haotian zhang's short film distorts hong kong's cityscape as an animated evolving fractal

hong kong’s cityscape morphed as an evolving fractal

Haotian Zhang’s short film Fractal Cities documents the diversity of Hong Kong’s urban landscape to contemplate the future of our built environment. In the 3-minute-long animation, the filmmaker dissects and folds typical cases of habitation found within the city, from housing estates to temporary shelters in underground tunnels, morphing them into an imagined landscape.

Using 3D-scanned fragments, the film captures the essence of the city in the form of point clouds, seeking to preserve bygone experiences while aesthetically remaining distanced from reality. In such tension with the physical world, the film proposes a virtual alternative that is entangled rather than detached from reality.

buildings transforming on a revolving tesseract | all images courtesy of Haotian Zhang

Haotian Zhang animates a digital alternate reality

Through the lens of Fractal Cities, filmmaker Haotian Zhang brings into focus the multifaceted tapestry of Hong Kong’s living environments. The project carefully selects and showcases a range of dwellings encompassing the diverse spectrum of habitation found throughout the city. Each scenario is hypnotically transformed, presenting viewers with a virtual panorama that challenges traditional notions of spatiality and blurs the boundaries between reality and imagination.

Within this fractal city, conventional concepts such as big and small, and in and out lose their traditional meaning. Haotian Zhang’s constantly evolving digital world challenges 3-dimensional constraint, with scale, directionality, and boundaries perpetually transforming and inviting viewers to question the limitations of spatial metrics. The project is partially a response to the proliferation of metaverses that showcase otherworldly marvels, distinct from reality, while suggesting that spatial typology and dimensionality can become a realm of action. It hints at the potential of future digital spaces that may lie in the redefinition of the spatial structure, which could be non-Euclidean, fractal, and hyperdimensional.

The film is the third chapter of the tripartite film co-directed with Qian Guo and Tianying Li, developed with the support of the Design Trust Seed Grant and the 9th UABB (Shenzhen).

Fractal Cities documents the diversity of Hong Kong’s urban landscape

the Tong lau folded and multiplied

capturing temporary shelters in underground tunnels, morphing them into an imagined landscape

fragmented street view

the tower multiplied

a residential block with two courtyards

Haotian Zhang proposes a virtual alternative that is entangled rather than detached from reality

the densified city seen from a developing bedroom

the virtual panorama blurs the boundaries between reality and imagination

project info:

name: Fractal Cities
designer: Haotian Zhang

designboom has received this project from our DIY submissions feature, where we welcome our readers to submit their own work for publication. see more project submissions from our readers here.

edited by: ravail khan | designboom