Still from Pump, used under Fair Use. Some rights reserved.Modern infrastructure rouses a peculiar romanticism in its human creators. From a dream through to rubble, from idea to abandoned husk, the built environment remains mysterious, fuelling imaginations with its promise of binding human life ever closer together. Perhaps it is a symptom of ‘capitalist realism’ that the most physical symbols of commerce and efficiency – bridges, motorways, skyscrapers – command such widespread fascination. Or maybe this sentiment extends naturally from the masculine ambition that pervades the world of architecture and engineering, those boyish desires to build higher, tunnel deeper and dream bigger than ever before.
Time gives infrastructure another layer of intrigue. Once abandoned, buildings and structures can be repurposed and reclaimed, gaining all kinds of new meanings and functions. A power plant can become a nightclub, a railroad a public park, a chapel can become a synagogue before ending up as a mosque. The built environment endures even as it is renewed and reimagined. Its roads, tracks and waterways can lead us to multiple temporalities – to both snapshots of the past and visions of the future.
This interplay of space, time and building forms the context for Pump, a new documentary centred on 11 miles of monorail test track near Orléans in northern France. Atop eight-metre concrete pillars, the disused track plays host to the wanderings of director Joseph David and his companion Andrew Kötting, whose purpose in visiting the viaduct is at the outset unclear.
