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Accumulation: experiencing the city

Accumulation is a work in three parts using contrasting forms of dissemination in order to engage a more diverse audience. The public realm aspect of the process is demonstrated through both the exhibition at the Museum of Science and Industry and the BBC Big Screen showing.

By constructing another kind of filmic city out of archival material the exhibition sought to question the ways we form perceptions of the city. The clips were themed into six streams and projected as part of a multi-screen installation. The sources were not from cinema or drama, but made up of ‘context’, ‘background’ and ‘documentary’ sections. In short, the installation uses ‘real’ footage in order to create a more ‘everyday’ version of city life. Using a period of just over 100 years indicates that core forms of city behaviour remain the same. At its base is the notion that the accumulated city is something the viewer could immerse themselves in, an accumulation of moving images to generate ideas of how space is constructed, used and experienced.

The notion of what constitutes the city is complex. The book considers how our idea of the urban is made up of an accumulation of experiences which shape the way we respond, as well as the experiences we form, of our everyday environment. The two essays and a section on archive film were written as a complement to the exhibition. It uses the idea of accumulation to immerse the reader into a range of perspectives on seeing and being in the city, mostly taken or supported through literary and theoretical models. The publication relates to, but does not comment on, the exhibition.

Taken together - exhibition, publication, screening - it is designed as a strategic response, an accumulation of approaches to experiencing the everyday city.