driving Detroit

The automotive industry was the core of Detroit’s economy between the end of the nineteenth century and the early 1970s, when the first oil shock

and incipient globalisation decimated production, contributing to a decades-long crisis. The monument to the growth and demise of the automative

industry in Detroit is its highway network. Built to make the car the only means of transportation, it reminds me of a hydraulic system, which

crisscrosses neighborhoods, often creating insurmountable obstacles in their midst. Flanked and squeezed in by high banks, cars and trucks move

along the river bottoms, while small and large buildings run by swiftly along the sides. When you drive into the city, the highways rush toward you

and vanish into uncontrollable curvilinear points of fugue.

I took photographers from the passenger seat, reacting instinctively to the stimuli that came from outside the vehicle. I let Photoshop turn parts

of the images into black and white, while leaving others in color. The algorithms play the “third eye,” enabling me to reproduce the experience

of looking at fast-moving objects from inside your vehicle: some capture your attention, while others are barely noticed.

The result is a highly selective but revealing portrait of Detroit, which I could “imagine” beyond the highways/river banks, road signals, billboards,

tall or low buildings and power lines that dominated my immediate surroundings and loomed over me from above.

Originally, my plan was to collect images throughout the year. A sudden and unwelcome change in my personal life forced me to end the project.

The photographs you see were taken in late winter, with feeble hints of spring here and there. In Michigan spring does not really show itself

until mid-May!

Previous
Previous

palimpsests

Next
Next

Torino