People meet in different ways now, even in the strangest of manners. Imagine flying over a city and witnessing all the things that are taking place there. Connect to Google Earth and find Eindhoven, a small city in the Netherlands. As you get closer, a number of YouTube videos appear on top of the city. Did you know about the man that juggles? That there is a flying saucer in a park? A young couple are moving into their new apartment? The people who like to dance tango or the person who is an aspiring singer? People broadcast their experiences. What if somebody tried to contact them back?
‘The City is Creative’ explores the daily creative acts taking place throughout Eindhoven that are often overlooked. Different people in the city, who published videos on YouTube, were contacted and invited to do a remake one of their videos within the abandoned factory buildings at Strijp-S, the former Philips industrial terrain and future site of urban development project ‘The Creative City’. These reinterpretations are experienced through an exploratory interactive installation within the building site where videos were made. This creates a double facade. The video makers never imagined that their works would be exhibited beyond the realms of YouTube, and the public is exposed to the untapped creativity of the city.
In addition, a series of documents from conversations and interviews between the artist and creators brings together biographical information, observations and comments about the past, present and future state of The Creative City of Strijp-S as well as personal reflections on what it means to create, document and broadcast.
