Vents

"I’ve spent many hours trying to find a shot without interruption from people so that I can watch the spores grow. I suppose you know what I mean. You must have seen their progress, borne on the stale office air. During the week it’s hard to see, I admit, with the noise of office workers hastily eating a lunch sandwich. But they are there lurking within the vents, before the sweep of expelled office air carries them out into the weak light of the City above. "

'Vents' explores the architecture of the City of London in relation to power, history, time and abstraction.

Adopting science fiction as a narrative framework, 'Vents' introduces the notion of ‘spores’ to question a wider contemporary concern regarding the pervasive nature of the city via ever-expanding global contact.

Filmed on a Sunday, 'Vents' reveals the peculiarity one experiences there, disconnected from its functional time of the working week. The urban forms of air vents and curious sculptures become a tangible material evidence of a type of abstraction of modern life in relation to economic capital and so too the political economy of time in the city is also brought into question. The film considers how notions of temporality and power are interlinked and experienced and aims to draw upon possible tensions and narratives at the fringe of what is considered ‘productive time’.