The computer vision systems of google maps, urban management systems and CCTV surveillance are now fundamentally reshaping urban experience and the cultures of our city. Set in the Chinese owned and controlled Detroit Economic Zone (DEZ) and shot using laser scanners, we see this near future city through the eyes of the robots that manage it. Exploring the subcultures that emerge from these new technologies the film follows a collection of young factory workers across a single night, as they drift through the smart city point clouds in a driverless taxi, searching for a place they know exists but that the map doesn’t show. They are part of an underground community that work on the production lines by day but at night, adorn themselves in machine vision camouflage costumes and the tribal masks of anti-facial recognition to enact their escapist fantasies in the hidden spaces of the city. They hack the city and journey through a network of stealth buildings, ruinous landscapes, ghost architectures, anomalies, glitches and sprites, searching for the wilds beyond the machine. We have always found the eccentric and imaginary in the spaces the city can’t see.

Where the City Can’t See is the world’s first fiction film made entirely from data. Directed by speculative architect Liam Young and written by fiction author Tim Maughan. Produced in association with AND Festival the film is currently being shot and will première in summer 2016.

The LIDAR scanner camouflage costume and algorithmic textile patterns were developed on computerized silk looms in the UK.

Dir. Liam Young

Part of Chicago Architecture Biennale , 2015

Photography by Liam Young and Lucy Barker.  Film stills courtesy of Liam Young.