Dalston installs giant outside screen for art film showing

The video installation in Gillett Square. Photo: Daisy Bowie-Sell

The video installation in Gillett Square. Photo: Daisy Bowie-Sell

The large screen video installation in Gillett Square in Dalston, which opened this week, is certainly worth wondering past. With bright, arresting colours, swirling backgrounds and skyscrapers that loom into view, passersby are treated to a striking sensory display.

Shot on local residents’ mobile phones, curator and artist Larisa Blazic, edited the images together to form the film, ‘Mezzo Moderno, Mezzo Distrutto’ (Half Modern, Half Destroyed). Considering the multitude of input it is amazing how fluidly the images merge together. This film is in essence a film for the people of Dalston by the people of Dalston.

The setting for the screening feels slightly incongruous to the chaotic images represented within the film. The screening is in the newly developed Gillett Square, which is a product itself of the redevelopment within the area and has a neat, well-planned feel. Perhaps this is a deliberate move by the organizers, as we catch a glimpse of the future within the square – the all new, well designed east London.

The film suffers from not showing the people the changing landscape actually affects, although this isn’t a huge loss. The premise of the film is to look at the architectural upheaval that Hackney is going through in the run up to the 2012 Olympic Games and this certainly comes across. We see buildings, mayhem and colour throughout and are reminded of the forcefully changing landscape which local people are having to adapt to.

If you are in Dalston over the next few days, it is great to sit outside Vortex Jazz club and bask in the weird colours reflected from the screen.

The film will run for eight hours over four nights from the evening of Wednesday 18th November, from 5pm until 1am the next day.

One Response

  1. Annie Bowie November 28, 2009

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