AG Gleisdreieck

AG gleisdreieck /
www.berlin-gleisdreieck.de
The Gleisdreieck is a large vacant area in
the middle of Berlin. As proper ty of the East
German railway company but lying on the
West side of the Wall, it remained a no-go
area for half a century and turned into a wild
landscape harbouring rare vegetation such
as Siberian species impor ted by transcontinental trains. The AG Gleisdreieck is keen to
preserve this site against developers and has
successfully convinced the city administration
to preserve it as a park. The issue today is
the integration of the local natural and social
ecosystems within this future park.
AG Gleisdreieck
1997
2005
Berlin Gleisdreieck
Berlin
Germany
Europe
The AG Gleisdreieck is a citizens’ initiative
set up in the early 1990s in Berlin. Norber t
Rheinländer is an architect and veteran of the
Westtangente movement, a movement created
in the mid-70s to prevent the construction of
a new highway by the Wall through WestBerlin.
The group protested against the Westtangente highway essentially on ecological grounds,
arguing that there would be considerable damage caused to an already suffocating and
claustrophobic city.
Norber t is motivated basically by urban ecology concerns. The Westtangente project was
abandoned in the late 1980s as a result of
the protest.
Matthias Bauer is a landscape planner and
his involvement in the Gleisdreieck initiative
stems from his living right next to the area.
Today, the initiative is made up of an additional half a dozen active members and one or
two dozen less regular members of different
backgrounds. Two other members of the active ‘core’ are architects, others are neighbours and/or ecologically and socially motivated citizens of Berlin.
Berlin / since 1990 / status NGO, citizen initiative /
citizens’ initiative
urban farming
urban ecology
social ecology
intercultural integration
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AG gleisdreieck / WORKSPACE / ORGANISATION / TOOLS / METHODS
loca Berlin
tion
c o n We have no permanent workspace.
text
Our meeting space is a community church near
the vacant Gleisdreieck area, where we meet twice
a month
t e About 6 active and 10 less active, all voluntary
am
peo Landscape architects, local citizens
ple
part Networking of community gardens within Berlin;
ners
(informing people by writing about community
gardening in Berlin and New York City / the United
States in informal magazines like ‘Contraste’,
‘Rabe Ralf’, etc.); working together with artists e.g.
‘Un-wetter’ e.V. Berlin
SUPP Funds acquired for individual projects are
ORTS
managed on an ad-hoc basis
prac The Gleisdreieck is the largest vacant area
tice
in the centre of Berlin, and the action group
is committed to developing a citizens’ park
instead of real estate property. We are the
garden group within the action group and
push for citizens’ and inter-ethnic gardens
within the park, in collaboration with the
migrant association Südost Kultur e.V.
We are working practically developing the
international and community Gardens on
the Gleisdreieck.
The AG has developed a series of concepts for the
future park and actively informed the population
as well as the administration through public presentations, public exhibitions as well as through
direct and permanent lobbying. Our tools include
professional planning, public information and political action within the limits of legality, including
mobilisation of the media. Matthias Bauer has developed and sustains an internet platform with relevant material published online. He offers regular
guided tours through this extensive wild landscape
and has attracted a large public audience over the
years.
As a result of intense lobbying and political, as well
as media activity, public access to the area was
granted prior to the creation of the park, with AG
developing a number of projects as experiments
and ideas workshops for the future of the park.
These include urban farming, community gardening, intercultural gardening, an international summer camp, a children’s playground, bee keeping
and various art projects, including an international
arts festival that failed due to lack of funding. Alex
Toland from the School of Arts identified and labelled over 300 wild species, a project called Gallery
of the Wild Herbs, documenting the ecological value
of the area. Through these projects, the AG obtained the participation of the population and of
organisations such as the migrant’s association
Südost Kultur (operating an intercultural garden),
the leading ecological organisation Ökowerk Berlin (operating an experimental cereal and potato
field on the area), the church community next-door
(operating the playground), the ecological organisation BUND (using the area for ecological education), the Berlin Technical University etc. Seeking
out allies is one of the AG’s key strategies.
The AG meets regularly twice a month in the rooms
of the neighbouring community church to discuss
current issues and develop new strategies. Membership is entirely voluntary and informal. The AG
has no permanent office and no budget. Funds acquired for individual projects are managed on an
ad-hoc basis, as was the case, for instance, for the
exhibition of proposals for the design of the park a
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few years ago, which was carried out through adhoc fundraising.
Three years ago, the city administration announced
a public competition for the planning of the park,
ignoring the detailed concepts and ideas developed
by the AG. The AG responded with the creation of
a legal association that claims planning and development rights over the park. The park association
(Parkgenossenschaft) Gleisdreieck, now amounts
to some 100 members.
Under pressure from the AG, the planning authorities called for public participation in the planning
process and organised consultation and debate
forums, as well as setting up a working group to
accompany the planning process, including electing
citizen representatives. The candidates from the
AG were elected and are now active in the regular
meetings of the working group. They report a system of top-down planning, of ignoring public input,
a strategy of instrumentalising the conflicts within
the public, and a tendency for the appropriation by
the administration of citizens’ initiatives. In particular, current planning has been limited to include
the key ecological and social proposals of the AG
(preservation of the wild ecosystems and integration of citizens’ activity in the form of community
gardens) in an essentially classical artificial leisure
park. As a response, the AG has launched direct
political action at parliamentary level.
Subsistence farming as eco-feminist tool for
convivality
Elisabeth Meyer-Renschhausen summarised ecological and social subsistence farming from a feminist
perspective in Die Gärten der Frauen, the proceedings of the 2000 Berlin conference on small-scale
urban and rural farming. Industrial, large-scale farming is aimed at the production of commercial value, while small-scale farming aims at subsistence
(self-consumption) and at social integration in the
sense of oikos, of house and yard. World-wide, women feed the world and are refused the means to
do this, namely land property. Small-scale subsistence farming arises spontaneously in post-industrial centres after commercial markets collapse and
the disappearance of wage labour and the neo-
liberal dismantling of social security institutions.
Community gardens differ from allotment gardens,
which used to enable workers in the industrial era
to survive on low wages, through a system where
social exchange is made central as opposed to
social isolation. Community gardens restore the
pre-industrial era institution of the commons, as
landscape architect and garden activist Karl Linn
exclaims: ‘Reclaim the commons!’. Community gardens grow food, rather than flowers – the floral
symbols of those decorative royal and middle-class
gardens that aim at the public representation of
male power. Garden means fence, girdle, like Slawic
“grad” for town, as a means for integration as opposed to abstract borders as a means of exclusion.
Subsistence unlike commercial, industrial farming,
has a fence that allows the co-existence of unlimited varieties instead of monoculture : a metaphor
for social integration and a means of ecological
regeneration just like wilderness.
In spite of its ability to transform the city from an
economic machine into a place in which to live,
urban farming is not liked by administrations for
several reasons. First of all, it does not contribute
to city finances. This semblance of no returns is
not dissimilar to the early debates surrounding
the exorbitant costs of space travel, which ended
up being offset by the more than exorbitant costs
of not engaging in space travel. Urban farming
does not cost a penny, but not to urban farm at
all is in itself an unaffordable luxury. Secondly, it
evokes poverty and social decay, thirdly political
anarchy. Elisabeth Meyer-Renschhausen has
described the attempt by the New York City administration to cleanse the city of its many hundreds
of spontaneous community gardens. This resulted
in citizen action, broadening public awareness
and ultimately to the creation of a formalised
status for community gardens. Her conclusion:
‘Everywhere, gardens must be defended’, seems
to be confirmed today in the European situation of
the Gleisdreieck.
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AG gleisdreieck / project BERLIN GLEISDREIECK
The AG -action group- Gleisdreieck can be traced back
to a grassroots movement of the 1970s, a movement that was trying to prevent the construction of
a highway along the Berlin Wall right in the middle of
Berlin. The movement was quite successful in linking
political and environmental issues. The railway area in
the middle of Berlin (Gleisdreieck – railway junction)
is a vacant area of 60 hectares left by the bombing
the world’s largest railway area. Right next to the Wall,
it was a strictly no-go area until 1990 and, as such,
developed a unique type of vegetation, a so-called
urban landscape of the 4th kind (mixing cultural and
industrial vestiges with fresh, aboriginal ruderal vegetation). The AG was born in the mid-1980s to claim
the preservation of the site. The issue grew acute in
the 1990s due to the rocketing real-estate value of
the land. The AG, then composed mainly of landscape
architects, obtained the right to create a park as ecological compensation for extensive building in the city
centre. The park is now under construction.
The issue today is the nature of the park: will it be
a classical park of the 19th century type, a passive
zone for the representation of power, or an active
park reflecting current reality: the need for self-organised activity in the post-industrial city? Gardens are
a key issue in this respect, meaning subsistence and
community-oriented urban micro-farming, as opposed
to decorative and individualised gardens. Community
gardens in the large US cities -the so-called third world
within the first- and intercultural gardens of Europe
and Germany are major tools for the integration of migrants and of neighbourhoods. The AG has developed
together with Südost Kultur e.V., a local association of
migrants from Bosnia, an intercultural garden in the
Gleisdreieck area.
At the time of writing, the intercultural garden has been
integrated into the planning of the park supervised by
city authorities. This appears, however, to be a minor
concession paid for by the replacement of all ruderal
with artificial vegetation and passive «flaneur» zones
that will make up most of the park’s 20 hectares. The
planning authorities appear to instrumentalise the
purpose of the inherent conflict between participative
and ecological issues in the interests of top-down
planning, reclaiming for themselves the initiative of
the intercultural garden and ignoring the question of
participation, reducing it to staging public consultation
without any real effect on the planning itself.
As a response to top-down planning, the AG Gleisdreieck created the Parkgenossenschaft (Park Association) Gleisdreieck, a legal association reclaiming
citizen planning and management of the park. The
association now has some 100 members across all
geographical and social areas of Berlin.
Northeast part of Gleisdreieck area (left), marked 1 on full map of the future park (right). Rebuilt business and
commercial centre Potsdamer Platz in the city centre is just North off the map.
