The Unfinished City

2025

Machine Learning, traditional animation techniques

Béatrice Lartigue - Lab212

The Unfinished City explores the work of theorist, architect and urban planner William J. Mitchell (1944-2010), a professor at the MIT Medialab. Mitchell is the author of a trilogy that explores the impacts, challenges and potentials raised by the development of digital technology on the way we think about and design the city. “Since new technological systems are complex social constructions, we must understand our emerging options, choose our ends carefully, and build well. Our job is to design the future we want, not to predict its predetermined path. [...] Ultimately it comes down to a basic social and political choice. What will we use the multifaceted and sometimes contradictory affordances of digital technology for?”, e-topia: "Urban Life, Jim—But Not As We Know It", 1999, The MIT Press The Unfinished City takes a subjective, dreamlike perspective on the themes Mitchell sketched out over 25 years ago. The fragmented, shifting city that takes shape before our eyes becomes the film's main protagonist. Thought of as a living organism, this architecture also echoes the thinking of the Metabolist movement that emerged in Japan in the late 50s. Metabolism views cities as dynamic, evolving systems where buildings, like living organisms, can grow and adapt over time. The film combines "traditional" animation techniques with Machine Learning tools.

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The MIT Press

MAXXI x LIFT as part of the European LINA platform

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