As part of Cairo’s Contemporary Image Collective’s two-part project, “Tales from the Pavement, the institute played host to Berlin-based artist and film curator, Florian Wüst. Tracing the birth and evolution of the modern city through non-fictional films, Wüst gave his audience an insightful overview of some pertinent metropolis themes articulated through the medium of film.
Focusing on the dynamics of city planning, Wüst, through insightful academic commentary on selected film excerpts, paralleled the genesis of the city with the advent of consumer society.
Making his way through the 1930s, he used the iconic 1935 Len Lye film “Birth of the Robot, to illustrate man’s ever-strong belief in mechanization and a future. The 1920s had also proven to be a period when important steps were made with photography, allowing mechanization, mass-production, capitalism and the image to define new relationships in the advent of the 1930s.
“Birth of a robot, produced by Shell oil company, played in over 300 cinemas, reaching an audience of over 3 million. Its message is that the imminent mechanization of the world as we know it was relayed by the motion picture of man and his motor car. Man, after careering into desert, runs out of oil, dying a sandy death bereft of that black gold. But after the gods take pity on him, he metamorphoses into a silver robot ready to travel the globe. The advert closes with the slogan emblazoned on the screen: “Modern worlds need modern lubrication.
“There was great faith in the redemptive power of technology, explained Wüst, “it was a technological optimism that introduced the modern age.
As Wüst explained, the marriage of functionalism and capitalism characterized this period, with film being used to propagate new living standards, both architecturally and domestically.
“A car is a machine for driving, a plane for flying, a car for living, was the lesson of Chenal and Corbusier’s “Architectures d’aujourd’hui. A 1931 piece of propaganda visually extolling the virtues of modern living, “Architectures d’aujourd’hui also an ubiquitous phenomenon of body culture, features a man in an unbearably tight swimsuit taking a few moments of light squatting with two female companions.
Corbusier himself was among the architects that organized the first International Congress of Modern Architecture, the fourth of which, held in Athens in 1933, was entitled “The Functional City.
Whilst in their early stages these visions accompanied real social concerns, as conveyed through Arthur Elton and Edgar Anstey’s 1935 “Housing Problems; one of the very first documentaries featuring ‘real’ voices, the overriding boom of consumerism soon took over.
“Of course people had their houses, and they needed appliances to fill them, explained Wüst. “The Kitchen debate between Nixon and Kruschev in 1959, encapsulates the obsession with domestic appliances. It seems ridiculous that they were not discussing some more weighty matter instead of one so trivial.
The politicization of the domestic sphere is an illustration, as Wüst points out, of its importance as a symbol of a capitalist consumerist economic system, is contrast to the Soviet communist system.
The debate occurred in the same year as the production of the film “Glimpses of the USA, which was screened at the Moscow World Fair. “It is a vast overflow of images that introduce the concept of being watched, showing all secrets and intimacies . a total union of satellite surveillance, said Wüst.
Wüst ended on a contemporary note, showing a short psycho-geographical film by two British artists Oliver Payne and Nick Relph. “Driftwood, homage to the old city of London and an exegesis into what it has become: “an information and service society. It also explores the growing trend of reclaiming the city center as a living space in contrast to suburbia. “A shift back towards the city center has started to develop, commented Wüst, “that can be seen in many major cities, and vast redevelopment is taking place such as the Docklands and Canary Wharf.
Evincing the role of art in the development of the city, Wüst’s intellectual contribution to “Tales from the Pavement was a fascinating appreciation into the dynamics of the city as a concept and the product of, among other factors, economics, human needs, and technological vision.
That is not to say that all cities are homogenous – Wüst focused on Western cities, in particular England and the US, with great perspicuity. Were someone of his caliber to take on 21st century Cairo, it would no doubt be even more richly rewarding for the Egypt-based artistic community.
