“In the Streets” is the first edition of the Notebook Insert, a seasonal supplement on moving-image culture.
For the Multiplex column, we ask filmmakers, critics, and artists for short-form responses to the topic in question.
Illustration by Lale Westvind.
MARTINE SYMS (Los Angeles)
Artist; director, The African Desperate (2022)
1.
I’m shopping with **** and *** at a high-end store. I have a rare jewel up my butt. We’re looking for gifts. I run into Alex ****. She works at the store now. I try to remember lyrics to a punk song I wrote in high school. I jump up and I’m on a glider, gliding around town. I see a sign for legal services. Her & Her Feminist Law Office. The ad is a giant pair of pink panties. I decide to land there and check out their services. I have two Rimowa suitcases with me. I attempt to walk down the steps to the elevator, but I’m told I have to check my bags at the front desk. I do that and as I wait for the elevator to go up to Her & Her I see the front desk attendant leave. “Hey there’s important stuff in my bag,” I say.
2.
I live in an Art Deco apartment building across the street from a country club. It used to be a hotel. There are five identical floors, with 18 units each. The apartments are studios or one-bedrooms, and have a single-occupancy restriction. Over the past few months, I’ve become very invested in one of my neighbors — we’ll call him Charles. Charles lives kitty-corner from me, and we run into each other every day at the same time. He takes the elevator with his dog, Polly. I take the stairs. I stopped seeing Charles in the corridor, but I could still hear Polly’s heavy breathing when I passed his door. Near Valentine’s Day, there was a small heart placed at his doorstep. The following week, a man wearing a fedora emerged from Charles’s apartment with Polly in tow. Charles would NEVER wear a fedora. I ran over to him and spat, “Where’s Charles?” The man smiled slowly. “Charles is taking a little vacation,” he said. He tugged on Polly’s leash, and they walked away.
RADU JUDE (Bucharest)
Filmmaker; director, Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World (2023)
In my country (Romania) and in the city I live in (Bucharest), there are not electronic screens everywhere, like you see in Tokyo or New York or Las Vegas (or at least in the visual representations of these cities; I haven't been to any of them). Of course, there are more and more video surveillance cameras, more and more electronic screens (smartphones, tablets, video ads everywhere), but I am afraid they are not as spectacular as you can find in other, more technologically infatuated places, or maybe I am not able to see them in this light. Anyway, allow me instead to offer you these photos I took, which present traces of the past imprinted on walls in a way I find more moving and even aesthetically relevant than the electronic screens.
1. This trace is really old. I guess it is an ad from before World War II, on a building which seems to crumble—there are so many in Bucharest, and not only there. It makes me think of Jean Renoir each time I see it (maybe his Night at the Crossroads, 1932).
2. The second one is a trace from a more recent era. Just after the 1989 Revolution a feeble market economy started, and one can still find some traces of these beginnings. On yet another crumbling building, under a ruined contemporary ad which makes me think every time I see it of the works of one of my role models (Robert Rauschenberg). There are the traces of an ad from the beginning of the ’90s for BASF/RAKS audio cassettes. (Was there a store there? No idea.)
3. And close to it, there is yet another wonderful (and free!) Rauschenberg.
4. This is not a screen or a wall, of course, but I spotted it more than ten years ago from a car. Can it be seen as an homage to JLG, the artist who, more than anyone else, made me look around more attentively? I guess so.
PAN LU (Hong Kong)
Scholar; co-director, Many Undulating Things (2019)
Hong Kong is renowned for its exceptionally high urban density, characterized by a seamless and organic integration of skyscrapers, bustling traffic, pedestrians, commercial advertisements, escalators, and the distinct, fast-paced sounds of traffic lights. The iconic Chungking Mansions, situated at the heart of Tsim Sha Tsui in Kowloon, gained further prominence as a visual representation of Hong Kong and a prototype for futuristic metropolises following the global recognition of Wong Kar Wai's masterpiece, Chungking Express (1994).
The landscape of the city recently underwent irreversible transformations due to two significant events: the anti–Extradition Law Amendment Bill protests in 2019 and the subsequent COVID-19 pandemic. Initially, the once highly commercialized spaces of the city became arenas for political confrontations. Later, with the enforcement of social distancing measures and partial lockdowns, the once-bustling streets turned eerily deserted overnight. These consecutive incidents also offered an opportunity for introspection regarding Hong Kong's spatial dynamics: To whom does the city truly belong? Which aspects of the city do we observe, and which do we overlook? To what extent are our lives influenced by the mechanisms of capitalism without our noticing?
The year 2020 witnessed the enactment of the Hong Kong National Security Law, which introduced a new visual element to the city's public spaces, previously dominated by commercial imagery: propaganda promoting the law and emphasizing the connection between Hong Kong and Mainland China. The impact of this transformation is vividly portrayed in Simon Liu's film Let's Talk (2023), in which swirling and fragmented images of Hong Kong street views, characteristic of his previous works, merge into a symphony of a post-pandemic city. Evanescent glimpses of public housing estates, propaganda slogans, policemen, and familiar advertisements coalesce, as if swept away by a powerful typhoon that propels the city toward an unknown destination.
ALLEE ERRICO (New York City)
Cartoonist; author, froggie.world Vol. 1: Love Angel Music Bike (2024)
AMALIA ULMAN (New York City)
Artist; director, El Planeta (2021)
“My fiancé is waiting for me in Las Vegas,” she says. She keeps on talking about her fiancé and apologizing for her every move. That’s just something junkies do. I know she’s a junkie not because she’s drinking liquid morphine but because she says sorry a lot. And the cheekbones, of course.
She calls it “my medicine,” the morphine. She asks the flight attendant for wine and I join her. I’m on a Manchester–Las Vegas Thomas Cook flight and I need a drink.
If she didn’t call it her medicine I would ask her for some. I can’t sit still. I’m nervous. I’m in trouble. I was told that entering through Las Vegas would be easier than LAX, that the immigration officers are more relaxed. Or that they are so overwhelmed by serious criminals that people like me have an easier time sneaking through. People like me.
The friendly junkie talks about love and falls fast asleep. I get up and walk down the aisle, just as she will do in a few weeks. It’s dark. The only light comes from the passengers’ screens and almost everyone is watching that piece-of-shit movie. I can’t believe this. Not only is Jer not over his ex but now I have to stand here and watch this fucking movie against my will. An Oscar contender, they say. Oscar contender my ass. Can you believe this? Every screen: her face. I go back to my seat and pick up the liquid morphine from the junkie’s lap. She doesn't notice. Good. I take a sip and peek at the screen two rows ahead of me. I watch the whole movie in silence. I hope the immigration officers let me in.
