The temporal and spatial compression makes the city surreal. Moments of singularity collide, juxtapose or even permeate into one another accidentally in space and time. We try to find the Francis Bacon in an urban context.
Is our reality real or surreal? As the metaphysical “space out” from the physical, and architecture “space out” from the pragmatics, “the other space” of “the heterotopia” appears, and the theatrical moments unveil in our daily life.
The section through the city or the section through life makes the city or our lives surreal, as we might never see ourselves in such an analytical way. The truth of life betrays its appearance. The twist and turn in life craft the illusionary and physical space in the city.
We create a series of hypothetical architecture moments to test how far we can go with spatial paradox in the urban context. In surreal city No.1, We played with architecture scale to nest a modern city within a Gothic church. In surreal city No.2, we flip city-sky upside down and have city inhabitants blocked by an invisible shelter. In surreal city No.3, we have people flying from all directions, high above the sky, hovering over a community church. In surreal city No.4, the Patheon is lifted up by a balloon. In surreal city No.5, a civic building is scaled-down and burst out from a rotten apple core. Architecture is objectified to another extreme. In surreal city No. 6, we create a small cottage on farmland, with a mysterious Spanish-Islamic church hidden down the earth. Geographic and scale displacement force people to redefine the vernacular architecture syntax. In surreal city No. 7, we have the roof of a building floating on top of the sky, with trees grown from it. In surreal city No. 8, a section of an apartment building, a sculpture head and an upside-down Empire State Building are juxtaposed together to create an open-ended dialogue. In surreal city No. 9, we have the midtown towers floating in the air, fleeing from the zoning code. In surreal city No. 10, a small observatory window points towards a little cabin in a small room, and there is a large space hidden behind the window. In surreal city No. 11, the roof of the church is displaced from the body of the church. In surreal city No. 12, a castle is buried in the mountain, its grandeur is reviewed through the sculpting in time.
All these singularities are mysterious and discrete moments in life. As the sky fells down, moments of singularity rise up and form a matrix for the surreal world.