Part experimental documentary, part music video, COMMUTE is an immersive audio-visual installation, focusing a lens on the interlaced magic and horror of contemporary city life. Filmed and recorded in Berlin’s metro system during the 2020-2022 lockdowns, COMMUTE presents a haunted and horrifying public space in which all connections are confused, shut down, or failing. As society becomes increasingly virtual, what happens to the public spaces that are left behind? Who and what are “we” and our shared surroundings when we only experience ourselves as “I”?
A HAUNTED
DREAM SEQUENCE THROUGH
SUBTERRANEAN SUBCONSCIOUS
TRANSIT
Utilizing four video projections and ambisonic sound, COMMUTE follows two Berliners sharing an unknown connection on a journey through the city’s metro system. Disoriented and distressed by their environment, the commuters navigate six ‘public’ spaces that have divided into collections of individual networks: private and privatized shelters from which to observe and be observed.
ARE YOU AWARE OF THE LONELINESS SITTING NEXT TO YOU?
Each broken space is its own environment to be reassembled, assimilated and understood. Images and sounds whisper in and out like ghosts, in fragments and glimpses, confusing the Commuters’ sense of time and space, as well as their own identities. As they dive deeper into the underground labyrinth, their strange connection only grows, suggesting an opportunity for escape - or oblivion
Shot and composed over two years of lockdown, this autobiographical work offers a fragmented perspective on our public partitioning. As an immersive, abstract simulation of commuting, each film screening creates both a relatable daily journey as well as a shared meta-public space, within which its viewers can reflect on their own relationship to the city and its citizens
DO YOU KNOW THAT DOWNHERE YOUR
FACE IS
MY FACE?
COMMUTE proposes that while we are conditioned to believe in ultimate personal freedom through our exchanges in digital space, we are ultimately, inevitably kept alive solely by our relationships in physical space - even as we share in each other’s alienation.
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CREDITS
video :: indexthumb
audio :: viewfinder
project manager: vale titakis
website + design :: indexthumb + vale titakis
installation space :: Coaxial, LA
previous installations :: IKSK, Berlin