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/ SITE Berlin / TIMING
since 2005
/ PARTNERSHIP
Community gardens network
Intercultural garden, Gleisdreieck
The garden is run by about 20 women and 3 men,
all refugees from the former Yugoslawia, mostly Bosnians. Its creation was made possible by opening a
small part -6000 square meters- of the 100 times
larger Gleisdreieck area by the municipal authorities
or temporary use by the public. In a first step, the AG
created a community garden in the New York style,
supported by members of the AG Kleinstlandwirtschaft in Stadt und Land (Working Group on Urban
and Rural Small-Scale Farming) who then invited the
neighbouring Bosnian association Südostkultur e.V. to
create their own intercultural garden, which grew then
from 50 square meters in size in 2005 to 400 square
meters in 2007. The gradual extension of the garden
using the experimental cereal and potato fields of the
ecological NGO Ecowerk Berlin e.V., also supporting
the project, met with the heavy opposition of the ecological faction of the AG Gleisdreieck, who deplored
the destruction of virgin nature for human activity. The
conflict threatened to disrupt the entire AG.
At the time of writing, the garden is being relocated
by the planners on a reserved, remote area of
1000 square meters. The garden group of the AG
welcomes the integration of the garden into the park,
but deplores its marginalization within the park (‘for
safety reasons’) as well as its modest size compared
to the real needs of an urban area showing extremely rapid growth among a large variety of migrant
groups (Turks, Russians, Africans,…), setting the
stage for major conflicts in the future.
Mayor candidate Franz Schulz inaugurating the garden, May 2006
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Europe
PARK FICTION /
Park Fiction has been organising the Collective
Productions of Desires for a park in Hamburg’s
red light district, St. Pauli, since 1995. With a
scenic view over the harbour, the park is located
in a significant and beautiful enough place for the
city government to want to sell it off to private
investors. These plans by the politicians could be
stopped by a clever Network in the community.
Instead of just protesting against the government’s
plans, this network, a spin-off from the squatter
fights of the ‘80s, organised a Parallel Planning
Process in the community, creating Platforms of
Exchange between people from different cultural
fields: musicians, priests, a headmistress, a cook,
café-owners, barmen, a psychologist, squatters, artists -Interventionist Residents. This
process, was accompanied by a series of lectures,
talks, discussions, exhibitions and film screenings
called Infotainment, and by Activities Anticipating the Desired Park.
game. Special Tools were developed to make the
planning process more accessible. A container
office was placed in the area, housing a Modelling Clay Office, a Garden Library, an Archive
of Desires and a telephone Hotline for people
feeling inspired in the middle of the night. The
Action Kit, a portable planning studio, was used
for visits into the surrounding neighbourhood.
Margit Czenki produced a film, Park Fiction Desire Will Leave the House and Take to
the Streets, on Super 8 and 16mm in 1998, as
a way of capturing the different voices and the
moment when ‘art and politics makes the other
more clever’.
Most elements of the park have now been realised.
The Teagarden Island features artifical palm
trees and is surrounded by an elegant 40 metre
long bench. There are three Open Air Solariums,
a Flying Carpet, a wave-shaped piece of lawn
surrounded by a mosaic inspired by the Alhambra.
Hamburg
The Tulip Patterned Tartan Field is a reference to the tulip era in Turkey. There are neighbourhood gardens, a boules field, sand boxes
and the so-called Amphitreon. The Woman
Pirates Fountain and the Strawberry-shaped
Treehouse, have not, however, been financed.
These are just some of the casualties of desire,
the unhappy consequences of climbing Into Bed
With Bureaucracy. Local politicians of all parties
also managed to prohibit the construction of the
Park Fiction Archive as a container floating over the
park even though the culture board had already
approved the project.
To open up horizons once again, Park Fiction is
currently in the process off setting up an Institute
for Independent Urbanism. On the first floor of the
Golden Pudel Klub we will be sharing a space where
we will show a condensed version of the Park
Fiction Installation, developed for Documenta11
in 2002. This archive will, like the exhibition be a
suggestion of how a social movement can present
itself in a self-determined way.
www.parkfiction.org
discussion and reflection, and will develop local and
international projects, that link the urban everyday
with the imaginary. To start with, we organised the
international congress Park Fiction presents
Unlikely Encounters in Urban Space in 2003,
inviting groups from Delhi, Tijuana, La Plata,
Hamburg and Milan – see project pages.
Our upcoming project Maschine Machen is
pieced together from different Plug-ins. If we
secure funding, we will start developing the Park
Fiction Archive, Guide Projects and Urban
Study Workshops with youngsters from the
neighbourhood, a Mediagarage, a publication, a
local grant called Co-Lab and a series of talks on
spaces created by music-scenes called Rooms of
Desires. We have already started the Videotaxi,
for audiovisual urban tours, and a public Video
Module in the park, as part of the Boulevard of
Unrealised Desires.
This archive will not be a passive storage system:
it is conceptualised as a parallel public space of
Kassel
Germany
Located in one of the poorest residential areas
in western Germany, (when the project began, 70
percent of residents did not possess a German
passport), Park Fiction was also an art project,
organising the planning process in the form of a
Hamburg / since 1995 (as neighbourhood network) / 1997 (as art project) /
1997
1998
2002
2003
production of desires
2007
Videotaxi ganz wie zu Hause
Unlikely Encounters
in Urban Space
Park Fiction installation
Park Fiction - film
Neighbourhood network
independent urbanism
co-operation
constituent practices
parallel planning process
making unlikely encounters
more likely
imagination from everyday life
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PARK FICTION / WORKSPACE / organisatioN
loca Buttclub, The Park Fiction Archive, home office. We
tion
have two working spaces: the buttclub in St.Pauli
Hafenstrasse 129 and coming soon, the Park
Fiction Archive in the Golden Pudel Klub (St. Pauli
Fischmarkt 26). Our office is still our home.
con Buttclub is shared with several other groups all
text
based in the former squats of Hafenstrasse, opposite the harbour. It is near Park Fiction, on the
border of the red light district. The Park Fiction
Archive will be located in the newly-renovated first
floor of the Golden Pudel Klub, in the heart of
Park Fiction. This is also a shared space. We will
be working there three to four days a week.
te From 1996 to 2000, Park Fiction has approxiam
matively 5 people working on the organisational
structure, one social worker (paid), everyone else
working on a voluntary or «intermittent» basis.
The organisational operations of the Institute are
carried out by 2 people (Margit Czenki, Christoph
Schäfer) working full-time, voluntarily and sometimes intermittently paid on a project-by-project
basis. Occasionally, the network grows in size
with up to 20 people becoming actively involved.
An informal network of about 10 people are also
involved in formative discussion.
and lese-butt. The Park Fiction Archive is shared
with musicians, the Golden Pudel Klub, a half-legal
Bistro, small record labels and other emerging
phenomena.
part Local initiatives, activists, the Golden Pudel
ners
Klub,the buttclub, the squatted houses, Dock-Europe, project related funding from Kulturbehörde
Hamburg and Kulturstiftung des Bundes.
prac Park Fiction was explicitly related to a piece
tice
of land that has now become a park. The
Institute is a flight line, an attempt to find a
way for this activity, rooted within a neighbourhood, to branch out into other fields
of research, production and intervention
-locally and elsewhere. Our urban theory
is derived from Henri Lefebvre. We believe
that the production of desires -as idea and
practice- should be the driving force behind
the reshaping of cities.
-of artists, musicians, social workers, architects,
priests, a headmistress, a filmmaker, a cook, a
waiter, a bar-owner, cafe-owners, a graphic designer. The Institute is made up of artists, musicians, an ethnologist, a designer, young architects,
activists and art theorists.
cos Buttclub: 350 € per month, shared by club members
t(s)
plus profits from the bar.
Park Fiction Archive: 15.000 € lump sum over 5
years.
sha Buttclub is a space shared with the buttclub, jeudi
ring
bouffe, euromayday, kanak attak, queermonday,
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Park Fiction Office Container, 1997 – 2000, Foto © Hinrich Schultze, 1998
peo Park Fiction was solely a neighbourhood network
ple
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PARK FICTION / TOOLS / methodS
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PARK FICTION / PROJECT PARK FICTION
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/ SITE Hamburg’s
harbour wall / TIMING starting inofficially in 1995 / officially in 1997-1998 / Park nearly finished in 2005 / PARTNERSHIP
Hafenrandverein / GWA / St. Pauli School / St. Pauli Church / FUNDS self-financing / Kulturbehörde Hamburg (1 year) / Umweltbehörde
Hamburg (realisation)
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PARK FICTION
2 / PROJECT Unlikely Encounters in Urban Space
Local Knowledge - Global Exchange:
The private living space, the space of everyday life,
everyday knowledge and everyday poetry -is the level
that is most devalued, culturally, economically, and in political thinking. But it is precisely from here that the urban
revolution will emerge. It is from here that its direction will
be found. How can local knowledge develop in tension
with global forces? How can local forms of knowledge
and movements exchange with each other and challenge
global powers?
One year after Documenta11, Park Fiction’s installation
returned to Hamburg. Back in its place of origin, the
work was shown in St.Pauli, on the Reeperbahn. After
seven years of the ‘production of desires’, Park Fiction
was finally in the process of being realised. The first palm
trees, designed by residents, were now standing in the
Park. Just the right time to make this process, where ‘Art
and politics made each other more clever’ accessible in
its model-like state.
Congress: June 26th - 29th
The congress aimed to open out the view to the globalised horizon – based on the experiences of Park Fiction
– and create relationships between similar projects in
different countries. Groups from diverse professional
backgrounds presented their practices, drew connections from their discussions, and created links between
their diverse practices and aims. Not least, the meeting
was about the exploration of possibilities for an urbanism
of the multitudes, that is starting to emerge.
Congress issues: Constituent Practices... constitute social relations without being commissioned by
authorities to do so -this avoids having to address the
state directly, as much as it avoids trenchant battles
with power. More so than street level study, constituent
practices connect arts and social movements, invent new
games, engage in alternative forms of science, squat
land, build new settlements and whole cities, redefine
public space- and thus challenge dominating systems of
urban planning, and reality description.
