Cinema City
Cinema City : An installation by Jody Boyer and Russ Nordman
Urban Culture Projects Summer 2008
Building upon the mission of Urban Culture Projects, we will be creating a dynamic installation entitled Cinema City. Throughout the space we will create a changing and evolving miniature city assembled from video projections, artist designed 3-Dimensional paper models, and found materials. Cinema City will be an assemblage of urban environments, urban myths and current events. Through research of historic archives the built environment and architecture of Cinema City will be inspired by urban landscapes that no longer exist, that in essence, exist only through their photographic and cinematic documentation. Digital databases at the Kansas City Public Library, the Library of Congress and other regional research sources contain photographic archives of the architecture of American cities now lost due to urban renewal and new development. These sources will be used as artistic frameworks for the design of the architecture in Cinema City. Also, playing upon the architecture of the Paragraph Gallery, the installation will be designed to be viewed “through the storefront” of Paragraph Gallery, harking back to a time when the storefront display was a common site in vibrant American downtowns, while also building upon the mission of Urban Culture Projects to revive Kansas City’s downtown through arts and culture. Lastly in the Project Space we will create a theater for viewers to experience Cinema City “cinematically” as the subway that travels through Cinema City the live feed wireless camera will create real time Cinema from Cinema City.
During the exhibition Cinema City will continually change. We will be at Urban Culture Projects during specific times of the exhibition to add to the environment and be available to talk with the public, as well as work with the public. During these times visitors will be invited to assist with urban growth, by helping with the expansion of real estate and the annexing of rural areas adjacent to Cinema City through the placement of buildings that we have ready to be installed in Cinema City. An exhibition catalog will be designed, and self published by the artists, which will include several of the paper models from Cinema City.
