Concrete Nature: The Planetary Sand Bank

An architectural essay about the basic material of modernity in beautifully composed images and a thought-provoking monologue.

Each of the meticulously composed images in Rikke Luther＇s essayistic ＇Concrete Nature＇ is literally rooted in a specific place, its material history and social relations. With concrete as the topic of this beautiful cinematic essay, Luther draws thought-provoking lines between critical moments of modernity - a period whose promises of progress and universal values are materialised in concrete. From the first decades of the 19th century, via the aestheticisation of politics until today, where the seabed is used as a sand mine with disastrous consequences - and possibly on to a future with 3D-printed concrete buildings on other planets. The food for thought is complex, but accessible in Luther＇s well-written monologue, illustrated by well-chosen and spacious motifs of the both standardised and visionary architecture that concrete has enabled, and the destroyed landscapes that its production has caused. Screening with ＇A Tree Is Like a Man＇.