Center, Ring, Mall
Mateo VEGA
- Netherlands
- 2023
- 17min
- 12 +
- DCP
- color/black and white
Korean Premiere
Synopsis
A multi-vocal triptych through peripheral sites of urban infrastructure: a data center, a ring road, and a run-down mall. All three sites were built with certain worldviews: visions of the future and US-influenced promises of progress that didn't turn out to be the utopias they pre-sented themselves as. Through a site-specific soundtrack, 16mm and 3D images, the spaces and their implications are subjectively mapped, poeticized and questioned. A poetic materialism of decay, renewal, remembering.
Review
The film uses Amsterdam’s data centers, ring roads, and old shopping malls as symbols of capitalistic promises. These symbols reflect the concepts of the modern city for network, transportation, and consumption. The camera work geometrically captures these urban infrastructure structures, and it creates abstract rhythm and delivers their political-economic characteristics. The narration speculates on promises and failures in the prosperity of modern society. The sense of decline in capitalism and aspiration for different flows develop impressively through sensuous thoughts.
Director
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Mateo VEGA
A filmmaker, artist, and organizer (he/they) based in Amsterdam. Born in 1994 in Lima, Peru and moved to Amsterdam as a child. Hold a BA in film and philosophy from Amsterdam University College and The New School, and an MFA in Moving Image from the Sandberg Institut. The starting point of my work is often the subjective experience of (urban) space, and the politics, histories and futurities embedded in landscapes, architecture, and infrastructure.