THEN AS

THEN AS was shot in Tours and Saint-Pierre-des-corps in central France with the assistance of a group of students from the Ecole supérieure d'Art et Design TALM-Tours. Peter had been invited to do an exhibition at the Galerie Mame in Tours by David Kidman, who teaches film making at the school. At the same time as THEN AS was being shot, the students produced another, deconstructed film on 16mm.

In THEN AS, the infrastructures and agents of movement in the neighboring cities linked by rail, road and politics, yet divided by activity, history and politics are the main visible elements of the film, concentrating on the railway and tram lines, the factories and shopping streets, the bridges and a car park. The movements and the stasis interwoven throughout the film reformulate the overall plan of the two cities’ interurban infrastructure. Each shot is a moment to steady one’s gaze, to take the time needed to let the lines of the urban grid impose themselves. The presence and absence of the human figure fit the images of the two places; very few in the industrial areas of Saint-Pierre des Corps and many more in the centre of Tours.

written by David Kidman