dinsdag 23 oktober 2018

ConstructionSight

Buildings... we’ve got lots of them, all sorts, but many ugly ones... some interesting, but alas most still very inefficient and wasteful... That is the point of departure for a new look at what we build... ‘You Are Here’ ... an exhibition workspace investigation, part of the International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam, using the defunct WTC in Brussels as a urban debate platform workspace exhibition – World Trade Center becomes World Transformation Center... clock is ticking... 
Radical changes in out attitudes and actual re/conversion need to be in place by 2030. That is the proposed scheme: time for talking has run out. Wandering about in the stripped WTC building (I had been there before in a fiscal matter years ago) it felt incredibly dated, dark, dank thick thinking... heavy... A dinosaur from a bygone age, now host to a number of interesting and light-footed interventions, conferences, meeting, try-outs and such... Looking out the window at the buildings being built all around I am convinced that this sort of discussion is absolutely necessary.



Within this context the apparition of a space within a space – Remake 1:1 – Johan Van Geluwe / Art Recycling Terminal (ART of MOM). He had a scheduled exhibition in Reclclart, Kapellekerk station, torpedoed by the powers that be, and so, as part of this exercise in rethinking our urban spaces, translated the whole thing to a floor in the WTC, sitting as it were in front of this reconstituted gallery as an objet perdu in the once hallowed halls of a major bank that folded with the famous flop-crash of 2008, taking with it the savings of many an unwitting citizen who thought the government would help them rather than international speculators... 
Now standing next the vault of said bank, heavy doors wide open to access an empty chamber with only the remnants of a wall-sized poster of some imaginary vacation island one might escape to with all the bullion that may or may not have been stashed here... (imaginary reserves?) and reminding me of the palm-tree idyll Johan Van Geluwe created at Waregem Library for an 80th birthday show... a step up from the more modest ‘hofjes van eden’ which locals liked to adorn their meager properties with.... Brutal brutism has overtaken us and history and with newly-emptied pockets we have to find a way to offset the vicious profit-taking that renders art like this homeless... Recyclart has not permanent address, it needs to find a new space every time – at least for the moment... but this is already a good raised finger to the powers that be: mobility in every sense will render the old constructions useless and ineffective...


We need to go live & organic, move with the elements and become part of them rather than try to dominate them and break them and squash and maim and tame...



Another curiosity that comes to mind here is the ‘Vortex-Cortex’ parallax view Djos Janssen created for Reciprocity design Liege (in fact two venues: “Temporary Isolation 1&2”, at Maastricht (Gouvernement) and Sart-Tilman (musee en Plein Air U.Liège) the theme being “fragilitas”... With his relatively unobtrusive interventions Djos Janssen has again been able to balance his own personal style with the surroundings – in this case quite challenging: defunct brutism once the pinnacle of contemporary architecture, now still barely functional and a curiosity in it’s own right: a labyrinthine structure with relatively few windows and natural light, but interesting spaces and sympathetic materials... and to a degree, at least for those times, an ecological attitude and outlook... (though proposed green roofs were never realized, and time has taken it’s toll on various elements, the basic set up is one that tries to harmonize with the nature around it – not being able to foresee the exponential growth the university would encounter and the feeble transport infrastructure – making again cars & carparks a major feature of the once green campus up on the hill.


‘Vortex Cortex’ addresses some of this sliding mentality, being at the same time adherent to head and heart, both similarly under construction, modification, adjustment... On the one hand a darkened video-room with endless driving text, mesmerizing stream of thought/consciousness type of pattern – (seen at La Lettre Volee) and a bright, analytical room with but two chairs, circular reflective fragmentations of icebergs calving, like his ‘Chantier d l’utopie’ (homage a ES) the hard-hat aesthetics are offset by the soft approach suspended between intellect and feeling, doubt of self, the position of self, the impact and effect – edging even towards the paranoid and referring to one’s own thought as electroshock: “slowly and violently memories come and go in my shocked head...” with the remnant of an archaic distribution panel as ‘trouvé’ conduit-piece. The texts oscillate to enhance the doubt, juxtaposing the extremities we experience and try to remedy constantly, conundrums, yes tending toward the bipolar.
Here too, the good intentions clash with hard reality, as the surroundings in which the need for a streamlined educational environment must cater for the free thought and consideration, conversation and meditation needed to be able to create new concepts... a park as well as parking, sculptures as well as benches and forum for discussions, the ancient amphitheatre reinterpreted as part of the global plan of the campus: some things work, others don’t, and even with a bachelor in applied theory still not clear why.


A fragile exercise that needs to be approached with some spare time, which alas we sort of ran short of due to getting lost in the expansive campus (google had directed us to the veterinary college as being the open air museum) – goes to show that a trust in newfangled technologies does not always further your cause or understanding... if ever...

And we have only seen half of it: the other half in Maastricht is only open to the public on weekdays... another fifty-fifty challenge aspect to be mentioned... one can not view this exhibition fully in a weekend.