Unlikely Encounters:
These groups develop tools, attitudes, courage, practices
and programs, that make unlikely encounters, meetings
and connections more likely, deliberately seeking these
out, leaping over cultural and class barriers, going where
noone else goes. They do not allow their activities to be
reduced to symbolic action, mirroring, critique, negation,
or to an analysis of their powerlessness -nor do they
muddle along in their designated corner.
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The conference presented groups from Asia, Europe and
Latin America : Ala Plastica from Argentina, who work
on the rhizomatic linking of ecological, social, and artistic
methods. In early 1991, in the former La Plata zoo,
the group occupied a former library to reconstruct this
public space destroyed by the dictatorship. With projects
at the Rio de La Plata, polluted by Shell, Ala Plastica is
successful both in intervening directly into ecologic and
social systems, while exposing at the same time the
structures that cause the global catastrophes - the difference between local and global knowledge. Maclovio
Rojas started as a squatted settlement in Tijuana, with
an impressive system of self-organisation, autonomous
and independent schools, a centre for political theory
and philosophy. The ejido, led mostly by women from
southern Mexico, organises a clever networking policy
with artists and other parts of civil society on both sides
of the US/Mexican border. Cantieri Isola / OUT- Office
for Urban Transformation: between car mechanics,
established metal workers, and young communists, OUT
organises exhibitions and discussions on art and urbanism, in a squatted factory. Isola, an affordable residential
district, close to the centre of Milan, will, according to
city government plans, be split by an access road in two
as a way of directing large amounts of traffic from the
suburbs right through the district to the ‘City of Fashion’
a gigantic investors’ project, designed by Documenta11
-architect-cum- artist convert Stefano Boeri. Residents,
artists, and political groups have united to stop this
project. The ‘Stecca’ factory, located at a strategic point,
has been occupied, drawing public attention to the threat
posed to it and the surrounding park. Bert Theis planted
Milan’s first ‘palma clandestina’ (illegally imported palm
tree) in the park. Sarai from Delhi, India, is an ‘experimental field for collective digital work, an urban research
centre, and a media lab’. Sarai is a reader of everyday
urban life and a publisher of his fantasy-world readers,
accomplishing the feat of dealing with urban studies,
/ SITE
Hamburg / TIMING June 19 – July 6, 2003 / PARTNERSHIP neighbourhood network / FUNDS Kulturstiftung des Bundes
academic analyses of the city’s hotbed of rumours, and
everyday poetry -with dignity and in a ‘horizontal’ way.
Sarai’s work is limited neither to the Internet nor to the
art world, rather it conveys open source concepts to
other social realms- to the city.
In Delhi’s self-organised, informal settlements, which are
constantly under the threat of being demolished, Sarai
operates a series of computer labs and urban studies
centres called Cybermohallah. Young people go on
to describe cities within the city that remain uncharted
territory on official maps. With their sensitive accounts of
improvised settlements, the youngsters not only create
a fragmentary urban literature of the mega-cities; their
poetry, which is published in Hindi and English, reinforces
the settlements on a second level. A medium completely
remote from power turns into an element of constituent
power. Already before the congress, Shveta Sarda and
Joy Chatterjee from Sarai made workshops with youngsters from St.Pauli in collaboration with Park Fiction. Finally,
the congress is interrupted by Schwabinggrad Ballet. A
group made up of Hamburg musicians, searching for
ways to intervene in public spaces in unexpected ways.
Flexible performance strategies were therefore developed. Theatrical elements were increasingly included
and bespoke street musicals were developed for specific
situations. The Schwabinggrad Ballet operates rhizomatically and is not dependent on permanent members; it
is expanded by additional artists and activists depending
on the occasion. The ballet focuses on the fight against
the ‘racification’ of public space and gentrification, as
well as on anti-war actions. Schwabinggrad is part of a
network operating the Buttclub and organising discussions, readings, exhibitions, concerts, reading circles,
and actions. Schwabinggrad (whose name combines
the Nazi’s greatest defeat and the Federal Republic’s
first innocent street-musician riots) developed the Hellas
Musical for the No Border camps in Forst (2000), Frankfurt (2001) and Strasbourg (2002). Other groups and
individuals who were involved: Ligna, expertbase, Galerie
für Landschaftskunst, the Bambule, Jelka Plate und
Stephan Dillemuth.
Subcurated by Margit Czenki, Christiane Mennicke and Christoph
Schäfer for Park Fiction, the Unlikely Encounters were prepared
by a team of 12 people, and it moved through different locations in the neighbourhood: cellars, clubs, discos, flats, community centres, private gardens – including an uninvited visit at
SAP schooling centre in Hafencity. A new feature was invented
by Margit, the “heure fixe”, a 1 hour open discussion before the
start of the lectures, where talks and thoughts you had the night
before, could be flow back into the congress.
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PARK FICTION
3
2 / PROJECT VIDEOTAXI ganz wie zu hause
/ SITE Wilhelmsburg / exhibition participation « Wilhelmsburger Freitag » / TIMING September 2007 / PARTNERSHIP Margit Czenki, Christoph
Schäfer / FUNDS Cultural board
The cultural policy in Hamburg, as in many cities,
has changed. Budgets for art in public space are
increasingly spent only in connection with urban
(re-) development projects. In preparation for IBA
2013 -the international building exhibition- artists
are asked to develop work to, blandly, gentrify
former harbour and working class areas close to
the River Elbe.
In this context we were invited to participate in an
exhibition called „Wilhelmsburger Freitag“. As we
like perverted situations, we decided to take part
-but of course not with a participatory work, which
would have done nothing but add to the democratic
camouflaging of the event.
We found three places made by inhabitants of the
area, which, in our view, featured urban qualities,
like: an openness to the outside, (mis-)appropriation of given urban structures, and, most importantly for us, that had a moment of resistance
against an all-too-easy integration into a superficially multi-cultural consensus culture.
To avoid exposing these spaces -and the people
who had made them- to the touristic gaze, that
exoticises and damages what it stares at, we shot
videos of these spaces. They were shown in an intimate, private space: the Videotaxi -a car equipped
with monitors and a sound system.
For a month, the Videotaxi offered regular free
tours through the neighbourhood. Texts analysed
the paradigm shift in the urban planning policy
of the globalised powers from one that serves
industry to one that produces images. These texts
were juxtaposed with the videos and interspersed
was a secret story of film, desire and technology.
The Videotaxi is one of the plug-ins of maschine
machen, the first project of the Park Fiction Institute
of Independent Urbanism, that tries to find a more
sustainable way for local and global knowledges, for
experiences from the fields of art and the everyday,
to feed back into each other.
Concept: Margit Czenki, Christoph Schäfer; Video: Margit
Czenki; Text: Christoph Schäfer; Music: Ted Gaier; Voices:
Nikola Duric, Melissa Logan, Christiane Müller-Lobeck; Driver:
Fernando Diosa Veléz
www.ganzwiezuhause.de
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33
CITY MINE(d)/
Brussels / London / Barcelona / since 1997 / status asbl (non-profit-making organisation) /
City Mine(d) believes that local art interventions can be harnessed to create transversal
coalitions that manage to bring local concerns
into the urban development agenda. In 2004
City Mine(d)’s strategy was published by the
European Commission as best practice in
innovative forms of urban development. City
Mine(d) currently works on Micpuc, Methods
for Intercultural Participation in Urban Civil
Society.
2005
2006
BBOT-BNA
2003
Micro-Marché-Midi (MMM)
KRAX
MICRONOMICS
generalized empowerment
participatory platform
L-Atlas
BocasLocas
Expulsion
Collectif
sans Ticket Coördinatie
Europa
asso Quartier
Precare
Limite Limite
Cinema Nova
Van Schoor
PleinOPENair
Bunker Souple
2002
2001
Soapboxrace
1999
Bruxxel.org Collectif contre Leopold
1997
neightbourhood
commitee
Bruxelles
Belgique
Europe
The different steps involved in art intervention give an exceptional access to grassroots
knowledge, information and contacts about
cities and urban development that seems to
escape traditional universities. To make this
acquired knowledge accessible for new initiatives, to policy makers as well as to intermediary
organisations while at the same time answering recurrent questions from universities, City
Mine(d) is currently launching the City Mine(d)
LAB. The City Mine(d) LAB collects the acquired
knowledge in a documentation centre (CARGO),
has several blogs, gives master classes, tutorials
and workshops in different educational centres,
edits publications and organises conferences
and seminars. A many-branched network in the
arts, academic and activist milieus -the result of
ten years of urban interventions brings these
partners together on a regular basis- giving
City Mine(d) access to speakers and writers of
international renown.
Barcelona
A transversal approach recognised by local as
well as supra-national bodies, a professional
core with offices in Brussels, London and Barcelona and 10 years experience offer City Mine(d)
a unique position within the broad spectrum
of urban movements. With the legal structure
of a non-profit organisation -which allows it to
be both project manager and framework for a
wide variety of initiatives- City Mine(d) currently
functions as a participatory platform for urban
creativity. Over the last years it has developed a cumulative system of art interventions,
workshops and meetings, which it applies for
the involvement of creative initiatives in urban
development.
www.citymined.org
architecture of participation
syndication, not co-ordination
design for hackability
perpetual beta
to the long tail, not just the head
34
35
CITY MINE(d)/ WORKSPACE / ORGANISATION
loca Brussels, London, Barcelona
tion
c o n The urban context seems increasingly fragmented
text
by demographic and functional changes and
accompanying planning and economic challenges.
Informal initiatives share the field with more institutionalised organisations, some of whom are
active on a local level, others on urban, regional
or even up to European-wide scale. Meanwhile the
need for transversal initiatives linking formal with
informal or linking up different scales of governance becomes more widely recognised. City
Mine(d) is a pioneer in bridging these differences
from grassroots level with a wide platform of local
actors in different European cities. Art interventions in the city continue to provide an opportunity
to bring different actors together in a single situation, which brings about new encounters, debate
and the mediation of social, cultural and economic
differences.
collective), LABO (film collective), CINQ HEURE
MOINS DIX (film production house), GLOBE AROMA,
FOTON (leftfield collective), Kris Verdonck (artist)
and CYCLO (cyclists support), Brusk (skate collective), Mon vélo sans frein (>Multimedia collective). In Camden in London City Mine(d) shares
workspaces in Scar, a building that houses music
rehearsal and recording space, PLANET DRUM
(drum school), instrument repair workshops, a
darkroom, LONDON STUDIO DESIGN (a music
studio design and build company) and ALEXINA
(fashion designer).
