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City combines
the influences of Japanese anime Akira, hard-edged urban fashion
design, and Stephen Hawkings futuristic worldview, charting a dark path
through the contemporary urban environment.
Rendered in the cool grey palette of the season, the painted text in
CITY echoes the bleak monotony of the post-industrial landscape. Whereas
historically it was believed possible to observe a city objectively
from outside of its walls, this ubiquitous urban environment is suffocating
in its harmonious hierarchy. CITY's synthesized narrator can
no longer imagine a position outside of the city from which it can be
viewed in its entirety, and dreams instead of its violent apocalyptic
destruction. The disembodied digital voice wistfully imagines a nostalgic
future where we are "free to choose for ourselves," inhabited
by a humanity of pure energy and unbridled power. In Akira this
vision is realised as an idyllic silent void, a techno-womb where we
drift endlessly amidst the superfluous rubble of the city.
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