial history and once-and-future transit. The Triboro Line is a 24-mile freight rail in New York City, spanning from the Brooklyn Army Terminal in Bay Ridge, to Co-Op City in the Bronx. Once largely a passenger
A brief introductory video to the virtual reality project Temporal World by artist Chloé Lee, which reveals her process of creating a personal virtual world that evokes the ephemerality of memory. "Temporal World" is a VR experience in which artist Chloé Lee reflects on making meaning
The catastrophe is tirelessly repeated in Hollywood cinema. The genre of the disaster movie hints at the collective psyche of the respective historical epochs. The perspective of a postmodern longing for moments of spectacular destruction, which briefly interrupts the dull monotony in late capitalis
'Construction Lines' is a short speculative documentary animation about the proposed interior of a London 'iceberg' home (a home where the sub-ground levels are larger than the house above). The project was initiated by David Graham, a Canadian billionaire, who is the owner of the original property
SAFSTOR contrasts the physical presence of the Three Mile Island power plant with the memories of local residents of the partial meltdown on March 28, 1979. The film explores archival materials and the contemporary landscape around the plant to provoke reflections on the unintended consequences of o
Filmmaker Reid Davenport, a past honoree of DOC NYC's 40 Under 40 showcase, creates a diaristic portrait of his life, at times from his wheelchair. Candid and unsentimental, Davenport captures quotidian moments of human connection and frustration on the streets of Oakland. When a circus tent goes up
Anna, who has moved abroad, returns for a few days to Barcelona. Back in her home city, she is haunted by her past love Alex as she walks through the neighborhood in which they used to live. However, mass tourism has greatly transformed the city, and, when Anna discovers that their old apartment is
Who owns the archive of affectionate gestures? Technology companies have been patenting gestures for many years - some of them some of which we have been using for more than a decade. To navigate and communicate with the interface, users must inevitably learn these corporate-developed gestures and m
In the blue hues of dawn, by a stationary merry-go-round, young people stagger home as workers in suits make their way to work. Radio Maputo Nakuzandza, 5:15 am: the first lights of day illuminate this magnificent opening shot. After immersing us in the daily life of the great city of Maputo, capita
"Beirut Terminus" explores the notions of borders, identity and belongingness, within a perpetually troubled region of the world. Using Lebanon's discarded railway and what's left of its deserted infrastructure as its core scenery, the film interweaves personal and historical facts while taking a co
A bridge with an arched metal structure stretching over it is visible on a white field. The colors are subdued gray and black, various shades of brown, blue and green though they seem quite intense on the light background. The places connected by the bridge arent visible; portrayed as an isolat
A kommunalka in a city center of Saint-Peterburg : seven rooms, a shared kitchen, long corridors. Between yesterday and today : a few hours of the life of its inhabitants.
Maria disappeared in Metropolis. Back in the city Freder remembers moments they spent together. He wanders in hoping to see her again.
A metallic tetrahedron floats through a milky abyss. All is calm – until this geometric form suddenly deconstructs, atomizing into billions of fragments. What was once a negative space is now dense with chaos. All that was rational and understood has come undone. This is the beginning of a jou
Join us as we explore long forgotten infrastructure in the midst of America's urban sprawl. First episode takes place in North Philadelphia, set to the beats of Hungarian hip hop producer, Modus. Our objective is to simply document what we see, and craft a minimal story with the aid of music and col
What parts of us are readable - in so-called books of life, in today's black boxes – and by whom? CODE OR CHRYSALIS is a film based on research about the imaginaries, obsessions and amnesias that surround DNA, often dubbed the ‚Code of Life'. It looks into science histories and fictions,
A mining town waits for economic recovery while physicists under their feet wait for answers from the universe.
The video "River A" presents the connection between cities and nature. The city is viewed from the river in a continuous loop. The colors and the shapes change, transitioning between the moods of very mellow to intense, thereby showing this constant relation between the river and the city is at time
In the near future, two army officers are sent to guard the Zone in Recovery (ZIR) in the Cap d'Agde, a protected and deserted place where biodiversity can regenerate itself. Together they'll discover the ruins of a bygone world.
A meditation and a reverie upon a city at once real and imagined. Conceptualized as a documentary on the ZUP buildings in France, the film has instead found form as poetic & expansive confrontation with the psycho-geography of a contemporary Europe in crisis. A requiem for a city dreamt between its
The short film "The Dismantling of Baveuse City" presents the behind-the-scenes process of creating a musical album entitled "Bienvenue à Baveuse City" - a world of colorful and playful beginnings invented by the rapper Marie-Gold.
McKnelly MegalithCarving starting around 1100 A.D., the Moai of Rapa Nui (Easter Island) weigh up to 82 tons apiece. When Dutch explorers discovered this pacific island in 1722, they wondered at these megalithic figures, asking the inhabitants how their ancestors possibly moved the statues from quar
Antoine is moving with his mother and little brother in a modern tower with green walls and a sustainable, self-sufficient architecture. In great psychological distress, he feels like a stranger to this new environment.
Landshaft sketches the psychogeography of a geopolitically charged landscape and its inhabitants in eastern Armenia. A journey through extractivism, war and displacement.
The City and the Self is a study of human relations in the city, based on psychological concepts formulated by Stanley Milgram. The City and the Self examines city dwellers' perceptions of their city and their behavior in created situations. This compelling film, combining both art film and document
Tehran Recyclers portrays the diverse cultural, social and urban fabrics of this metropolis by means of experimental animation. In the urban hideouts of this city, little creatures come to life. These are digitally composed with collected waste from the streets and typical local products. The clatte