Traceurs: to trace, to draw, to go fast
by Layla Curtis
Public art commission
Westminster, London
2007 - 2008
CLIENT:Westminster City Council
In 2007 Westminster City Council appointed Futurecity to commission an artist to explore the urban fabric of the borough. Using heat-seeking cameras, artist Layla Curtis filmed the unorthodox movements and alternative routes of traceurs, urban jump groups, through the city. Curtis investigates the potential of using thermal imaging cameras to record the heat traces of footprints and hand-marks left on obstacles and buildings. This series of films captures the untraceable, recording the tracks and routes left by traceurs through a variety of locations in the City of Westminster - investigating 'alternative' routes, and new ways of moving through the city.
The resulting series of films are beautiful and grainy, a kind of temporal drawing in black and white, contrasting with the more familiar highly coloured palette of thermal imaging. The viewer is invited to watch almost still, greyish images of walls, trees, and roofs until a shock of white fills the screen for an instant as the traceurs leap between obstacles. Gradually all traces fade away and we are left once again with the grainy blank façade of the city.
Traceurs offers a unique view of the city through the movements of these unconventional architectural critics of the urban landscape.
The resulting series of films are beautiful and grainy, a kind of temporal drawing in black and white, contrasting with the more familiar highly coloured palette of thermal imaging. The viewer is invited to watch almost still, greyish images of walls, trees, and roofs until a shock of white fills the screen for an instant as the traceurs leap between obstacles. Gradually all traces fade away and we are left once again with the grainy blank façade of the city.
Traceurs offers a unique view of the city through the movements of these unconventional architectural critics of the urban landscape.
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