Detour : Los Angeles River Speed Cinema

Abstract

We live in the culture of speed; everything is on its way to become a faster version of itself tomorrow if it is not already there today. Automobile and cinema are two inventions at the turn of the 20th Century that brought upon entirely new sensations through their unprecedented speed in both physical and representational mobility. However, more than a century later in Los Angeles, a city where cars and movies have been inculcated in the popular imagination, decelerating to a complete halt or even nonexistence is the modus operandi of late. Today's LA. is full of cars with no where to drive them really fast; brimmed with cinematic mementos but no real place to watch a film. It does not help that most of the architecture associated with driving and movie-watching is meant to be experienced when slowed down, not sped up. It is time to pick up the pace. This thesis proposes a new cinema typology that amalgamates the physical speed of cars and the representational speed of films through a re-imagination of the mundane activities of driving and movie-watching in the Flood Control Channel in downtown Los Angeles.