A peculiar meme with global reach, you can find shoes hanging from telephone lines in New York City, Sydney and Madrid. Like being able to find a McDonald’s or a Starbucks in almost any major city, the spread of the strange phenomenon is a testament to how quickly ideas and culture travel in the global age even when the significance remains opaque. The Mystery of the Flying Kicks is a crowd-sourced collage that combines animation, donated video, photographs and phone messages to shed light on the trend.
What’s behind the urban meme of shoes hanging from overhead wires?
Director: Matthew Bate
Producer: Viron Papadopoulos
24 February 2015
videoInformation and communication
An animation built from road signs is a whirlwind study of flash communication
2 minutes
videoArt
Is this what a city looks like in its dreams? A 360° dive into Tokyo
5 minutes
videoPolitics and government
‘Without a poster, you don’t exist!’ – on the curious political banners of Mumbai
20 minutes
videoCities
The urban commute reimagined as a rhythmic subterranean ritual
3 minutes
videoSports and games
‘Since we don’t have wings we fly kites’ – aerial combat above Rio’s favelas
5 minutes
videoTechnology and the self
A ‘virtual outing’ on Google Maps reveals a treasured image from Diego’s past
6 minutes
videoTechnology and the self
How an augmented reality app transformed London into an immersive art gallery
6 minutes
videoPersonality
A street magician’s tricks make everyday technology magical and mysterious
4 minutes
videoCities
Time dilates and people flow in and out of each other in a hallucinatory urban commute
3 minutes