The Duellists (short version)

In March 2007 MediaShed were invited to the Manchester Arndale Shopping Centre by Futuresonic to make a film combining free-media with free-running. Parkour or free-running involves fluid uninterrupted movement adapting motion to obstacles in the environment. Like free-media, free-running makes use of and re-enrgises the infrastructure of the city. Free-media film adapts environmental and discarded hardware to make filmmaking accessible to all.

Working with Southend based professional parkour breakin' crew Methods of Movement a choreographed performance was filmed in the shopping centre over three consecutive nights. The film was shot using only the existing in-house CCTV network of 160 cameras operated from the central control room, with a soundtrack created entirely from the foundsounds and noises recorded during the performance.

The finished film was screened at the Manchester Arndale (10th - 20th May) using the screens inside the Manchester Arndale on the infrastructure plasmas, in an exhibition pod and inside eleven stores.

The Duellists was an art project for urban screens that was made for the specific location of one of the UK's main shopping centres and for the people of the city who live around it.

There were only two news items on regional TV on the opening days of the exhibition, the resignation of Tony Blair and the exhibition, which was watched by a TV audience of 4 million. Over 1 million passed through the Arndale Shopping Shopping Centre during the time it was showing.

The Duellists was a part of the Art for Shopping Centres exhibition curated by Drew Hemment at Futuresonic 2007. It was a part of Futuresonic's focus since 2004 on participatory projects in urban spaces and was the first official implementation of MediaShed's GEARBOX free-media video toolkit.

See the full length vesion at: www.mediashed.org

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• parkour
• cctv
• manchester
• arndale
• futuresonic
• video
• urban
• screens
• media
• art
• sniffin
• mediashed
• david
• valentine

[lukey1311]

thats not real free running its al staged and all borig

[trs30100]

@Xpedite weak comment fuck face

[amyinvertthenhurt]

is this ninja and unique?

[bluemoonhead]

parkour is an art the nickname for parkour is the art of motion so if u dnt like it f*ckoff n suck on ya mona lisa d*ckhead art can be anything u want it to be art is used by most people as an expression of there emotions, these guys do it for any reason of there own

[andthewardrobe]

weak video??? ...do you realise this was filmed in its entirety using only the in-house cctv cameras!? pretty bloody fantastic composition and creativity given the limitations i think!

[tzzatzza]

Nice performance and well filmed.

[tthournir]

I liked it, well done-

[pellingt0n]

This performance is definately art. Nice film.

[Xpedite]

weak video.

[sandome]

Art in shoping centers? I see the shoping center, but the art... no... dont tell me! Are these guys? This is the art? I mean, they are great but art is another level of sublimation. Or art is the film itself? No.. no.. cant be...