In Barcelona City Mine(d) is housed in a former
shop called Paloma, which it shares with OVNI
(documentary archive), Docupolis (Festival of Art
Documentaries - CCCB), D-I-N-A (festival Influencers), Alternativa (Filmfestival - CCCB), 7 Potencias, Nuria (translations), Eva and Kim (subtitles)
and Ana Soini (Grafic Design). City Mine(d)’s local
embeddedness in London, Brussels and Barcelona
allows an immediate exploration of local public
spaces.
te On a regular basis individuals with similar interests
am
link into the structure. With the status of volunteer,
they develop their own projects and thereby realise
a hands-on exchange. This allows for the most
diverse ideas, proposals and initiatives to come
together while at the same time keeping institutionalisation and cost to a minimum. In addition, the
participatory platform enables an open and collaborative approach (minimising inequalities and
allowing for all to contribute) that goes beyond the
fragmented character of the city. So City Mine(d)
contributes to bridging social, economic, political
and cultural differences in the city.
spa City Mine(d) currently has workspaces in Brussels,
ces
London and Barcelona.
s h a In Brussels a building called Nepomuk is put at
ring
the disposal of a group of organisations through
City Mine(d)’s project Precare. Nepomuk currently
accomodates 8 initiatives in addition to City Mine(d):
MIXCITY (a theatre collective), Kokliko (theatre
36
prac From a local Brussels collective City
tice
Mine(d) has developed over 10 years time
into an international urban movement, in
which different initiatives find their place.
Its structure is best described as a participatory platform that enables local and
transnational, formal and less formal initiatives to collaborate in new projects, or to
exchange knowledge, experience or instruments. At its heart is a small-scale professional structure in Brussels, London and
Barcelona surrounded by a wide network of
urban initiatives from around the world.
The 73 initiatives taken up by City Mine(d)
over the last decade have contributed to a
refinement of approach. Generating interest in public spaces, registering ideas and
concerns from which to build strong art
interventions, is a cumulative process that
has shown its value from the start. Over
the last 3 years an international aspect has
been added to this approach.
37
CITY MINE(d)/ TOOLS / methods
‘participatory platform’
Though the collective City Mine(d) on occasions, for
reasons of pragmatism, presents itself as an NGO,
charity, non-profit association or even a company,
what it really aspires to be is a platform. More
precisely a ‘participatory platform’ deriving its bare
existence from the coming together of people’s
ideas, awarenesses and concerns, and aiming to
be a device to forge an urban civil society. It hopes
to do so by enabling innovation, the exchange of
ideas and sharing experiences without leaving the
personal gratification of participants and a sense
of fun aside. Urban civil society is defined here in
its broadest sense, as the urban public sphere, the
physical and political space where people come
together to develop ideas and alliances and where
settled beliefs are challenged.
City Mine(d) does not have a hard boundary, but
rather a gravitational core consisting of a set of
methods and practices contributing to urban civil
society. The development of a ‘participatory platform’ is happening with varying degrees of success.
The continuous output of projects in urban public
space -like Micro-Marché-Midi-, the involvement of
volunteers, strong footholds in Brussels, London
and Barcelona and an international network around
urban in-between spaces are the first signs of the
emergence of this platform. However, the system
is far from functional. The ‘participatory platform’
borrows its name from information technology.
A closer look at the phenomenon in that same
industry allows us to draw conclusions that could
clarify the work of City Mine(d), whilst also providing inspiration for others intervening in urban
political, social and public space.
The term ‘participatory platform’ emerged as
recently as 2005 in an attempt to describe the
proliferation of social networking websites. Two
years later, the presence of these sites increased
dramatically, with the social network Facebook
counting 43 million users spending on average
of 20 minutes per day on their site, MySpace with
168 million members, Wikipedia 60 million views
per day, LastFM counts 20 million active users,
Flickr 4 million and del.icio.us 2 million users.
38
Some observers see these interactive communities
and host services replacing the old internet, and
speak of a second world wide web. What marks the
change from the ‘old internet’ is that websites are
no longer isolated information silos, but become
platforms that visitors can use as software to add
to or with which to create their own data. To some
this heralds a social and political online revolution,
in which the internet is no longer driven by a core
group of designers, but where every individual
becomes an ‘online citizen’ and part of a global
democracy. Though pompous statements like these
arouse suspicion, one cannot deny that the userfriendly and lightweight architecture of websites
allow more user participation. This, combined with
the open source formula of innovating by pulling
together features from independent developers,
means that more people are using, testing and
feeding back on websites, spotting bugs earlier
and thereby making the sites more reliable. Once a
critical mass of users is reached, a network effect
kicks in, meaning that the more users there are,
the more meaningful and valuable it becomes to
take part. A traditional business school formula for
success.
The way ‘participatory platforms’ manage to
harness collective intelligence is what makes them
interesting and a potential source of inspiration
for groups like City Mine(d). Their online presence
becomes a portal to the collective work of its users,
and user engagement, activity and reviews become
a process of ongoing development. Some even
note that ‘users pursuing their own selfish interests
build collective value as an automatic by-product.’
In a sense this is also what City Mine(d) aspires to
through its presence in public space: the result of
a collective effort that brings together the self-inspired efforts of disparate agents.
Though ambitions are similar, outcomes are as yet
nowhere near as close. In terms of harnessing
collective intelligence, urban interventions are
often still stuck in the age of Tripod and Geocities
(remember, those mid-‘90s web hosting services
that came with a then awe-inspiring WYSIWYG
page editor?). Why are urban interventions as yet
unsuccessful in initiating real world ‘participatory
platforms’ that reach a critical mass of participants while at the same time meeting political
objectives?
A closer look at 5 characteristics of online
‘participatory platforms’ might inspire:
1. ‘Architecture of participation’: online
‘participatory platforms’ have a ‘built-in ethic of
co-operation’. The website is an intelligent broker
harnessing the power of the users. In cases like
Myspace, Facebook or Flickr, the fact that people add
their personal data or images makes it potentially
interesting for other users. In an urban intervention
City Mine(d)’s role has similarly been described as
that of a broker, identifying the personal interests
of potential participants, and safeguarding that
these interests are met in the course of the project.
The success of projects –like MiicroMarchéMidi or
LimiteLimitehangs to a large extent are dependent
on the way this broker role is played.
2. ‘Syndication, not co-ordination’: syndication is the design by which a section of the website
is made available for other sites to use, often for
web feeds that provide a summary of a webiste’s
recently added content. City Mine(d) never considers urban interventions as a finished art work. Its
presence in public space is often no more then a
physical and temporal framework for other artists
and activists to make a case. For each intervention
there is a tension to manage between an open invitation and a clear, directing framework.
3. ‘Design for hackability’: online this implies
that barriers to re-use are extremely low, most of
the software is open source, and there is little intellectual property protection. If urban interventions
want to contribute to a public sphere, they must be
designed in such a way that people can easily take
ownership of them; either by creating some sort of
impact on the development process, or by gaining
access at no cost during the moment of staging or
presentation.
4. ‘Perpetual beta’: ‘beta’ is used to describe
software that hasn’t left the development stage.
Since users are considered to be co-developers on
a ‘participatory platform’, they constantly require
new material to test and work with, rather than
the finished, ‘boxed’ products. In a similar way the
work of City Mine(d) is not lab-tested and boxed
before being shipped. Rather, in an early stage a
public space is ‘occupied’, sometimes even with
activities unrelated to the envisaged intervention.
The fear of losing face by issuing an unsuccessful
beta in public space has been a cause for nothing
to happen at all. Besides, these betas are often the
first steps towards the networks on which urban
interventions are built.
5. ‘To the long tail, not just the head’:
small sites make up a large part of the internet’s
content, and a lot of applications only serve small
niches. Therefore a ‘participatory platform’ is no
longer an engine or server with rock solid architecture, but consists of small pieces loosely joined
together. Similarly, it is City Mine(d)’s conviction that
the creative and innovative strength of cities lies in
their in-between spaces (KRAX), and the creation
of a true public sphere will depend for a large part
on the successful involvement of the small initiatives that happen in the ‘cracks in the city’.
These two pages raise the question whether –
parallel to the emergence of online ‘participatory
platforms’- groups like City Mine(d) can initiate
real world ‘participatory platforms’ that would be
able to use the wisdom of the crowds and ‘the
long tail’ to build an urban civil society. The comparison above is not meant to be a roadmap or a
recipe, but rather it places these phenomena next
to each other in order to see if there are lessons
to be learned, as with platforms.
39
CITY MINE(d)/ PROJECT limite limite
/ SITE Brussels, Brabant neighbourhood / TIMING from 1999 to 2004 / PARTNERSHIP Architect Chris Rossaert / Wijkpartenariaat / APAJ /
Vlekho, Sint-Lucas, Social Highschools / FUNDS JP Morgan Guarantee Trust Company
Limite Limite was a landmark building, the start of
a local coalition and a trademark for the Brabant
neighbourhood in Brussels from 1999 to 2004.
Limite Limite turned an urgent need for green
space into an opportunity to bring stakeholders
together and to put the Brabant neighbourhood on
the Regional agenda. Architect Chris Rossaert designed a highly visible 9-metre high translucent tower
that protruded into the street, and that served as
a meeting and exhibition space. Through Wijkpartenariaat local residents were involved in the design
and building process. APAJ, an apprenticeship training scheme that prepares the local unemployed
for jobs in the construction industry, trained a
number of its students through the construction
of this tower.
The construction and use of the building served
as a catalyst to bring together disparate groups
in the neighbourhood. JP Morgan Guarantee Trust
Company financed the structure, but also took
responsibility in keeping the new network together.
