“We are inventing the future here...”: How is Paris being adapted for the knowledge-based economy?

Mapping Paris

Using a hybrid methodology of photography, audio, and post-production, Pauline's site visit aims to analyse Station F’s entanglement with the past and future. Reusing the 1920s Halle Freyssinet is a compelling example of the entangled fragments of the railway and industrial economy and the conversion towards a knowledge-based economy. This process pacifies the perception of high-technology industries by familiarising itself with its industrial past. Station F is staged at the crossroads of an attempt to disavow the historical past whilst being unable to untether itself from it.

She used her camera and phone’s recording application, capturing the sounds and simultaneously taking photographs as she traversed from the 12th arrondissement’s Pont de Bercy, crossing the Seine, and into the 13th. Using editing software, she overlayed the sound recording, matched the photographs, replaced the sound recording layer with the 24:57 minute ‘STATION F Big Launch Party with Emmanuel Macron’ audio from the opening day of Station F, and transcribed the video to match the photos with the text.

By Pauline Blanchet