Portable Paris, France

This was a collaboration workshop with French painter Jean Baptiste Marot. The site, essentially a linear urban park, was created from a disused railway line running between the Bsstille and the Park of Vincennes. This horizontal path cuts like a section through the undulating topography of the city, at one stage dropping below the street and at other points level with or raised above its surroundings. In places the viaduct acts as a measuring platform, allowing a view of the cut. Along the journey, the hidden spaces of the city – the backsides of buildings, crevices between structures – are revealed. There were four different ways to investigate the site. For example, one of them is using a skateboard mounted with a camera at foot level and another 2m high, witnessing the city from an unfamiliar angle by shifting the horizon.
Back in London, a further study allowed a reinterpretation of this investigation through devices to be situated in a exhibition space. The objects were designed with altered perspective in mind. Twelve meters of track were laid in the space, referring to the former railway line and creating a constant. Within this framework sit the models. As the viewers move along the track, they experience an altered view of the models via two cameras, which in turn relay the images to two plasma screens.