Arena is a short film by Ireland-based artist Páraic McGloughlin which explores the similarities of international roadways, farming infrastructure, and urban design. In the minute and a half work, McGloughlin presents thousands of aerial images collected from Google Maps to create a series of winding pathways and geometric shapes that snake across the screen.
“I put a lot of focus on imagery containing flat lines, symmetry and grids as they are so different to the patterns/shapes made by nature, and hoped in turn that this would be most effective,” the artist told Directors Notes. “It wasn’t until I started messing with some images that I thought to allocate the idea of the game of life – ‘Arena’ to the theme as it fit perfectly in my opinion.”