Manifesto Stadtmosphère

Ecoterrorists currently instrumentalize the planet’s “resources” to fuel and construct their vast groundbreaking residential metropolises connected with veins and arteries to transport vessels from A to B and back again: nature's is becoming slower and less effective with regard to their gigantic abilities to transform the Earth‘s landmasses and waters into a cultural tapestry consisting of alienating exciting amusement parks.
You can see the parks’ brightly shining beacons from any possible location, hypnotizing the peoples outside. These are the park’s entrances: humans, pets and potted plants only. (And well, some microbes are allowed.) Once you’re inside you’ll be abducted into the maelstrom..

Party people, everywhere
hands in the air, like we just don’t care
move your feet, to the beat
c’mon everybody, let’s follow our lead

(repeat)

The park's exits: virtually inexistent. Once you’re in the labyrinths, you’ll be hooked. You won’t have to think about leaving: you’ll immediately feel at Home. Soon there won’t be any entrances left, thanks to our self-reliant infallible Agents, who develop and renew the experience according to the masses’ tastes. Internal decay of the armour will then be monitored proactively: bad corroded teeth will efficiently be extracted without anyone noticing it.

How detached can humans become from nature? There’s clearly no escape from the Wild. We are an integral part of nature, yet many – “citizens of civilisations” - deny the animal inside and rationalize their existence.

I ask myself: where are the Romantics?, people embracing the amorphous ruins, the overgrown shelters, and the vibrant jungle. They continue to live on the boundaries of the comfort zones, exploring discomfort, slowing down the pace of culturization. Watching from their hideouts they observe and record - for culture's sake - what is happening.

In the end it’s all organic: the Force of nature always wins, there’s no question about it. Generation upon generation we all know this. Still we walk on..

XZhi(March 2007)


Stadtmosphère is an ongoing project by XZhi with the city as its object, its source material.

The medium of choice for the project is video, and operated by a human. In practice this means this human has to switch on a video camera by sufficiently pressing the Rec(ord)-button - mostly a round red one – aim the camera and move its body. The video camera is then used as a device to capture, to sample sequences of city - visuals and sounds - during planned and spontaneous trips by foot and partly by using human transportation technology.

These voyages are later manipulated and/or left intact during the editing phase: chaos & order and form & content can be both manipulated and left untouched in order to create a world (city) of its own.

Case studies:

-Genève (2004)
-Wien (2006)