Vents Emma Charles, 2012

Vents explores the architecture of the City of London in relation to power, history, time and abstraction. Adopting science fiction as a narrative framework, Vents introduces the notion of spores to question a wider contemporary concern regarding the pervasive nature of the city via everexpanding global contact. Filmed on a Sunday, Vents reveals the peculiarity one experiences there, disconnected from its functional time of the working week. The urban forms of air vents and curious sculptures become a tangible material evidence of a type of abstraction of modern life in relation to economic capital and so too the political economy of time in the city is also brought into question. The film considers how notions of temporality and power are interlinked and experienced and aims to draw upon possible tensions and narratives at the fringe of what is considered productive time.