Gregarious Beasts

The film "Gregarious Beasts" by Manuel Gorkiewicz in which audio, location and camera technique represent a certain era in terms of environmental planning and architectural history. Gorkiewicz explores the "Beverly Hills Civic Center" in Los Angeles, planned by Charles W. Moore in the early 1980s, as a typical example of American postmodern architecture. The film is shot on a bodycam carried by a sportsperson by moving through the location in "parkour" style - a contemporary sport where a certain urban environment is explored acrobatically by the individual moves of the performer.
 
The film’s unfolding of (post)modern architectural history through serious and strategic "play" is complemented by voiceover excerpts from the book "The Heart of our Cities" (1964) by the Austro-American architect Victor Gruen. These elements of audio type, location choice, and camera technique fuse into a film about current developments during the transformation of urbanity through media related developments, it’s relations to previous decades and the discrepancies between European and American ideas about public space in general.
 
Voice Actor: Brian Davis
Camera and Parkour: Ellie Haigh