or
or
or pick a random keyword:

Porta Nuova

Stefano Santamato

What type of living species inhabit the city of Expo 2015?


This provocative and original video by Stefano Santamato and Francesco Lonardi offers an interesting new perspective and an effective occasion to reflect on the architectural complex in the Porta Nuova district in Milan and on the way it interacts with the existing environment and the population.

A voice-over description, its sound and accents similar to a Discovery-Channel-style documentary about nature, is the ironic background to the black-and-white live-footage frames that portray a cold, almost desert new urban scenario, where any spontaneous relationship with nature seems to have been cut off, or only artificially recreated from scratch (such as in the Wheatfield project, conceived by American artist Agnes Denes). This fake documentary - which also seems a kind of parody of the everyday life of the contemporary human being - wisely outlines the contrast between this new part of the city and the surrounding cityscape as an unbridgeable gap. The new development also has determined a new image of the city or - as Stefano Boeri calls it - the image of an "anti-city", that has altered the relationship between the population and public space as it was perceived in the past and is profoundly different from the previous image of this important area, with the inevitable consequence of a deep feeling of estrangement for its inhabitants.

The short film - produced and published by Gizmo - uses a creative, effective and understandable narrative style to involve a wider audience and to introduce original elements in a discussion on this new development, one of the most important poles of the new city of Milan and one of the numerous interventions that has transformed the urban environment, as the city is about to welcome visitors for Expo 2015.

Credits

Author: Francesco Lonardi
Mentioned projects: Porta Nuova development
Project location: Milan, Italy
Production: Gizmo
Voice: Matteo De Mojana

Italy 2015
Duration: 3'17''