New York (Southstreet Seaport / Staten Island Ferry)

For film-maker Jem Cohen, virtuoso with 8mm and 16mm celluloid, the commission from Rotterdam provided his first opportunity to get to know about working with digital video. He focused his attention on recent developments around the New York South Street Seaport, a traditional port area where the harbour activities have disappeared to be replaced by an artificial harbour as tourist attraction. Cohen wants to question the worldwide tendency to change any potential tourist location into a theme park. Without wanting to be didactic, he wants to provide an impression of replacing historic places by an artificial replica, a false notion of history. (GjZ)Jem Cohen (1962) lives in New York and works in independent theatre. His work (films, videos and installations) swings between experiment, documentary and narrative fiction.