Online Greenlight ReviewInvisible Cities

Thumbnails: Anastasia, Argia, Armilla

Thumbnails: Baucis, Despira, Dionira

Thumbnails: Ersilla, Esmerelda, Fedora, Isaura, Leonia

Thumbnails: Moriana, Octavia, Phyllis

Thumbnails: Sophronia, Tamara, Thekla

Thumbnails: Zenobia, Zirma

Thumbnails: Isaura, Moriana

Thumbnails: Argia, Armilla

Thumbnails: Moriana

Chosen CityMoriana

When you have forded the river, when you have crossed the mountain pass, you suddenly find before you the city of Moriana, its alabaster gates transparent in the sunlight, its coral column supporting pediments encrusted with serpentine, its villas all of glass like aquariums where the shadows of dancing girls with silvery scales swim beneath medusa-shaped chandeliers. If this is not your first journey, you have only to walk in a semicircle and you will come into view of Moriana’s hidden face, an expanse of rusting sheet metal, sackcloth, planks bristling with spikes, pipes black with soot, piles of tins, blind walls with fading signs, frames of staved-in straw chairs, ropes good only for hanging oneself from a rotten beam.From one part to the other, the city seems to continue, in perspective, multiplying its repertory of images: but instead it has no thickness, it consists only of a face and an observe, like a sheet of paper, with a figure on either side, which can neither be separated nor look at each other.

Mission StatementI chose Moriana out of all the nineteen cities explored as I’m quite fascinated with the reflective and sea-like exhibition theme of the ‘better’ half of the city, and the wrecked and withered of the other half. This idea of two drastically separate lifestyles which are connected very closely interests me, and the idea of creating great contrast within one city.The initial thumbnails for Moriana was based on the idea of a half broken mirror, with the perfect reflection being the better half of the city and the broken half being jagged and spiked, dangerous and unliveable. However, after experimenting with buildings for Moriana and focusing on the aquarium description the theme of a broken mirror shifted to an aquatic exhibit. This is what I would want to explore, the coral-like spiked houses of the lesser half of the city, with broken pieces of coral and reef, and to contrast this against the pristine, reflective, more high-class level of the city.

The colours which I would like to focus on using would be coral and pastel colours for the lighter part of the cities, such as light blues, greens and pinks, to reiterate the reflective and immaculate feel of this half of the city.

For the lower half of the city I would like to use more darker shades of navy blue, fern green and deep magenta, to portray the idea of a dark and dismal way of living, contrasting against the lighter half of the city.

Exterior Influences

Interior Influences