THE NEWEST OLDS

The Newest Olds transforms Detroit’s iconic city-scapes, dislodging buildings from their foundations and collapsing the physical, political and sensory boundaries between Canada and the United States through alchemical, in-camera, and optical printing techniques.

The Detroit skyline pulsates, night and day, in rain and shine, in line with the vibrating and superimposed views – Pablo Mazzolo filmed with a Bolex Super 16 and a Zeiss Ikon Kinamo 35 mm camera, both operated with hand-cranks, which explains the vibratory nature of the images. This then gives way to another skyline of much more modest proportions: Windsor, in Canada, a reverse shot of the first image, as it is located just opposite the American city on the other side of the river. The Newest Olds is based on the attraction of a geographical area that the Argentine director had already made into a film (Fish Point, shot on neighbouring Pelee Island, 2015). In this particular place, the meandering border takes the United States north of Canada and the former industrial capital is surrounded by a peaceful lacustrine landscape which, in the film, follows the views of both cities. The grass here moves with the same chromatic spasms, while the sound track, separate from the image, conjures up other places and other times. Humans are invisible, but make their appearance in the sound. In many ways, industry has encroached on the landscape that welcomes it – the persistent humming that only ceased when a factory closed down, the pollution with its deadly impact on birds. The past of “Motor City” has given way to a de-industrialised present where violence has taken on new forms. On the façades of historical buildings, rejuvenated by sudden double exposures, the sounds of today’s battles reinstate the men and women of the region, those who shaped it and also suffered from it. 

Olivia Cooper-Hadjian