Network / intersect

Synopsis

A palindromic film about the production of fake news and fake profits, and the impacts they have on the people who produce them.

W and M see the world differently. For W, a low-level government propagandist, objective reality is an illusion. Truth exists on a gradient and can be manipulated and distored. For M, a financial executive, the world of business is a large image-making machine. Every business deal is just another set of mirrors or lenses to position. These abstract worldviews creep into the lived experiences of both characters, with unexpected consequences.

Information
This film is experimental. It is a mirror, playing forwards and backwards simultaneously, the characters’ worlds intersecting halfway through. The production techniques were adopted from real Russian propaganda agencies, covertly filmed in false locations, Paris standing in for Seoul. The entire form of the film and its production accurately reflect the characters’ abstracted worldviews.

This is the first film to be made using a process called Reflexive Scripted Design, developed as part of my doctorate thesis work at the Bartlett School of Architecture. The entire film was created using a set of four rules ensuring that the final form reflects the film’s subject.

More information about this project and the Reflexive Scripted Design process that was used to develop it can be found in Chapter 4 of my PhD thesis.

512-second loop on dual-projectors.

Public display

Urban Legends
Seoul Museum of Art (SeMA)
5 April – 29 May 2016

Architecture Film Festival LondonOxo Bargehouse
7-8 June 2017

IMDB

IMDB link

Credits

Direction, cinematography and script

  • Ollie Palmer

Actors

  • Patrick Ng
  • Hokyoung Im

Technical assistance and model making

Production support

  • Chloe Fricout
  • Justine Hermand

Script consultant

Commissioned by

  • Gahee Park and Fabien Danesi
    Seoul Museum of Art / Palais de Tokyo
  • Shot on location in Seoul in 2016
  • Made during my residency at Pavillon Neuflize OBC, the research lab of the Palais de Tokyo