Florian Claar

2015

Part I

Mixed Media, two channel projection, HD Video, 6:16 min, Shibuya City Hall, Tokyo/ Japan

Part II

Mixed Media, HD Video, 6:40 min

Shibuya City Hall, Tokyo/ Japan

For decades, the roof of the Tokyu department store above Tokyo's Shibuya Central Station was a self-contained, gradually evolving urban landscape. A complete world unto itself. Within the narrow footprint of the roof, were industrial areas, storage facilities, food production, small stores, a playground, arcades, resting areas, a park, several viewing platforms, and even a small shrine. Although it was always open to the public, the site was largely forgotten, despite being in the middle of one of Tokyo's busiest neighborhoods. When the department store was demolished in 2014, and with it any trace of this forgotten world, it felt as if the ruins of a forgotten culture had been erased. To show respect to this lost world, the camera drifts blurry, dreamlike through a fragmentary reconstruction of this forgotten cityscape.