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The UK port city of Liverpool in 2008: European Capital of Culture. During the bid period a competition to design a new cultural landmark was awarded to architect Will Alsop who proposed a multi-faceted, jewel-like building held aloft upon stilts, dubbed ‘The Cloud’.

For a brief moment the city prepared to make a dramatic break from tradition… only for the project to be cancelled.

Capital Lambanana by Francesca Patterson

Beneath a Cloudless Sky in association with the School of Architecture - University of Liverpool and Â鶹ԼÅÄ Big Screen Liverpool attempts to reignite a sense of wonder, unrestricted by build costs, planning approval or viability. Incorporating short film, video art and free postcards offering alternative views of the city to visitors and residents both.

Curated by Richard Koeck, Felipe Hernández & Bren O’Callaghan

Friday 23rd May – Thursday 5th June 2008, daily at 12.00, 14.00, 16.00, 19.00 and 21.00

Liverpool Re-Generated: Surreal Images of an Alternative Future
School of Architecture - University of Liverpool
Video, drawing, photography and 30,000 free postcards

Using Liverpool as a point of departure, students explore various possibilities of representing the city. In recent years the image of this former seafaring hub has been transformed. These transformations are not only physical but also symbolic and commercial. Numerous, even contrasting images of the city proliferate, yet all attempt to represent an ‘imagined’ city: what they would like Liverpool to be.

Includes footage produced in collaboration with the Porto School of Architecture (Portugal) and the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation (Germany), both focusing on previous European Capitals of Culture.

Pulsate
Tom Wall, 2007

Bass notes and rhythm are tightly synchronized to an extended fly-through of a neon inspired cityscape. As each part of the song structure is introduced incrementally, so too is a new visual element, depicted as a series of light sources. The skyline as a kaleidoscope of colour, a stark contrast to more typical city vistas of graveyard hues.

World’s Fair
Paul Amitai, 2005

World's Fair examines the tradition of international expositions as the model for many conditions of contemporary culture. Employing the detached vantage point of a scrolling photo panoramic, we weave through a nostalgia-infused vision of a "future past" fraught with the residue of colonialism, and at the same time representing a public celebration in concrete geometry and cultural difference.

Post Barnsley
Squint/Opera, 2006

It is the year 2025 and one of the last postmen delivers letters in the Yorkshire hill town of Barnsley. All around him, Alsop Architect’s startling proposals to establish a walled city reminiscent of sci-fi paperback art takes shape, a landscape as yet unrealised. The film is set to a poem read and narrated by Ian McMillan. Commissioned by Yorkshire Forward in association with Remaking Barnsley.

RMB City. A Second Life City Planning
Cao Fei/China Tracy, 2007
Presented in association with Vitamin Creative Space, GuangzhouÌýand Serpentine Gallery, London (see website for exhibition dates)

RMB City is a utopian fusion of contemporary Chinese cities and fantasy realms created by artist Cao Fei and her avatar, China Tracy, in the virtual world of Second Life. A hybrid of the political and nonsensical, it is real estate of the imagination and an experiment exploring the creative possibilities between real and virtual worlds.