Our Surreal World

Archinect posts some wild images of a "tennis" match staged on the Burj Dubai's helipad, from an article at This is London. Obviously a publicity stunt (though more literally too, because I don't see any harnesses on them, and the safety railing seems pretty inadequate for such a high altitude) for a tennis tourney in Dubai, the hotel, and the city itself, Andre Agassi battles Roger Federer for "King of the Skyscraper."


Photo by Getty Images

But on a serious note, the image is rather surreal, as alluded to on the Archinect post. Outside of the obvious fact that two pros are volleying 700 feet above the beach on lush, bright green grass in a desert climate, I think what fools us is the background. The environment veils the water, beaches and city in a haze, so the contrast between background and foreground is great, making it appear like two images melded together.

A similar fooling of the mind occurs in Olive Barbieri's site specific_roma 04, below.



On display as part of the MCA's Universal Experience exhibit, the film was taken by the artist from a helicopter flying over parts of Rome, here the Colosseum. But it's shot in such a way that the edges become blurred, flattening the context to the point that we think we're looking at a miniature. Paying close attention to the film, though, one notices that the cars and people below are moving. Even though this verifies that we're looking at the real Rome, it's still hard to shake the thought of a model when looking at Barbieri's imagery, just like it's hard to believe that Agassi and Federer are playing a leisurely game of tennis on a helipad.