City similarities

Video installation from Hanz and Katarina

In a cooperation we recorded visual similarities of Hong Kong and Zurich. We filmed before and after our visits, in each town, together and separately. We mixed imagination with real perception. What do the different scenes of these two places tell us? What are the similarities?

Our search for what is similar in regard to urban structures, public transport and social interaction in public space finally enabled us to discern the subtle differences that only surface by direct comparison and juxtaposition.

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Hans’s report

After my discussion with Katarina, we have finalized some main ideas of our work.

Our concept is doing  ‘city similarity’ of Hong Kong and Zurich. We will shoot the footages in our own city separately. Though it is very risky but it is believe that we will find something beyond our imagination in this kind of cooperation.

The definition of ‘city similarity’ is finding the visual similarity of Hong Kong and Zurich. What we would like to discover is not only the similarity of cityscape, people’s behaviour, but also the culture, politic condition and social issue behind what we see and record. Personally it will be amazing to see the non-similarity or similarity in ‘city similarity’.

For me the video sources may not included first-handed footages only, but also the source from broadcasting media too. It is because I believe that people’s culture is strongly affected by media.

Furthermore, We thought about how to present the piece. We got a first rough idea, which is present our work as a video installation. Personally, I prefer use programming to match the footages from Hong Kong and Zurich, then present them in two separated screen. And of course, we are still thinking another way to present. we still discussing about it.

p.s. I’ll start to shoot some footage in the middle of December.