Advanced, Global Capitalism has no memory, no sense of nostalgia, no concern for the patina on things, the traces of presence over generations. Nowhere is this more visible than in cities, where all the old, vacant garment factories and bakeries and tenements are long gone, replaced by glittering high rises.
Metropole is Lewis Bush’s dirge against this incessant growth, a lament for all the lost spaces.
Employing splitzers and multi exposure techniques, Bush captured skyscraper construction sites at night, in grainy, high contrast black & white, throwing into harsh relief the trauma we endure when places and spaces of memory disappear.
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Overall, Metropole earns a strong 4.3 stars.
As with all of Bush’s other projects, you can read about Metropole and have a look at the zine. If I didn’t have it already, and hadn’t picked up his complete back catalog as part of a Kickstarter, and if it wasn’t out of stock (as of July 27, 2018) I’d probably grab Metrople and City of Dust together, maybe also with A Model Continent.
Taken together with his other work—A Treatise on the Camera Obscured (2012), sure, but especially A Model Continent (2016), City of Dust (2016)—Bush’s project becomes clear. Overall, there’s a strong critique of Advanced Capitalism and the surveillance state, of globalism and corporate control running through the work. I’m sympathetic to this project and appreciate Bush’s work on it, the variety of angles and approaches he’s taken towards it, and I look forward to seeing what’s to come.
