[Video Essay] Disappearing City

Description When I encounter the theme of MTR passages, my thought immediately drifts to the concept of the liminal space, the space in between, in transition. These are the places people pass by so often that their sole purpose is to be passed through. Nobody pays attention to a waiting room, a staircase, a corridor, or a metro platform. But the liminal space concept is precisely studying the rational part of these architectural spaces, now without any existence of lifeforms, and attempting to bring out the irrational feelings of melancholy, claustrophobia, or nostalgia these spaces give us. I found this

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Reading Response: Carl Abbott

The idea of cities on the move is an interesting trope we often see in sci-fi films. As described in the reading, migratory cities, or distributed cities specifically, simultaneously highlight the specialization and interaction of the urban city. It is an excellent media that allows the creators to magnify and display in-depth a specific phenomenon in real life, be it social stratification in Snowpiercer, or the endurance of humanity shown with the Cooper Station in Interstellar being so strong that even a deadly blight on earth is not enough to kill us off. Migratory cities are always on the move,

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[FIELD REPORT] POLICE STORY (1985), WING ON PLAZA

Word count: 500 Introduction The mall fight in Police Story is the scene people think of whenever this movie is brought up, and was arguably one of the most realistic and stunningly made action set-pieces ever. The featured location was Kowloon’s Wing On Plaza, a medium-sized shopping mall. I physically studied the mall just a few days ago. Though I took dozens of photos, due to the limit, only one of them is put within the essay (a selected few are put in the Appendix section). Our protagonists enter into this shot, establishing the arena for their final showdown with

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Reading Response: Nezar AlSayyad

The crux of the reading to me is power imbalance, whether it be voyeurism or ‘flaneurism.’ Throughout history, voyeurs adapt to yet more advanced means to observe their subjects, from binoculars, one-way mirrors, surveillance cameras, to the smart devices everyone possesses nowadays. Distance between the observer and the observed increases, from a visible distance (binoculars) to thousands of miles away (smartphones); yet the monitoring and documentation of one’s private life become more comprehensive than ever. The observed, by enjoying a higher degree of convenience, gradually surrender their last bits of privacy and security. Voyeurs become gods and their subjects are

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