video cartography

Genuine vital integrity does not consist in satisfaction, in attainment, in arrival. As Cervantes said long since, “The road is always better than the inn.” The very name is a disturbing one; this time calls itself “modern,” that is to say, final, definitive, in whose presence all the rest is mere preterite, humble preparation and aspiration towards this present. That faith in modern culture was a gloomy one. It meant that to-morrow was to be in all essentials similar to to-day, that progress consisted merely in advancing, for all time to be, along a road identical to the one already under our feet. Such a road is rather a kind of elastic prison which stretches on without ever setting us free.

Nowadays we no longer know what is going to happen to-morrow in our world, and this causes us a secret joy; because that very impossibility of foresight, that horizon ever open to all contingencies, constitute authentic life, the true fullness of our existence.

– José Ortega y Gasset, The Revolt of the Masses

 

video cartography: Durham, NC from Phillip Barron on Vimeo.

6 minutes and 20 seconds of point-of-view film and video of downtown Durham, North Carolina. The video is composed of scenes from 1942, 1947, 2007, and 2008. Through the repeated capturing (on film and in byte) of locations through time, we are able to navigate a changing landscape in urban Durham. 

We live in a visual culture. From advertising to gallery art to Hollywood films to documentary photography, the image has never been more powerful throughout human history than it is today. With the advent of digital mapping and point-of-view digital image products (e.g. Google Maps Streetview), the line between cartography and video is being blurred. 

This video is part of the North Carolina Counter Cartographies Convergence, September — October 2008, and was made possible with a grant from the Triangle Community Foundation.

Posted on October 14, 2008 
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One Response to “video cartography”

  1. Video: Downtown Durham, then and now on October 17th, 2008 7:29 am

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