Max Colson uses architectural animation software to develop humorous video essays which speculatively explore the origins and cultural associations of specific architectures and terrains.
Max Colson is a London based architectural film-maker and artist. His recent films have explored the construction of subterranean basement’s of London’s super rich and England’s pastoral landscape. His film Construction Lines was the winner of the Fiction Short category at the Architecture Film Festival London and was also a winner of the UK’s Tenderflix Artist Video Prize (both 2017).
His films have screened in film festivals such as Sheffield Doc Fest (UK, 2018), Chicago Underground Film Festival (USA, 2018), Hamburg International Short Film Festival (GER, 2018), Aesthetica Short Film Festival (UK, 2017+2018), and Kassel Dokfest (GER, 2017). His first solo exhibition was hosted at the Royal Institute of British Architects in London (2015). He has exhibited in Europe at Showroom MAMA in Rotterdam (NL, 2016), Noorderlicht Photogallery in Groningen (NL, 2015), and C/O Berlin (2014). He teaches on the MA Graphic Communication Design at Central Saint Martins in London.
Construction Lines
HD Video / 07:41 min / 2017
“Construction Lines” is a short animated film about the interior of an ‘iceberg’ home (a home where the sub-ground levels are larger than the house above). The iceberg home in question was not developed due to hundreds of objections from surrounding neighbours in Knightsbridge, West London.
“Construction Lines” shows this iceberg home rendered as a 3D model, using the original architectural plans and the software ‘Sketchup’. The narrative of the film, the model of the home, and the scenes played out within it, are informed by the objections filed against the planning application, as well as online articles speculating about the lives and lifestyles of the super-rich.
The Green and Pleasant Land
HD Video / 13:31 min / 2017
Taking as its subject different perceptions of the British landscape, this short animated film is a roaming exploration of national identity and collective history set in a post-Brexit environment. Using a 3D model of the United Kingdom, a variety of visual scenarios – poignant, nostalgic and absurd – are enacted using a ‘live’ animation technique. These scenes draw directly on user comments found below the line of videos and online newspaper articles concerning the English and British countryside.
What emerges is a meditation on the British landscape – both as an imaginary vision and as a new world digitally constructed. “The Green and Pleasant Land” is a site where opinion, memory, history and highly charged emotion are given form, and are opened up for discussion and critique. The film had its World Premiere at the Sheffield Doc Fest in 2018.