A number of local high schools -Vlekho, Sint-Lucas,
Social Highschool- participated with their students
in one or more stages of the project and local
shopkeepers also took part in the network.
The temporary tower had to make way for a more
permanent building in 2004, but the organisation, Limiet Limite vzw continued to work in the
area with both the material of the tower and a
number of partners who took the project a step
further in Relimite. In May 2004 APAJ dismantled
the tower in Brussels. While architecture practice
Laud redesigned the structure, the pieces were
shipped to Belfast. There, the team of male and
female builders from Brussels worked alongside
a team of young people from the Belfast Institute
to exchange skills and raise educational and practical issues around architecture and public sculpture in the city. In January 2005 the project was
completed by the Lawrence street workshops for it
then to be used as a temporary arts venue in the
Botanic Gardens.
40
41
CITY MINE(d)/ PROJECT Micro-Marché-Midi (MMM)
/ SITE
Brussels / TIMING september 2007 to december 2007
Micro-Marché-Midi (MMM) is a market based
on creative exchange of product, services and
ideas, and a way of highlighting the creative
economic potential of the city. MMM went live on
30 September 2007 and will run until the end of
December 2007.
BRUSSELS IS RICKETY! In the third richest region
in Europe 1 in 4 people live in a household with
no paid work and two thirds of the money earned
in Brussels is spent outside Brussels. This is the
rickety state of the Brussels economy. And yet
there are many people who challenge this state
with creative products and small scale initiatives.
But what about the administrative and social
risks?
A market like MMM provides a place for these
people; it is a free space promoting administrative flexibility while still working completely legally;
and is an open space for encounter, experiment,
exchange and debate around the rickety state of
the Brussels economy.
The conditions to sell on the market are:
- sold products are self-made products or
imported with a personal ‘touch’,
- import/export products will be refused, vendors
need to address the sustainability of their
products (recycling, energy consumption, waste
reduction, etc.),
- each vendor abides by the law: health and safety,
environment, hygiene,
- by their own means or through the umbrella
structure provided by MMM, products, or at least
their presentation, needs to be innovative (traditional arts and crafts are only possible if the
vendor adds value to it).
42
43
CONSTANT /
Brussels / since 1997 / status asbl / vzw (non-profit-making organisation) /
www.constantvzw.com
Constant is een non-profit organisatie die sinds
1997 gevestigd is in Brussel en werkzaam is op
het gebied van feminisme, kunst, copyright alternatieven en werken via netwerken.
Constant ontwikkelt projecten die zich door middel
van radio, electronische muziek en database
projecten bewegen tussen culturele activiteit en de
cultuur van werk.
Bruxelles
Mute
Amiens
Barcelona
2001
2002
Antwerp
Antwerp
Belgique
Constant is a non-profit association, based and
active in Brussels since 1997 in the fields of feminism, alternative copyright and in working through
networks.
Constant develops radio, electronic music and
database projects, by means of migrating from
cultural work to the workplace and back again.
1997
Berlin
Sevilla
Europe
Constant est une association sans but lucratif basée
à Bruxelles, active depuis 1997 dans les domaines
du féminisme, des alternatives au copyright et du
travail en réseau.
Constant mène ses projets en matière de radio,
musique électronique, vidéo, bases de données,
en se déplacant dans les lieux de culture et de
travail.
2004
2005
2006
2007
44
Samedis-Femmes et Logiciels Libres
OSP - Open Source Publishing
constant
Constant: un échantillon des activités
Stitch And Split, Selves and Territories
in Sciencefiction
Digitales
un échantillon des projets de constant
selected projects of constant
free software
feminism
free geodata
45
CONSTANT / WORKSPACE / ORGANISATION
loca We work at 5 Fortstraat, 1060 Brussels in a
tion
shared office with other organisations such as Le
P’tit Ciné, Radioswap, and individual artists, like
the photographer Laurent Turin.
t e A core group of 5 people working part-time. This
am
can vary a great deal for each project and depends
on the funding and partnership that we find.
prac Constant explores theory, critical use of the
tice
new technologies, artistic behaviour and
political questions on the Internet, as well
as organising workshops, conferences and
exhibitions in public spaces. The group’s
main concerns are: software and freeware,
gender issues, copyleft (copyright) and
seeking ways of sharing new understandings of the media.
peo Artists, activists, computer geeks, scientists,
ple
students, hobbyists, unemployed people, writers,
dancers, musicians, etc.
spa Our workspace is not only composed of bricks
ces
and mortar but also of ones and zeroes. Constant
websites host a wide variety of tools that help
people work together and develop their thoughts
and projects: blogs, CMS, wikis, temporary web
radios, etc.
cos The rent is cheap since our landowner wants
t(s)
to support the organisations that work in her
building.
s h a We share the meeting rooms and sound/video
ring
editing facilities operated by open source software
as well as the common video archive in our
basement.
part Many of our projects take place in other spaces
ners
since they are usually collaborations be these
with training centres, schools, exhibition spaces,
museums or squats.
46
47
CONSTANT / SPACE / TOOLS / methods / practiceS
‘What were the conditions in which women
lived? I asked myself; for fiction, imaginative work that is, is not dropped like a
pebble upon the ground, as science may be;
fiction is like a spider’s web, attached ever
so lightly perhaps, but still attached to life
at all four corners. Often the attachment is
scarcely perceptible; Shakespeare’s plays,
for instance, seem to hang there complete
by themselves. But when the web is pulled
askew, hooked up at the edge, torn in the
middle, one remembers that these webs
are not spun in mid-air by incorporeal creatures, but are the work of suffering human
beings, and are attached to grossly material things, like health and money and the
houses we live in.’
Virginia Woolf, A room of one’s own, 1929.
to use Constant as a ‘place’ to raise questions, to
experiment with contexts, to open tools and means
of production, to question the tools and means and
conditions of work.
People didn’t come anymore to work ‘with’ Constant
to produce a ‘piece’, but came to work ‘within’
Constant to challenge and question conditions of
exhibition, distribution and production as well as
question and challenge the access to the type of
work carried out within digital media.
These questions take on the form -in public- of
talks, seminars, workshops, software, actions, and
sometimes, of course, of exhibitions and concerts,
because we want to meet and learn from others, and
share in public this exchange of knowledge, experience, technique and processes.
a regular collaboration with the Fundaciò Antoni Tàpies
2. Tools and methods
Space
1. Constant’s room
Constant is a non-profit organisation, based in Brussels and active since 1997 in dealing with art and
new media or rather dealing with art in new media,
or to put it more accurately active in between art and
new media, dealing with new media in art, or to put
it better still: Constant is a non profit organisation
dealing with cultural work/ers using among others
tools, digital media.
In the begining Constant was defined as a platform
and network for the production, exhibition, and
critique of digital art works such as electronic music,
video installations, cd-roms (whoever remembers
what that was), net art, etc.
But following:
- on the one hand, the evolution of the use and
exhibition of digital media in Belgium. Meaning
that more and more media festivals and exhibitions
are organized in a way that focus increasingly on
the spectacle of technology via the display of interactive installations, and electronic music. And that
web pages are now being brought into the museum
collections - and on the other hand, following our
own internal evolution. That is, the members and
founders of Constant, from curators, were replaced
by people with an artistic practice and who started
48
festival and workshops in Interface3, a professional training center for unemployed women
a temporary music space in the dressrom of the Palais des Beaux
Arts before renovation
a Print Party organised in a temporary space occupied by the
Brussels association City Mine(d)
We do not have a room of our own for public
events, we have an office, we have servers,
we have websites, all shared. When we want to
become public, we have to enter other people’s
spaces. This could be a museum, a training
center, an empty bar or a squat. We often use
spaces that are not used to being used in that
way, in the hope that they might stay culturally
active or open to technological practices. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t.
We position ourselves and our actions in the
interstices:
- in between institutions,
- in between institutions and associations with
social, cultural, technical or artistic practices
- in between institutions and individuals with
academic, scientific, technical or artistic practices, with professionals, activists, amateurs and
fans of or actors within the cultural field
- or any and all of these at one and the same
time.
So you could say that we always attach the web
of our actions, our narrative, to the material
conditions of others. That we always enter into a
dialogue, to share resources, to share interests.
We experience different types of collaborations
and settings in our encounters with others:
- Time-and place-specific action:
We actually negotiate from within the context of a
given space, the schedule, the images, the vocabulary, the economy, the technique, etc. Resistance, dialogue and collaboration begins when
we enter matters of institutional representation:
considering which image to display on the flyer,
which taxonomy to use within the texts (vocabulary, naming, languages), which economy, with
which technique, what licence on the material to
reproduce, etc
- Internal collaboration:
This can take the form of advice, the conception
of software, discussion on archiving principles
and institutional organisation. Maybe this is
close to what might be called social software.
Social software is software that supports group
interaction[1]. The important words here are
group and interaction, not software.
49
CONSTANT / SPACE / TOOLS / methods / practiceS
One cannot specify in advance what any group
will do, and so one can’t implement in software
everything one expects to happen. Technical
issues cannot be separated from social issues.
Quite a basic principle, but always surprising
when it touches on issues of software and interface design for archiving and communication
purposes, are these questions of power structures, hierarchical behaviours, (lack of) communication between sectors of the same institution,
openness of information, taxonomy (categories,
classification).
If feminism can be described as one of our
tools of action to open the gaze to questions of
access, working conditions definition of artistic
practices, as a tool to provoke new imagination, new imaginaries. Then, the fact of using
the space as reactive and as performative could
be be seen to be another tool of creativity. The
in-between, the interstitial space as relational
object.
Let’s now approach the body of
organization...
the
Embodied & inhabited practices
To speak about Constant, we sometimes use
the following metaphors: scattered body, fragmented body, constructed body, using Frankenstein and his creature as a metaphor. Because
50
at the same time we act, perform both ‘sides’:
the creator and the creature. But sometimes
we would like to be Mary Shelley, writing the
narrative, the fiction that makes these bodies
work together, coherently.
