MARCO BRAMBILLA
(Italy and USA, 1960)


Cathedral, 2008
blue-ray disc, colour, sound, 09:32 min.
Courtesy Christopher Grimes Gallery, Santa Monica





The video Cathedral shows a multi-level shopping mall in Toronto during Christmas season. By digitally manipulating the filmed material the artist creates transparent layers of upward moving images which produce the impression of endless verticality, opening up an illusory and disorienting space of light and glass. The kaleidoscopic effect of the hypnotically unfolding image of an illuminated shopping centre evokes the impression of a cathedral. It brings to mind the medieval metaphysics of light as employed in the architecture of cathedrals to evoke the presence of the divine. Consumer society generated its own conception of paradise. According to German sociologist Max Weber, the patterns of consumption are a form of re-enchantment of our rationalized society. The evolution of a commercial aesthetics employing visually enticing materials such as colour, glass and light transformed the early department stores and is transforming today’s shopping paradises into the new cathedrals of our worldly culture.









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