As if the time has stopped for everyone but ourselves, we
travel down the subway platform in Berlin’s Alexanderplatz station, past nearly
immobile commuters frozen in mid-conversation, sipping a coffee, staring at
cell phone screens, or lost in thought. In Ádám Magyar’s hypnotic video Stainless
only a little girl running down the platform seems a part of our
world.   

Using a customized high speed camera set-up of his own
devising, Magyar recorded the length of the subway platform from window of a
train at 1000 frames per second, stretching the twelve-second passage into more
than eight minutes and slowing the movements of waiting passengers to near
stillness. Magyar’s interest in focusing on “unimportant, ignored moments”
rather than exceptional situations, allows the viewer a voyeuristic look at the
everyday presentation, pose, and expression we effect, and transforms a
commonplace crowd into a gallery of living sculptures.