With time we tend to realise that the body
and our performing, creating relationships
in between people is our main tool, our main
instrument of work. We gesture and talk a lot,
we are present, we touch often. Our bodies,
gestures, voices and our own settings, create
and propose a space, place and environment
for the use of technology, technique and
software. Hospitality becomes another tool of
creativity.
Extensions & habitats
Softwares as questions
We have integrated softward and computers
in our everyday life. When we talk about the
disappearing borders between private life,
work and ar t in our own rooms, and in our
minds we can feel the same with our machines.
We edit sound, videos, texts, listen to music,
listen to the news, send e-mails and make
payments on the same workstation, and if at
all possible all in the same flux of time. In our
ar t practice, like in our daily operations with
software, software has become the interface
with our environment, our utensil, our tool to
sense, touch and define our work. Femke Snelting, an ar tist and a graphic designer, uses the
following metaphor: ‘My physiotherapist used
this analogy to explain how humans use tools
to negotiate the space around their bodies:
if you prepare a sauce…’ she said, ‘and stir
it with a wooden spoon… you will be able to
feel at which moment exactly the starch star ts
to burn at the bottom of the pan’. A wooden
spoon might not be the kind of glamour and
glitter a post-human cyborg is looking for, but
I think it is in this unspectacular way that our
daily operations with software help to make
sense of our environment.
She goes on to say: ‘Software has become
our natural habitat. We practice software
until we in-corporate its choreography. We
make it disappear into the background. A
seamless experience. We become one with
our extensions.’[2]
Computers and softwares being our habitat,
like any room, are linked to an economy, and
like any machine, there is a dependency on
the new version, new formats, the plug-ins
arriving on the market and all kinds of technological improvements.
Anne & Marine Rambach in their book «Les
intellos précaires»[3], is a piece of research
that they conducted in 2001 into their own
environment and friends: a group of intellectuals and ar tists, living in unstable financial
conditions. In their research, they obser ve,
amongst other things, the paradox between
the glamorous life they and their group were
living in contrast to their poor conditions of
health and housing... Par t of the glamour,
but necessary to all this, was the computer.
If at all possible the latest hyped-up model
would be, as they wrote, there enthroned
in the middle of a one-room kitchen/office/
bedroom, models belonging to those intellectuals that they were visiting, living in
the most precarious circumstances. The
computer is their workplace, their extension.
They depend on the economy and the costs of
it, between the dentist, a new pair of glasses
and a new computer, the choice is quickly
made. Unaware of their social rights, they
are all too perfectly well aware of the latest
software and technological improvements.
In this context, to be concerned about free
software brings with it the potential to reduce
our economic dependency on big companies,
on their rhythm of marketing and on their
definitions of needs and aesthetics.
More impor tantly, free software allow us
to choose our way of binding ourselves
together, to choose the community that we
are dependent upon, linked to; (like the
spider web so dear to V. Woolf), to choose
the community we we want to work with. To
use free software is not always so easy. For
visual creation software especially, developments are slow, because only a minority of
people in the community use it extensively.
And development may be hectic, because
most of this type of free software is developed in spare time at free will. If free
software provides a cer tain autonomy in
terms of economy, it gives also the oppor tunity or the obligation (depending on the way
you see it) to be a form of interaction with
a group, a code, with an economy developed
on the margins.
[1] Clay Shirky, A Group Is Its Own Worst Enemy, 2003
http://www.shirky.com/writings/group_enemy.html
[2] Femke Snelting, A fish can’t judge the water, 2007
http://ospublish.constantvzw.org/?p=85
[3]Anne et Marine Rambach, Les intellos précaires, 2001,
Fayard
This text was the base for a lecture on October 14 2007, on
the panel Frontbildung, at the event , «Wir sind woanders»,
Hamburg
Copyright © 14/10/07 Laurence Rassel
Copyleft: this work is free, you can redistribute it and/or modify it
according to terms of the Free Art license.
51
/ SITE Brussels / TIMING since 2001 / PARTNERSHIP ADA Belgian network / Interface3 training centre for women in new technologies /
Domaine public non-commercial web hosting operated by free software / Scumgrrrls : Magazine 100% Feminist Energy ! / BxLug
Brussels Linux User Group
Constant / PROJECT Samedis-femmes et logiciels libres
52
they carried out an exercise associating images,
words and narrations as a way of creating a collective representation of their server. The collection
of images and words bring together the different
aspects of what is at stake in the project: not only
the technique but also the necessary connections
between human relationships and the desire to
learn, care and form imaginary projections. If
no story had emerged out of this assemblage of
images, nobody would have known which software
would have had needed to be installed. Collective
server management needs story-telling.
http://samedi.collectifs.net
Text released under the Free Art License - www.artlibre.org
Collective Brainstorming: A quoi ressemble notre serveur? By the group Samedis-femmes et logiciels libres, http://samedi.collectifs.net
Samedis-femmes et logiciels libres
/ Saturdays-women and free softwares
Back in 2001, the Digitales (http://www.digitalesonline.org) working days started up. This project
was organised in collaboration with feminist studies
networks and the Ada network who were linking
together training centres for women in information technology and communication. These events
gathered together artists, activists, workers and a
wide range of organisations from trade-unions, free
software user groups to IBM representatives. The
common subject of discussion was the relationship
between work and digital technology: the participants would present their theses in gender studies,
or describe the restructuring of the industry from
the point of view of women workers, or discuss the
relationship between creation, information, work
and health... These events were an opportunity to
create long-term working relationships between
researchers and training centres, using free
software, developing tools for (self)teaching. But
the trainees, having left the centre, were navigating
in different time and space. They didn’t and don’t
have the luxury or the choice to work freely or for
free, to easily meet at night or during the weekend,
to drift off from the paths they have to follow in
their private and public lives.
The Digitales working days, conceived as a series
of events, were then transformed into regular
meetings, the Saturdays. With a precise goal in
mind: to build a common space, sharing knowledge
while learning, sharing the organisation, and
sharing responsibility. A common space in the
form of a server, a server for women wanting to
learn and try to manage a server, operated by free
software, collectively. These meetings demand close
attention to be paid to the different rhythyms, the
different times necessary to build bridges between
different motivations, to learn from each other and
to be able to move into other territories, outside
of one’s norms and habits. The Saturdays always
require a slowing down of processes, always taking
care of the spaces inhabited by the participants,
to learn patience and modesty and a new means
of dialogue.
Today, the Saturdays gather women artists, activists and technicians. After six sessions of work,
53
Constant / PROJECT Open source publishing
open source publishing
Much of the work designers do takes place
through software. And not just any software
- the set of programmes you probably use
is limited to In-design, Photoshop and Illustrator; for web designers add Dreamweaver
and Flash. Now that the monopoly of Quark
X-press is on the decline and Macromedia has
been acquired by its competitor, the standard
working suite of any designer anywhere in the
world can, in fact, be purchased through any
one single company: Adobe Systems Inc. And
even if Adobe continues to develop brilliant
packages, it is not a par ticularly comfor ting
thought that one single par ty is responsible
for the development of most digital design
tools.
A Flash movie reveals itself as much by a recognizable style of drawing and typography,
as it does by a ‘missing plug-in warning’.
Software does help you make things, but at
the same time it defines the space within
which that making can take place. There is
nothing wrong with a poster, website or a
piece of typography which uses the specific
characteristics of the software with which
it was made, but it is questionable whether
the choice of tool is ever in your own hands.
Adobe software has become like the weather:
you might complain about it now and then,
but it is useless to think you could actually
change it. What if we wanted to adjust, reinvent, change or alter our tools? In proprietary
software, those forms of use are prevented
by extremely restrictive licenses. How can we
even understand what software does to design aesthetics and working patterns without
being able to step away from them and try out
different ways of making things?
It would be exciting to think out loud about
what other tools might be possible and what is
possible to do with other tools; a bit less exciting but still greatly needed is for designers to
file bugs and repor t back on pleasant and less
pleasant experiences. For this we will need to
54
/ SITE Brussels / Berlin / London / TIMING since 2006, ongoing / PARTNERSHIP Mute (London) since November 2006 / FUNDS essentially
Constant and on commissions, ie. transition to Scribus for Mute
find a common language with those people
who developed Gimp, Scribus or Sodipodi etc.
Graham Harwood described The Gimp (Open
Source image processing software) as ‘Photoshop with its guts hanging out’, painting a
graphic image of what software can be more,
than a user-friendly tool seamlessly doing its
job. Open Source tools are not always ‘userfriendly’ in the usual sense of the word. Par tly
because ‘user-friendliness’ might mean something else altogether depending on the expectations of its users, and par tly because most
Open Source software is ‘work in progress’
and this means that its cut-off points are not
necessarily concealed.
This project is for designers curious enough
to try this out. We will make an attempt to
seriously test out what the possibilities and
limitations of Open Source software are in
a professional design environment, without
expecting to find the same experience as the
ones we are used to. In fact, we are interested
in experimenting with everything that shows
up in between in the cracks.
Femke Snelting
http://ospublish.constantvzw.org
Text released under the Free Art License - www.artlibre.org
55
RECYCLART est un laboratoire artistique,
un lieu de création, un centre de formation
pour chercheurs d’emploi, de confrontation
et de diffusion culturelles, un acteur de l’espace public urbain, un lieu de rencontres et
d’expérimentations.
Un tout constitué de parties. Autonomes mais
complices. Qui participent d’une dynamique
commune, dont la gare Bruxelles-Chapelle
est le point de départ. Située sur la jonction
ferroviaire Nord-Midi, entre la gare Centrale et
la gare du Midi, elle est aussi le lien entre le
centre de la métropole et les zones d’habitations populaires du centre-ville. Recyclart est
devenue une entre-gare à la croisée de voies
multiples.
Recyclart puise son inspiration dans la réalité
quotidienne bruxelloise, une réalité qui se
nourrit de nombreuses cultures et de différentes
communautés linguistiques, projetée dans une
dimension locale, nationale et internationale.
Recyclart est ouverte aux initiatives et prend
les choses en main, pour la création de projets,
de systèmes, de méthodes et de concepts liant
des individus, des médias, des modes d’expression entre eux, de manière productive.
Brussels / since 1998 / status asbl (non-profit-making organisation) /
Recyclart est un espace de passage, où
chacun peut donner/recevoir des impulsions et
évoluer.
