Christian Andersen captures the essence of “the city” in his short films. A distillation of the cityscape, capturing all that is beautiful in the urban, the cultural bustle filled by people and traffic. The particular stillness achieved lies somewhere between Andersen’s juxtaposition of colour drenched abstractions and the music accompanying the footage, both of which blur and drown out the din of the city, allowing an appreciation of the city as it is, but the city as it’s never really experienced.
His films focus upon “street aesthetic” and are a celebration of all that is gorgeous about the city, which here becomes some abstract conglomeration that’s all life, which is missed in the daily grind. What’s captured through Andersen’s lens is hyper real, and a little blurry and ill-defined. All the more endearing in light of Andersen’s starting point, the place where he “truly appreciates where he is standing”, shaped by a belief that “you must break out of your current comfort zone and become comfortable with the unfamiliar and unknown in order to make a change”. It’s one of those refreshingly charming calls to look at the city and alter your perspective, blur the real, to see something a little different. And even the biggest cynic could be tempted to listen to the call thanks to the captivating aesthetic of the films.
Just released, The Street Aesthetic of Berlin is the second of Andersen’s love letters to one of the world’s cultural capitals, we hope London’s street aesthetic gets the same hazy, dreamy treatment as Berlin and New York have had soon, could do with something to play over in the mind to distract from the commute.
