ABSTRACT |
London
Orbital
(2002) is a documentary film about one of Europe’s largest by-passes,
the M25. Directed by Chris Petit and Iain Sinclair, the film originated
as a side project of a walk around the M25 (described in a book also
titled London Orbital) intended to purge Sinclair’s aversion to
the construction of the Millennium Dome. The directors film the road as
they drive it repeatedly, visually recreating madness and bringing up
issues of memory, boredom, surveillance or the nature of the digital
image. These and other topics are further developed when Sinclair and
his collaborators investigate the liminal territories at the edge of
London: deserted asylums, old churches, landfills, brown fields and
literary landmarks that create an alternative mapping of the M25 drawing
on futuristic literature of the past. Their intention is to disclose an
occult heritage about to disappear to market forces and redevelopment
which will eventually lead to the commodification of culture that the
film firmly resists. Sequences from the film will be shown during the
presentation.
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