Recyclart est une locomotive pour toutes formes
d’innovation, sans s’arrêter à des formules
toutes faites.
Recyclart est un générateur, propulsant une
énergie positive à partir d’un lieu « difficile »
de la ville.
Recyclart est un laboratoire, lieu de rencontre
entre différentes disciplines artistiques.
Recyclart est un relais amplificateur, à taille
humaine, grâce auquel des individus sur des
longueurs d’ondes différentes peuvent se
rencontrer.
Notre volonté est d’ouvrir l’oeil et de mettre le
doigt sur ce qui se passe chez nous et ailleurs,
maintenant et demain, et de le traduire -de
manière efficace, systématique et lisible- à
travers le large éventail d’activités proposées.
Recyclart RECYCLART currently functions
as an artistic laboratory, a creative centre for
cultural debate, an actor in the municipal public
arena, a training centre and a place for meeting
and experiment.
A broad single entity, consisting of various parts,
autonomous yet complementary. A communal
dynamic, with the station Chapelle-Kapellekerk
as the epicentre. Located on the north-south
train axis between Brussels Central and Brussels South, we link the metropolitan centre with
the common living quarters of the inner city.
Recyclart has developed into a way station with
a wide range of switches and destinations.
Recyclart finds its inspiration in our capital’s
fascinating daily reality in a local, national and
international dimension. This reality is fed by
the city’s varied cultures and communities.
Recyclart is open to initiative and is not afraid
to take the initiative itself. It devises projects
and concepts that link people, various media,
expressions and sectors. All with a productive
end result in mind.
Recyclart is a transitional area where people
find the inspiration to take their next steps.
Recyclart is a locomotive for renewal and is not
stuck to proven success formulas.
Recyclart is a generator that from a tough area
in town radiates positive energy to the surroun-
www.recyclart.be
ding city.
Recyclart is a laboratory where the mix of
various ingredients often leads to fascinating
reactions.
Recyclart is an amplifier where people of differing wavelengths get together.
Our aim is to show what is happening on the
ground in an efficient, targeted and systematic
manner. These elements are all intrinsically
bound in a wide range of activities that are
organised on the basis of or in a polyvalent
infrastructure.
2006
En Brik !
IBAI
Square des Ursulines
Disturb
2002
L'Escault
1998
Brusk
Bruxelles
Belgique
Europe
RECYCLART /
participative architectures
social design
artistic quality
training and employment
56
57
recyclart / WORKSPACE / ORGANISATION
loca Brussels
tion
co n Functioning railway station
text
te Approximately 45 people
am
Full-time and part-time
peo Architects, artists, inhabitants, social workers
ple
spa 230 m²
ces
cos 10 €/m²
t(s)
s h a No
ring
MOBI No
LITY
part Institutional and private
ners
SUPP Government funding (local and regional), private
ORTS
sponsorship, European Commission funding
prac A MULTIFUNCTIONAL STATION BUILDING AND
tice
PUBLIC ARENA
The station rooms have been converted
into a unified whole of multifunctional
areas that houses a wide range of art forms
and festivities, a café-restaurant, technical and artistic studios and a secretariat.
The railway bridges function as an urban
open-air gallery. The station square is
home to both loungers and skateboarders,
a summer café terrace and open-air events.
PROGRAMME
Recyclart offers activities that challenge
traditional limits and cut across the standard compartmentalised mentality. Every
day, we seek a balance between the artistic,
the social and the urban.
Artistic programming
We offer a wide range of indoor and outdoor
58
activities. Flexible, probing, open, up-todate and inquisitive... Varied disciplines
and the public often find themselves in a
refreshing confrontation. One-off projects
alternate with long-term processes.
Urban reflection and art in the public
arena
The station is both an area for reflection on
the urban phenomenon and a hub for generating artistic intervention in the public
arena. These offer new impulses with a
social perspective for particular areas in the
city; witnesses to Brussels on the move.
Training and employment
By means of our posting system, we offer
daily training and long-term employment
programs for the less educated and the
unemployed. This is achieved through three
technical teams (‘renovation’, ‘woodwork’,
‘metal work’) and a catering team.
MANAGEMENT
Every day, a solid structure of highly
motivated employees and an independent management organisation works to
ensure efficient policy, solid social grounding and optimal internal and external
communication.
STATION
Since its reconversion in 1997, station
‘Bruxelles-Chapelle’ hosted some of the
most diverse events, ranging from concerts
and parties to exhibitions and debates.
Concrete, stone and recycled railway
elements are the main reason why the
‘underground character’ appeals to the
imagination of so many different people.
On top of that the building is situated in the
centre of Brussels, a short walk from the
‘Grand Place’, ‘Sablon’ or ‘Marolles’ with
large parking facilities close to the station.
For the moment the building disposes of
all basic conveniences like heating, sanitary
fittings, furniture, lighting, sound, a bar
and a restaurant. The venue has a capacity
of approximately 450 persons.
59
recyclart / TOOLS / methods
Recyclart comme plate-forme bilingue de la
ville, de l’architecture et du design
Dès sa création, l’association a pris sa place dans le
débat de l’architecture et de la ville. Recyclart est en
effet une des rares institutions culturelles dont la création
est liée d’abord au lieu: la Jonction Nord-Midi -rupture
urbaine, exemple même de la bruxellisation des années
50. Travailler sur la transformation de cette rupture en
liaison durable, réinscrire ce lieu dans la carte mentale
des bruxellois et des non-bruxellois, remettre ce lieu au
«goût du jour» est le premier défi que l’asbl a dû relever.
Au fur et à mesure des années, grâce à son expérience
«de terrain», l’association s’est construite un discours
original sur la ville et l’architecture. Partie de réalisations concrètes sur l’espace public et de la défense
d’un espace contemporain de qualité, ouvert à tous,
la programmation s’est étendue au fil des ans à une
réflexion plus théorique sur la ville et le territoire en
général, son usage et sa fonction en particulier.
Il en résulte aujourd’hui la construction d’un réseau
réunissant différents acteurs du design, de l’architecture
et de l’urbanisme. Ces acteurs proviennent d’horizons
très différents (concepteurs, mais aussi utilisateurs,
fonctionnaires, curateurs, critiques,...). Ce réseau est
aussi bilingue et veut dépasser le contexte parfois trop
étriqué de nos institutions belges.
Recyclart y joue le rôle d’intermédiaire de mise en relation des idées et des hommes. Chaque projet est un
prétexte à confronter des personnalités ou des métiers
oeuvrant dans le même domaine mais n’ayant pas l’habitude de se cotoyer. L’exemple de l’aménagement du
square des Ursulines illustre à merveille ce propos. Il
s’agissait en effet de prendre au sérieux une demande
du monde du skate et de transformer cette demande
en un concours d’idées pour jeunes artistes dont le
lauréat (Bjorn Gielen) a été accompagné par un bureau
professionnel (L’Escaut sprl) pour le développement et
la concrétisation de son projet. Grace à Recyclart, des
skateurs, architectes jeunes et confirmés, différentes
administrations et les habitants du quartier ont oeuvré
ensemble à la réalisation du projet. Une partie de la réalisation a été confiée à nos équipes en réinsertion professionnelle. Il en résulte un espace aux lignes nouvelles à
la fonctionalité évidente où un public de jeunes adeptes
de la glisse en ville, de curieux, de famille se mélange
agréablement dès les jours de beau temps. Cet espace
a été désigné comme lauréat par le MACBA au concours
européen des espaces publics en 2006.
Recyclart défend une vision politique du design et de la
60
ville. Un banc installé dans l’espace public n’est pas là
que pour l’embellissement de la place ou du quartier,
mais aussi pour laisser l’opportunité à tous de s’assoir,
s’installer, se rencontrer. Dans une ville et une société de
plus en plus «capsulaires», il est primordial que les créateurs ayant une vision non marchande et défendant des
valeurs d’égalité et d’éthique de l’objet comme de l’espace soient soutenus. Par ces actions, Recyclart entend
oeuvrer à la construction d’une ville où l’innovation, le
respect de l’autre et l’ouverture à d’autres cultures est
primordiale.
D’autre part, Recyclart ose aussi mettre en débat une
nouvelle définition de la ville européenne qui ne s’arrête
ni aux frontières du bâti, ni aux frontières de l’institutionnel, mais qui englobe un territoire plus large qui, à
l’instar du Vlaamse ruit, de «l’unicity», de Must.nl, ou de
la Metapolis de F. Ascher, se définit par rapport à des
critères de densité de population et d’échanges économique et culturel en son sein comme avec d’autres
continents .
Enfin, Recyclart risque l’expérience, tant du point de vue
de la méthode de travail que du contenu des projets
proposés. Oser la «carte blanche», faire confiance aux
personnes plutôt que vouloir à tout prix montrer des
projets déjà aboutis. Les conférences ibai (institut
bruxellois de l’architecture-brussels architectuur instituut) de 2007 en sont l’exemple même. Les «lectures»
proposées aux publics s’apparentaient en effet presque
à des performances, puisque tout en respectant un
contenu et un dispositif scénique original, elles permettaient de réaliser et d’imprimer -en ‘live’- les actes. Ce
choix comportait certains risques... que nous avons
assumés.
L’ouverture des domaines de l’architecture et du design
à des pratiques artistiques autres est une idée que nous
continuerons à défendre. Certes, architectes et designers restent indispensables à leurs disciplines, mais il
est intéressant de confronter leurs savoirs-faire et leurs
idées à d’autres plasticens ou chercheurs: explorateurs
de ville, créateurs de lumières, scientifiques, géographes,
graphistes... afin que leurs travaux créatifs s’enrichissent
mutuellement et se confrontent quotidiennement.
Par cette ligne de programmation, Recyclart espère
répondre à deux nécessités: permettre la confrontation de nouvelles pensées afin d’éviter une normalisation de l’art et de la culture et soutenir les créateurs
qui feront l’actualité artistique de demain.
