Disappearing City
Theme and subject
During the process of urbanization, cities experienced reconstructions, and its appearance is changing in different ages. In the loop of vanishing and rebuilding, the city is disappearing from its newly-defined form. Meanwhile, another advance city is waiting to be constructed in the future. In the migration of city along the time line, something disappeared from the city, while something remains unchanged. Under the persisting circulation of city development, it is worthwhile to trace back on the disappeared components, and find the link between the existing city and the its past form. The disappearance of old architectures and infrastructures cannot be reversed, yet even though the glass and stone of the prior age has gone, the heritage of belief would pass along generations, and the life of people keeps flourishing. Regardless of the disappearing essence of the city, its creed and vitality belong to the eternity.
The documentary is to reflect the relationship between disappearance and existence. I chose my hometown Hohhot, capital city of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, to conduct the research and photographed the clip. Hohhot consists of two former towns called Suiyuan and Guihua. In 1913, the government of the new Republic of China united the garrison town of Suiyuan and the old town of Guihua as Guisui, and after the foundation of P.R.C., the city is renamed as Hohhot. The research is conducted in the region that used to be Guihua Town, along its arterial road. Nowadays, this street still beats the pulse of the city. By applying comparison and reflection between now and past, I tend to indicate the theme of my documentary.
Method for research
The essential research tool is field trip. I toured along the street and captured characteristic elements that weighs both in the disappeared old town and the current town, such as the demolished Jianwei Gate and the crossings named after it, the central crossings called Dashizi, temples of Tibetan Buddhism and a mosque. After materials collected, I made contracts along the timeline and analysed the existence as well as significance of these physical entities. During the procedure of observation and comparison, difference and consistence on the spiritual dimension can be extracted.
Techniques for producing the video
According to Certeau’s view, description to a certain place oscillates between either seeing the place as an existence of object, or going into the space and get involved as part of it. When photographing different scenes, I chose the latter method to reflect the city. I immersed myself into the city life, and captured random yet representative scenes of the folk life and city view. For example, the old man cycling across the zebra crossing, the stores outside the mosque and the children playing with pigeons on the square of the temple. As a photographer, I vanished into the city’s life and observe the city in the perspective of the city.
The video can be divided into two sections. The first section displays the vanish of the old town and the comparison across timeline, the second section exhibits the constancy of creeds and city’s vitality. While producing the video, the major techniques are contrast, tone changing and symbolism. I built the contrast between the old appearance of the town and the new appearance of the town by dissolving the old picture and current image shot at the same site. For example, the vanished city gate and the flowing traffic at the beginning of the documentary indicates that despite the gap of nearly a century, the function of traffic junction remains unchanged. The comparison of temples and mosque in the length of time reflects the eternal belief and creed of the city, as well as the accumulation of culture and custom. To reinforce the statement and performance, I swapped the tone between B&W and colour print in current scenes to create projections between present and history. It is worth noticing that I only applied tone-changing in the first section to show the impermanence of the physical city such as architectures. Besides, the mixture of time can express part of the theme, shifting and disappearing. In the second section, I maintained the colour of current scenes to exhibit the other part of the theme, something remains unchanged.
As for symbolism, I captured several elements to express implicit meanings. The selection of background music indicates the change of time. The music for the first part is performed by a traditional Mongolia instrument called morin khuur, while the second music is a violin piece themed in Hohhot city. The change of instrument represents the change ages and the entrance of external culture, corresponding to cultural accumulation. In the scene of the old man cycling across the street, the fade in colour reflects the theme of disappearing, as well as to blur the boundary between history and present. In the second part, the flying pigeons in front of the temple reflects the sanctity and vigor of Buddhist culture. The children playing with pigeons are a symbol of the vitality and hope of the city, meaning that the freshness of the city always remains unchanged.
Reflections
The fieldtrip to photographing the documentary and the procedure of making the clip pushed me into deep reflection on the essence of city development. On one hand, the city is always under a loop of vanishing and reconstructing, existing under limited and certain ages in a specific form. On the other hand, even though not all the physical existence of the city is lucky enough to survive as immortal historical sites, the spiritual existence of the city is eternally glowing. The power of creed and the vigor of folk are the foundation of the city in depth, and long live regardless of the changes on the surface.
[957 Words]
Bibliography
De Certeau, M. (1984). Spatial Stories. In The Practice of Everyday Life (pp. 115-130), translated by Steven Randall. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, ed. (2019). China Urban Construction Statistical Yearbook 2017. Beijing: China Statistics Press. p. 48.
呼和浩特的100张老照片，看看你见过吗？_旧城 (sohu.com)
https://music.163.com/song?id=1916064962&userid=448770634
https://music.163.com/song?id=1915271120&userid=448770634
https://enpx.com/web/doc/d-846.html
Script
[Scene 1]
00:11-00:27 Comparison between the old Jianwei Gate and the crossroads at its original site
[Scene 2]
00:28-00:53 Comparison between the Dashizi Crossroads in the 1930s and at present
[Scene 3]
00:54-01:05 The present scene of the arterial road of the old town
[Scene 4]
01:06-01:24 The comparison between the street market
[Scene 5]
01:25-01:38 Dazhao Temple, a Buddhist temple representing the city’s belief
[Scene 6]
01:54-02:33 The comparison of the masque
[Scene 7]
02: 33-02:56 The scene of Xilituzhao Temple, an indication of the city’s belief and vitality
—— Wu Jingbo 3035845045
I quite like the use of fade color when you shoot those architecture. In my opinion, I think it is a connection between past and present, and it reminds me of what has changed and what has remained from the old time. I think it is quite creative.
And I think maybe it is suitable to make the text last a little bit longer for the audience to think about it.
Your video conveys a clear message of “disappearing” by gradually changing the color of the scene and switching from old pictures to today’s scene, which is a good and valuable technique. Besides, I can tell that you made a lot of effort to do the research and went to many places. I really like these photos and videos that feature Hohhot. They make me fall in love with this place.
The only improvement that you can make is adding more on-screen texts or narrations so that your video may be more attractive.
I was attracted by your video the second when the music begins. The slow, traditional music is just like those disappeared, beautiful traditional buildings. The use of different filters demonstrates the changes of the city. The faded color is an attractive and clear visual design to indicate the disappeared part. To provide a more precise and touching video, you do not simply use faded color and normal scene, but choose a variety of scenes. This is indeed a really creative design, the depth and fade of different filter shows different situation of the disappearing buildings. You do not have a narration nor many texts. I guess it is because you want to keep the completeness as the music and filters have told enough stories. But some narration can bring you even more advantage from the perspective of diversity.
The video is conducted very well! I appreciate how you use the element of contrast and difference to bring in your message of “disappearing”. In my opinion, I like the showing of historical and old photos, as the difference between the building, and human activities create a clear view of the city along the timeline.
For the visual design, I think more text describing the historical moment and sites may help to illustrate more the “disappearing”.
Thoughtful project about urban redevelopment. I also appreciate the use of symbolism and intentional choice of music. The site could be delineated and introduced to the viewer in a clearer way. Are you studying the temple and its surroundings? It seems like your scope of study is the entire town. The comparison between historical photos and the current space is helpful, but perhaps the observations could be made even clearer through subtitles. Finer observations about the space e.g. function could also provide more depth into the research. More virtual research into the history of the town could also be conducted. When including footage and stills from other sources, you should also indicate their source within the video itself.