The City by Chipka

2D • Urban/Cityscape • posted on Feb 21, 2015

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Description

Chicago prides itself on the grid-pattern of its streets, but the patterns of city planning have very little to do with the nature of cities in and of themselves. No matter how ordered a city’s streets may be, the city itself, will always be a jumble. It is this jumble that has drawn a diverse range of writers with some of my favorites among them. Samuel R. Delany has occupied himself with cities, as have Italo Calvino and Nelson Algren. Jonathan Lethem and Aleksandar Hemon have added their names to the long and venerable list of city authors: Algren and Hemon have immortalized Chicago in colorfully-urban ways. Each of the writers I’ve named here (and more that I haven’t) have all captured the singular essence of all cities: the street-defying jumble that is urban life. As I explored an area of Chicago just to the west of my place of employment, I encountered an unexpected jumble. It struck me as something Saul Bass might have represented in bold, styled graphics, while reeling through the depths of absinth-intoxication. When I unloaded images from my cameras, I felt the urge to pay homage to Saul Bass, countless city-immortallizing authors, and…well…something akin to absinth-intoxication, only without the absinth or intoxication. The jumble is there, and somewhere beneath the spastic strobe of neon and traffic-lights, the noise, and the flow of anonymous faces, there is order... As with other "overlay" images, this is derived from 6 layers of Chicago. All 6 layers of the city were photographed over a period of 2 days, and as always, thank you for viewing, reading, and commenting. I hope you're all having a great week(end).

Comments (8)

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durleybeachbum

12:58AM | Sat, 21 February 2015

Beautifully put together., Chip.

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kgb224

8:07AM | Sat, 21 February 2015

Amazing work my friend. God bless.

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jendellas

10:48AM | Sat, 21 February 2015

I love these images & I enjoy your exploring of Chicargo!! x

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treasureprints

2:38PM | Sat, 21 February 2015

Wonderful image!:)

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MrsRatbag

7:33PM | Sat, 21 February 2015

Absolutely fantastic work, Chip; this "genre" is beginning to be inextricably linked in my mind to you. I think you're building up a collection of covers for your novels to come... :)

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Faemike55

12:25AM | Sun, 22 February 2015

Impressive layering - each layer compliments the layers around it

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KatesFriend

8:00PM | Mon, 23 February 2015

For a moment I thought the straight cracks in the pavement might have been a set of streetcar tracks left over from Chicago's tram era. Alas no, but the mind sees what it wants to see from time to time. And my mind sees the promise of good hot food on a dark and cold night. No trams but the bus will still get you there. Through the slush and condensed exhaust. The smells just hang in the frigged air as does the buzzing of the bright and colourful signs which draw one in. Though I wonder who the 'man in the street' is. I've said it before and I'll say it again, coloured light - especially night light of a city - always enamors me. And here you have compressed a city's light pallette into this one dynamic scene.

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