Where the City Can’t See
A 400 page book of pure data
Client: Liam Young
Where the City Can’t See is the first fiction film shot entirely through laser scanning technology, directed by artist Liam Young and written by author Tim Maughan. Smith & Lewarne were commissioned to create a print edition of the data from the film.

Set in the Chinese owned and controlled Detroit Economic Zone (DEZ), in a not-too-distant future where Google maps, urban management systems and CCTV surveillance are not only mapping our cities, but ruling them.



An edition of 5 limited edition 400pp books were produced to coincide with the release of the film by using the entire text file derived directly from the laser scanning technology text file.


The design mimicked the approach to the film by rescanning, pulling apart and resizing complete sections of the page so that it could be read a visual journey in it's own right from light to dark.