video still
New Babylon, 2004
- description: Video loop for projection (1:30)
New Babylon was inspired by Alexandre Medvedkin’s New Moscow (1939), where virtual renderings of Stalin’s Moscow were played in reverse so that the old city replaces the new. The source for my video, is a 3-D fly-through bootlegged from a Beijing real estate development sales office. The purpose of the original video was to celebrate decadence and to entice potential condominium buyers with Beijing’s modernization. My version plays the promotional video in reverse with grainy artifacts, producing an oppositional meaning by showing the destruction of a major highway and the collapse of a high-rise apartment building complex.