Wirecrossing: 24 Hours In Central Singapore.

desperate optimists worked with a diverse range of Singaporean artists to create a unique web-film project as part of spell#7's The Year Of Living Digitally.

Before 24 Hours
It began with the notion of making a collaborative project in Singapore, working with artists based here and desperate optimists, (film and media artists from the UK). Whatever emerged we knew it had to be about the place, the city, the people, the landscapes. Someone we approached to support the project told us that he thought 'the city' in Singapore was too well-trodden by artists, a cliche. When we mentioned this to a Singaporean artist he replied "It's all we have". We knew that this could be more. People from outside and inside, working together, using digital tools to see things differently.

desperate optimists
New media artists hooked on streets, maps, stories and images. Their work had brought together and directed artists in complex collaborations around specific geographies. Cinematic encounters with real places uploaded onto the web. Transplant them from London to Singapore. They get past immigration with a concept - to shoot a digital film that lasts 24 hours in real-time. Perfect for the city that never wants to sleep.

Films About Cities
There is a fine tradition in avant-garde and experimental film-making of turning the camera upon the city. Man With A Movie Camera (1929), Berlin - Symphony Of A City (1927). It's as if film-makers at that early stage in cinema history saw that this new technology was the ultimate tool for capturing the rhythms, textures and intensities of modern, industrial life in an urban environment. Only film with with its ceaseless movement of images could record the kinetics and diversity of space and action in a city.

Real Time
More recently as digital video has become a distinctive medium apart from celluloid, the idea of shooting events in real-time (or creating a sense of real time) has become extremely popular in both experimental and mainstream practices. Timecode (2000), Russian Ark (2002), Big Brother (TV 2000+), 24 (TV 2001+). If you've got the juice then you can just keep the camera recording. The gaze doesn't blink. The take can go on forever when you have enough hard disk space. Cities are full of this anyway - surveillance, hidden and not so hidden. Epics are being made everyday, still masterpieces of down-time, non-events, unwitting actors and harsh contrasts.

27th September 2003
The longest film ever made. An event. We don't cheat. We play by the rules of 24. One hour on the hour every hour. Record on the dot. When the tape runs out somewhere across the city another crew is starting theirs. 24 locations, places, moments, happenings, occasions. All the artists moved out into the city and found their content. Line-dancing, break-dancing, a wedding, an anniversary, a party, a jam session, a taxi ride, night cycling, cleaning up a night club, shopping, tattooing, watching TV, hanging out, walking, talking, eating, watching the sun come up and then go down again.

After 24 Hours
No one will watch a film that long. Put it in a gallery, so you can drift in and out in your own time. Better still - the web. The archive of everything. Choose your hours, let it stream.