Thursday, 5 November 2015

What if? Metropolis - Further Influences, City Development

I am quite happy with my collaboration artist, Beate Kuhn, as when I look at her work I can already almost see the outlines of buildings and other elements of a city, such as trees. (fig.1) 
fig. 1

However, I also cant help but see coral in most of the work, (fig. 2) which lead me into thinking about how a city could be made of coral.

fig. 2
I had ideas floating around that my city could be underwater, a kind of atlantis type deal, but firstly I had no clue how I would paint/create things as if underwater, asd also this seemed a little too conformist as the underwater city has been "done" countless times, plus, Beate Kuhn's work has a noticeably almost "dry" and brittle look about it through her pastel chalky colour and texture. (fig. 3)
fig. 3

I then developed the idea that my city could be created from a large dried up coral reef. An area that was once completely underwater and flourishing with life, but now the sustenance of water has gone, and the leftover shell of the reef is being taken over by those living on land and converted into a city of coral. I quite like that its almost an oxymoron of when wrecked ships get covered in coral and serve as the building blocks for reef development after years of being submerged. I researched into this idea and created another influence map from things I found useful, looking into texture and shape of coral, and how it spreads, dried up seas and river beds, the architecture of Gaudi, whale bones structure, close knit housing, and the architecture of the city in the film Shark Tale.


All this is really helping me with developing the large, sprawling spread of a city I'm imagining, made up of lots of different coral like forms, developed and altered to better accommodate the new inhabitants. 

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