An exhibition at the Whitechapel this weekend.Phil Coy’s new work Façade constructs a journey through a topology of contemporary glass architecture. The film mixes tracking shots over the façades of buildings, with high definition architectural visualisations of the same.
Façade is a film of non-spaces and immateriality featuring the indiscernible surfaces of contemporary glass buildings, reception lobbies and glass lifts, a green screen television studio and high definition digital animations of architectural 'walkthroughs' and never-to-be-built glass buildings.
Partly referring to Sergei Eisenstein’s unmade film The Glass House, the work transfers some of the contradictions associated with Modernist architecture to the faux-modern living described by the architecture of today. The film’s opening shots, cut from archive film of 1920's plate glass manufacture, are permeated with the triumphant utilitarianism peculiar to that era. From the spirited hot house of these technological advancements in materials, and the architectural theory that developed in tandem, the film gives way to a more fantastical vision of contemporary glass architecture far removed from these egalitarian origins.
Working with a production film crew and TV news presenter Julia Somerville and collaborating with architectural visualisation specialists Miller Hare,Façade's production process implements the tools and hierarchical systems associated with corporate media production in order to break down the constituent parts of that system.
Façade is a single screen work commissioned by Arts Council England through Film London Artists' Moving Image Network, Whitstable Biennale and Futurecity, with co-support from the BFI National Archive, National Glass Centre, Miller Hare, Pilkington Group Ltd and Foggo Associates.
Coy is a Film London Artists’ Moving Image Network (FLAMIN) Productions Fund awardee 2009.
Phil Coy also presents a screening and talk at the Whitechapel Gallery on Thursday 30 September.
James
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