About the work

Created in 2010, a decade before the civil unrest in Hong Kong of 2019-20, Runscape takes on an added significance when viewed in light of the long-term anti-government protests which rocked Hong Kong in recent years. Runscape is a film that depicts two young men sprinting through the public spaces of Hong Kong, almost invariably via the visual mode of the long shot, while a narrator describes this action through the rhetoric of post-structuralist urban theory. This narration makes repeated reference to a range of texts from the psychogeographical dérive of urbanism in Guy Debord and the Situationists to the biopolitical machines of Gilles Deleuze to the literary styles of Jean-Luc Nancy. The runners both follow existing paths and establish new ones, moving in straight lines through crowds and across rooftops while also using exterior walls as springboards for less-likely forms of motion. This is, however, far from parkour; it is a much more purposeful action that claims a certain territory or at least trajectory described within the narration through the image of the body as a “bullet that needs no gun”. A soundtrack contributed by Hong Kong rock band A Roller Control complements this aesthetic violence, guiding the eye and ear of the viewer across this novel interpretation of the definition and uses of public space; positing the body in motion as an act of civil defiance.

Runscape is used to knit together the geography of Hong Kong, a cartography that trades on the parallel ideas of mapping and civil disobedience by running through the streets. The runner dodges past pedestrians, runs diagonally through meticulously urban planned plazas, up flights of stairs and through the shopping malls of Hong Kong in order to appropriate the city on his own terms. The runner becomes also a performer, as he leaps and jumps, sprinting through the city, catching the eye of the strolling pedestrians as he breaks out of conventional modes of behavior, putting his body in action, moving faster than the city, as if internally pushed forward, as if fleeing or listening to a voice that was slowly speaking outside of everyone else’s sound register. The culture of the walking figure derived from the French Flaneur, the American Beat Poets, all contextualized and used in exploring and connecting the city streets. Runscape explores the liminal notions between film as public art with the city as landscape and cartography. The film knits the city together in a geography intersecting private and public space. The runner acts as artistic intervention creating an impact on the space itself. This is a creation of an artwork on the street, as it blurs the line between performance, happening, physical exercise, and rebellion.

Bio

MAP Office is a multidisciplinary platform devised by Laurent Gutierrez (1966, Casablanca, Morocco) and Valérie Portefaix (1969, Saint-Étienne, France). This duo of artists/architects has been based in Hong Kong since 1996, working on physical and imaginary territories using varied means of expression including drawing, photography, video, installations, performance, and literary and theoretical texts. Their entire project forms a critique of spatio-temporal anomalies and documents how human beings subvert and appropriate space. Humour, games, and fiction are also part of their approach, in the form of small publications providing a further format for disseminating their work. Their cross-disciplinary practice has been the subject of a monograph, MAP OFFICE – Where the Map is the Territory (2011), edited by Robin Peckham and published by ODE (Beijing). Early 2013, Map Office was the recipient of the 2013 edition of the Sovereign Asian Art Prize.

Laurent Gutierrez is co-founder of MAP Office. He earned a Ph.D. of Architecture from RMIT. He is a Professor at the School of Design, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University where he leads the Master of Design Programs and the Master of Design in Design Strategies as well as the Master of Design in Urban Environments Design programs. He is also the co-director of Urban Environments Design Research Lab.

Valérie Portefaix is an artist and architect. She is the principal and co-founder of MAP Office. After receiving a Bachelor of Fine Art, and a Master of Architecture, she earned a Ph.D. of Urbanism from University Pierre Mendes France. She is an Adjunct Professor at the School of Design, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

MAP Office projects have been exhibited in major international art, design and architecture events including: Guangzhou Image Triennial (forthcoming 2017); 6th Yokohama Triennale (2017); 4th Lisbon Architecture Triennale (2016); Ullens. Contemporary Art Centre, Beijing (2013); 7th Asia Pacific Triennial (2012); 1st Kiev Biennale (2012); 6th Curitiba Art Biennale (2011); 7th, 11th and 12th Venice Architecture Biennale (2000, 2008, 2010); Evento 1st Bordeaux Biennale (2009); 4th Tirana International Contemporary Art Biannual (2009); 2nd Canary Island Biennale (2009); Prospect.1 New Orleans (2008); 7th Gwangju Biennale (2008); 10th Istanbul Biennial (2007); 52nd Venice Art Biennale (2007); 15th Sydney Biennale (2006); 1st Paris Triennial (2006); 2nd Guangzhou Triennial (2005); 1st, 6th Singapore Biennale (2006, 2016); 2nd, 3rd and 5th Hong Kong- Shenzhen Bi-City Biennale (2007, 2009, 2013); 1st Architectural Biennial Beijing (2004); 1st Rotterdam Architecture Biennale (2003).

Their publications include: Our Ocean Guide (2017); Unreal Estates of China (2007); The Parrot’s Tale (2007); My PRD Stories (2005), HK LAB 2 (2005); HK LAB (2002); Mapping HK (2000); among many others publications on the « Made in China » phenomenon and other, related issues. Their first film City of Production has been selected for the official competition at: 38th International Film Festival Rotterdam 2009, 33rd Cinéma du Réel Paris 2009, 1st Migrating Forms New York 2009, and presented at: 10th Rencontres Internationales Paris/Berlin/Madrid (2008).