COMPILATION
These same video clips can be found on the original “The Underground Cathedral” website. I am presenting them again here, accompanied by brief introductions:
THE UNDERGROUND CATHEDRAL FROM STAINED GLASS TO HIGH TECHNOLOGY
I made this presentation of my work when I was a guest speaker in January of 2013 at a conference commemorating the 150th anniversary of the opening of the London Underground.
THE BADALONA PROJECT
Barcelona, Spain
This video clip is about the building designed by Catalan architect Antoni Poch, and its direct relationship to the design and concept of the art project documented in the next film.
AT A FATEFUL TIME
In the spring of 2004, I made this documentary film of the creation and permanent installation of a stained glass artwork at the Badalona International Business Center, which is located in Barcelona, on a hilltop overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. The film’s title reflects the fact that during the moment of execution of this project, there was a terrorist attack at a Madrid train station sparking large street demonstrations in Barcelona, which I also filmed. There is an ironic connection between the two events. given that my artwork features segments of underground metro maps from around the world and that the one I chose for the Madrid Metro includes the name of the train station that was attacked. A sad irony: the symbolic point of integrating the segments of underground transportation systems worldwide was to suggest that we are one human race, who share the planet earth – whereas the terrorism, as is so often the case, was a senseless expression of factional violence of one culture against another.
ART INSTALLATION AT THE CENTRE FOR CONTEMPORARY ART
Warsaw, Poland
In 1999 I was invited to create an art installation for the annual International Audio Art Festival held inside the Ujazdowski Castle, in Warsaw, which had become Poland’s leading experimental contemporary art institution. Here is a video documentary capturing the installation:
GALERIA ENTROPIA
Wrocław, Poland
Presented here is a brief segment of a live talk I gave about The Underground Cathedral, in 2000.
ABOUT TO DEPART
“About to Depart” is the first video clip I ever made, working without any prior training whatsoever, in either editing, composition or sound recording. It was created in 1996 while I was living in Barcelona, Spain. I used one of the very first non-linear digital video editing systems that had come out for home use. The soundtrack contains recorded sounds from the underground metro systems in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Paris, Barcelona, Berlin, Budapest and Moscow. It won awards at several European video festivals, including first prize for documentaries at an annual festival at Lake Como, Italy.
EXCERPTS FROM LIVE MUSICAL PERFORMANCES
Here are edited outtakes from live performances of The Underground Cathedral, including recorded sounds and video of underground life, all synchronized with a ten-piece musical ensemble featuring piano, violins, cello, oboe, medieval wooden flutes, drums, bass and two electric guitars, myself playing one of them.
LIVE UNDERGROUND PERFORMERS
Here are several musicians spontaneously captured on video as I traveled through various metro undergrounds in New York, Paris, Madrid, Los Angeles and Barcelona.