A World In Ruins

“The term dystopia arises in opposition to the concept of utopia, the place where everything is as it should be. Dystopia, not only indicates denial but also alteration, is, therefore, the antithesis of the perfect society, a completely undesirable place product of the failures of «progress». » Travel to the end of the city. Leonardo Lippolis In July 1972, the residential urban complex of Pruitt-Igoe, a “Lecorbusian” dwelling unit, built on the outskirts of Saint-Louis (Missouri) by the architect Minoru Yamasaki between 1952 and 1955, was blown up in the air. petition of its inhabitants, a mass of peasants forced to urban immigration. Criticism dated that moment as the liberation of architecture from the pedagogical role imposed by post-war II functionalism. Capital had decided that the only functions of contemporary life were to produce, rest-consume, inhabit, and circulate rapidly. This system of integral control of bodies and minds, inherited from industry and prison and embellished through technological and consumer comfort. Chance, bad luck, or a precise sign of the times, more than thirty years later another collapse, that of the Twin Towers, on September 11, 2001, built by Yamasaki himself, will mark a new moment of historical rupture.Causing crowd management protocols to be rewritten and citizens living in a state of constant terror. More security cameras were placed to permanently monitor the city in order to prevent further terrorist actions, turning privacy into a utopia and living in surveillance similar to that of Big Brother. Nightmare and dream, dystopia and heterotopia, city and apocalypse. In this video fragments are juxtaposed, as «found footage», of these two key milestones in the history and destiny of the world and of the contemporary city. Audiovisual documents belonging to the experimental film «Koyaanisqatsi» by Godfrey Reggio, 1983 In which the demolition of Pruitt-igoe appears, the original rhythm of the rewound film being modified, advancing it and returning it at a normal pace. And «WTC 9/11» by photojournalist Mark LaGanga’s, 2001, who documents the collapse of the Twin Towers and the moments after it, and only part of the audio corresponding to the collapse of the second tower has been used.