The Mall is a fully computer generated, looping experimental film. It was created by M. Can Tanyeli as a part of “Yaşayan Mekan Yaşanan Mekan” workshop by GAPO between December 2017 and January 2018 in SALT Galata.
Ever felt like, in a moment of transit, you are witnessing a temporary, yet awe-inspiring fraction of space-time, ephemeral in length but epic in proportions? Much like the spine-tingling part of a song you’ve been listening to over and over again, just so you can hear that one part that you wish was longer again? Maybe it’s because that moment is exceptionally loud and colorful, suspenseful, heart-racing, or even thrilling in a terrifyingly uncanny splendor, yet always oddly satisfying. This project turns one of these short moments into an everlasting reality, so you can experience it as much as you want without having to circle back.
Like the endless perspective of a tunnel disappearing into a pinhead, its curved walls and the tarmac brightly lit with the industrial yellow hue of tungsten lights, the cold air booming with the loud echoes of passing cars and occasional swooshes of overhead ventilation fans…
Like the final stretches of a runway as you are about to take-off, the gigantic and visually chaotic apron full of commercial jetliners, airport vehicles, taxiway lights and hangars whizzing by as the turbojet engines with their terrifying buzz-saw roars and occasional mechanical bumps and cranks overpower all other noises around you…
Like the shores of a harbor against a background of a setting sun, its quay abandoned, disappearing into an endless field of stacked shipping containers, all with markings and logos of companies you wouldn’t necessarily recognize outside of this very moment; its grand, industrious landscape eerily quiet except for the repetitive sounds of ocean waves…
Or it’s The Mall, depicting the empty parking lot of an American suburban mall at midnight during an approaching thunderstorm, in a looping, never-ending moment of transit. Its boundaries are unclear, its exit, non-existing. You can enjoy this seemingly derelict non-space as much as you want, or at least until the time it becomes prolix.
The parking lot, which is the main looping element of the film, repeats 9 times in a single loop. The background scenery of clouds and the associated sound design repeats once every 9 loops of the main element. This is the wide composite image of the main looping element of the film, with 4 separate modules of the parking lot arranged side by side.
The parking lot design is modular. Each module can connect to itself and other modules seamlessly. The camera takes exactly 8 seconds to traverse the width of each module. The digital landscape of The Mall was modelled in Maya, its custom texture sets were created in Photoshop and Quixel NDo, it was rendered with VRay, and the post was completed in After Effects.
Designed and directed by:
M. Can Tanyeli
GAPO (Geniş Açı Project Office):
https://www.gapo.org/
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