Binding Lights
‘Binding Lights’ is a short experimental film about the personification of the Auckland CBD during the late hours of the night.
The film itself is an encapsulation what the city is on a personified level, but not through it’s population, but through the static presence of architecture and advertising. Filmed during the late hours of the night, once the majority of the population were removed from the situation and the absence of natural sunlight, it becomes abundantly the impact artificial lighting has on the city.
Through artificial lighting, the city literally begins to make light of how it wants to be portrayed, whether this be through the bombardment of neon advertisements, the lighting of architecture it deems beautiful or simply lighting up areas to create a sense of safety.
But much like humans portray themselves on various social networking sites, the city places higher emphasis on illuminating areas that are deemed worthy, and lesser to no illumination on the areas that the city wishes to draw your attention away from.
Filmed using a similar setup to Stereostopic 3D, this allows to present the film in a unique way that allows the use of experimental framing, by doing this the viewer can see very different levels of detail from two different streams of video. This helps place emphasis on the well illuminated and lesser illuminated areas simultaneously by allowing the viewer to see the same area, from two different levels of zoom.
The background sounds from the footage are left by most part in tact, as the noises created by the population that reside within the city an essential part of the piece. Because despite the film being about the prominence of selective lighting, the city is also personified by the noises that are made within it, but not to the same selective effect of artificial lighting.
Music: ‘VCR’ by The XX
