Photo #5, The Fifth Day

Released in January 2009, our third data cinema work by Carlo Zanni challenges the very essence of cinema by, in fact, not being a movie clip at all but giving the impression it is. The Fifth Day is a slideshow (for lack of a more flattering comparison) heightened with an extremely cinematic soundtrack. By the latter I mean to point to the relationship between the presented photographs, their transitions and the sense of movement created by their visual aspects in conjunction with the music. The narrative suggested, as Zanni himself clarifies, is the invisible protagonist’s taxi ride across Alexandria, Egypt (Zanni, 2009b). Ten stills portray the progression across the city, with no other semblance of coherence than an overall feel of spatial cohesion and the narrative music’s bonding presence (the stills are cataloged here). Continue reading