Maestro (Extract)

One of a series of three video sketches, Maestro investigates the problematics of living in and attempting to instill order on a megalopolis. Filmed on the streets of Shanghai, with an accompanying soundtrack of horns, engines and the best muzak Shanghai's taxi drivers continuously play in their cars, traffic conductors and lone policemen are individually documented attempting to impose a form of law on the masses of cars, trucks, buses, bicycles and pedestrians of the city.

These men, reminiscent of Gary Cooper's Marshal Will Kane, single-handedly attempt to stem the seeping of traffic along gargantuan stretches of 10-lane motorways. Ignored and avoided, their attempts are comi-tragic - like a modern-day Sisyphus, each must do battle with the masses and their machines to earn his daily bread.

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• Art
• David
• Cotterrell
• Cotterell
• installation
• traffic
• shanghai
• china