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The endless present utopia

Laura Cantarella

An ironic documentation of contradictions and illusions in touristic utopia.


The "present utopia" narrated in the video by Laura Cantarella is tourism considered as a way to inhabit places in an endless and yet apparent moment of happiness. In a linear sequence of shots, photographs and postcards, Cantarella observes and documents touristic locations and their everyday routine in the form of a video-reportage. The visual approach of the Italian architect and photographer - specialized in landscape and reporting - seems to alternate the tourists’ internal perspective and a more externally informed one.

Between February and April of 2005, Cantarella filmed a series of touristic cityscapes and landscapes along the Southern Spanish coast. Produced to be shown in the Spanish sector of the "The Flood" (Second International Architecture Biennal, Rotterdam, May 2005), the short film begins by showing the touristic cities of Salou, Benidorm, Torremolinos, and Marbella. The second act deeply explores the different typologies of the touristic utopia, and their contradictions and illusions, until the imaginary theme park of "the endless present utopia" where all opposites can find an ideal, artificial balance between fake Greek temples and skyscrapers.

Credits

Scripting: Laura Cantarella, Loredana Modugno
Executive production: Oscar Romagosa, Nanouk Films
Music: Bazar

Italy 2005
Duration: 20'40''

Selected for SCRIPT, the 2005 edition of the BEYOND MEDIA Festival organized by Image.