Feature: Lagos
wide & close
F
rom DVD to the web, this interactive
documentary is an online adaptation
of the DVD Lagos Wide & Close – An
Interactive Journey into an Exploding
City. It is one of the first interactive
documentaries ever made, and a rare
documentation of Lagos at a volatile
moment in its evolution. The interactive
film presents a selection of video and
audio of Lagos recorded in 2001.
It separates the distant – wide – and the intimate – close
- views of the city enabling the viewer to switch between
these perspectives interactively. Rather than following
a dramatic story line, it aims to bring the viewer close
to the reality of what it means to live and work in Lagos,
to move alongside bus driver Olawole Busayo and other
Lagosians, and to delve into the city’s layered fabric,
slowly making sense of the rules, the possibilities, and
lifestyles of Lagos.
The explosive growth of Lagos
Reliable statistics are not available, but based on UN
reports and the Lagos city census, it is estimated that
every day, hundreds of people start new lives in the
African city of Lagos. As the largest port and commercial
centre of Nigeria, it is now home to approximately
15 million people. This dangerous, polluted, and in
many ways, dysfunctional city, has drainage problems,
relentless traffic jams, and shortages of water and
electricity, but is somehow working for those who move
there to start new lives. How and why does a city with
so many problems continue to grow against all odds? In
2000, architect Rem Koolhaas decided to study Lagos in
an attempt to understand the hidden logic that makes
a ‘dysfunctional’ city function. His research revealed a
population’s unique ability to cope inventively with an
urban landscape of disorder and to bring order into it.
Lagosians have equipped their expanding metropolis
with a finely meshed web of efficient self-organizing
networks, challenging the dominant idea that “Lagos
doesn’t work.”
Loos Vǒ&6VB