Recyclart, the city’s bilingual platform for architecture and design
As soon as it was created, the association took its seat
in the city’s debate on architecture. Indeed, Recyclart
is one of these rare cultural institutions whose creation was first linked to a site: the Nord-Midi junction -a
breach in the city, a true example of 1950’s Brusselisation. The first challenge that the asbl had to face was to
work in turning this breach into a sustainable connection,
re-inscribing the site into the mental map of Brussels’
and non-Brussels’ inhabitants, and refreshing the site
altogether.
As the years went by, thanks to its ‘field’ experience,
the association developed an original discourse on the
city and on architecture. Starting off with actual accomplishments in public space, and the defence of quality
contemporary space that is open to all, the program
enlarged itself year after year to become a more theoretical reflection on the city and territory in general, and on
its use and function in particular.
A network uniting different actors from design, architecture and urbanism is developing as a result of this.
These actors come from very different horizons (people
who conceive ideas, but also users, civil servants,
conservators, critics…). The network is also a bilingual
one, and wishes to go beyond the, often narrow, context
of Belgian institutions.
Recyclart plays an intermediary role, bringing ideas and
people together. Each project is a pretext to confront
personalities and skills from the same sector, but which
aren’t necessarily used to working together. The landscaping of the Ursulines square is a perfect example.
The idea was to take a demand from the skateboard
world seriously and to transform it into a competition
of ideas between young artists, who’s winner (Bjorn
Gielen) was then assisted by a professional design
office (L’Escaut sprl) in order to develop and carry out
the project. Thanks to Recyclart, skateboarders, young
and confirmed architects, different administrations and
neighbours worked together to realize the venture. A
part of the work was given to our teams in professional
rehabilitation. The result is a space with new lines, an
obvious functionality, where a public of young adepts
of urban skate sports, curious passers-by and families
pleasantly mix with the first sunny days. This space was
awarded the first prize by the MACBA in the European
contest for public spaces in 2006.
Recyclart advocates for a political vision of design and of
the city. A bench placed in a public space is not just there
to make the square or the neighbourhood beautiful, but
also to give anyone the opportunity of sitting down,
staying, meeting others. In a city and a society evermore
‘capsulated’, it is essential to support creators who
have a non-commercial vision and who defend values of
equality and ethics of object and space. Through these
actions, Recyclart intends to work for the construction of
a city where innovation, the respect of others and the
open-mindedness to other cultures is primordial.
Furthermore, Recyclart dares to bring to the debate a
new definition of the European city which does not limit
itself to the frontiers of the constructed space, nor to
the institutional frontiers; but like the Vlaamse ruit of
Must.nl’s ‘unicity’ or the ‘Metapolis’ of F. Ascher, defines
itself in relationship to the density of the population, the
economic and cultural exchanges that take place within it
as well as with other continents.
Lastly, Recyclart risks the experiment both from the standpoint of the working method as well as by the content of
the projects it supports. To dare to write a blank check, to
trust people rather than to want to put together a project
which is already finished. IBAI’s (Architectural Institute of
Brussels) conferences of 2007 are the perfect example
of this approach. Indeed, the public ‘lectures’ that were
given were almost close to art performances, for while
respecting the content; an original scenic device enabled
the live conception and printing of the proceedings. This
choice involved some risks... which we assumed.
Architecture and design’s expansion to other artistic
expressions is an idea that we will continue to defend.
Certainly architects and designers stay indispensable
in their fields, but it is interesting to confront their
know-how and their ideas to other artists and researchers: explorers of the city, lighting designers, scientists,
geographers, graphic designers... so that their creative
works mutually enrich and confront each other daily.
By this program, Recyclart hopes to respond to two
necessities: allow the confrontation of new ideas in
order to avoid the normalisation of art and culture,
and support the creators who will make tomorrow’s
art scene.
61
RECYCLART / PROJECT square des ursulines
/ SITE
Brussels - Ursulines’ square / TIMING from 2002 to 2006 PARTNERSHIP/ BRUSK skater collectiv / L’ESCAULT achitecture office
Le skate & la ville - Inauguration du Square
des Ursulines
Depuis l’année 2002, en collaboration avec un
jeune collectif de skater BRUSK (aujourd’hui organisé en asbl «skateboarders»), Recyclart avait
lancé le débat de la place du skate dans la ville.
Suite à cela Recyclart recevait une commande de
l’IBGE afin de coordonner le réaménagement du
square des Ursulines en espace public de qualité
ouvert à tous mais possédant une forte identité skate. Pour cela Recyclart s’est associé avec
BRUSK (asbl Skateboarders) et le bureau Escaut
(architecture, scénographie et exposition).
L’année 2006 a permis de terminer le chantier
en beauté. Nos équipes techniques ont de plus
décroché un marché de réalisation de l’équipement en bois du site... Mobiliers urbains, plancher
et escalier monumental ont été réalisés de mains
de maître par nos ouvriers. Un gros chantier et
une excellente collaboration avec une entreprise
privée.
Fin avril 2006, le site était inauguré! Une journée
de fête ouvert à tous: habitants, pensionnaires de
la maison de repos toute proche, futurs utilisateurs, «branchés» de la capitale, touristes...
Aujourd’hui le site est utilisé: le matin par des
promeneurs/touristes, le midi comme site de
pique-nique et le soir comme piste de skate. Pari
gagné!
62
63
RECYCLART / PROJECT en brik !
Procédure/Benchmarking (1)
L’atelier s’est proposé d’examiner la façon
d’aborder la procédure de marché public en
matière de logement.
- Comment aboutir à la qualité et à la gestion des
coûts?
- Faut-il scinder les marchés architecture/
construction/maintenance?
- De quels moyens disposons-nous?
- Quelles procédures utilisent nos voisins?
/ SITE
Brussels / TIMING 2006 / PARTNERSHIP DISTURB collectiv
(1) responsables: Léo Van Broek/Nicolas Hemeleers
Extrait du programme de conférences des 19 et 20 mai
2006.
Pierre Blondel a présenté une sélection internationale de
projets de logements de qualité.
Nicolas Bernard a exposé la situation du logement public
à Bruxelles.
Ces interventions ont été suivies de la projection du documentaire ‘Housing stories 2’ réalisé par les ateliers.
Urbanisme
L’atelier a abordé les problèmes de typologie, d’implantation et de localisation à l’échelle de la ville.
- Où se trouvent les zones à renforcer en logement
moyen ou social?
- Comment aborder la mixité tant réclamée?
Architecture
La construction du logement social a, dans le passé,
été l’occasion de la création de formes et de types
architecturaux qui ont fortement marqué l’histoire
de cette discipline: familistères, cités jardins, unités
d’habitation...
Ces modèles sont tous liés à la conjonction forte
d’un projet social et d’une ambition architecturale
et urbanistique. L’atelier a analysé le rapport entre
projet social et forme architecturale.
Environnement Economie Gestion
L’atelier s’est proposé de faire exploser les idées
reçues en matière de Développement Durable.
L’objectif est de prouver que construire durablement est non seulement facile, pas spécialement
plus cher, et que si les avantages sont titanesques
d’un point de vue économique, il s’agit surtout de
faire preuve d’une attitude responsable de la part
de chacun des acteurs de la construction -maîtres
d’ouvrage y compris.
Un atelier pour enfants de 5 à 12 ans a été organisé; cet atelier a réuni des enfants de participants
et des enfants de quartier pour proposer sous
forme de dessins et de maquettes, leurs visions
de l’habitat.
64
65
RECYCLART / PROJECT IBAI
/ SITE
Brussels - Recyclart / TIMING since 2005
Depuis le début de l’année 2005, un groupe de
réflexion sur l’architecture et l’urbanisme se réunit
à Recyclart. Au sein de ce groupe a mûri l’idée de
lancer une nouvelle plate-forme culturelle: l’Institut Bruxellois d’Architecture / Brussels Architectuur Instituut. L’ibai est conçu comme un lieu de
rencontre au-delà des frontières communautaires,
un lieu où il est question d’architecture dans sa
dimension culturelle, où des idées émergentes
peuvent être encouragées. Les individus qui se
retrouvent aujourd’hui dans l’ibai sont souvent
proches de collectifs, de groupes et d’associations
très actifs ces dix dernières années -notamment
autour de l’Hotel Central, de Bruxelles 2000 et plus
récemment du Maprac et de la plate-forme Flagey.
Pour l’année 2006, Recyclart a demandé à Ywan
Strauven (ISACF La Cambre) et François Thiry
(Polaris) de jouer le rôle de commissaires.
La première activité publique de l’ibai et le fil
rouge de l’année 2006 était un cycle de conférences. Chaque troisième jeudi du mois en effet,
la parole était donnée à une personnalité ou à un
groupe Bruxellois, chargé d’inviter à son tour un
conférencier international. Sous le titre générique
«Reclaim!», les participants se sont réapproprié les
thématiques urbaines les plus actuelles (logement,
l’aéroport, quartier de gare, etc.) sous un angle
à la fois architectural, critique et culturel. L’objectif était de confronter, pour le plaisir, certains
problèmes apparemment insolubles de la Capitale
avec les réponses enthousiasmantes que d’autres
villes ont développé pour répondre à leurs propres
problématiques achitecturales et urbaines.
En 2007, l’ibai a exploré la question de la re-présentation. L’idée était de re-présenter ce qui
est inscrit, décrit, agencé afin de proposer de
nouvelles versions, de voir ou de percevoir ce qui
n’est jamais ou peu montré... ou non dit.
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Brussels / TIMING since 2006 / PARTNERSHIP Nathalie Mertens / Nedjma Hadj / Kathleen Mertens / Rival / Tiziano Lavoratornovi
/ Benoît Deuxant & Harrisson / Agence / Jérôme Giller / Laia Sadurni (Rotor) / Stéphanie Regnier (Syndicat d’initiatives) / Architecture
schools and schools of Arts (Brussels, Sheffield)
/ SITE
CITY MINE(d) / RECYCLART / Constant / Speculoos / PROJECT towards
Synopsis
Il y a deux ans déjà, Recyclart, City Mine(d), l’asbl
Constant et les graphistes de Speculoos ont lancé
le projet TOWARDS, dont le but est d’explorer des
questions ayant trait à la perception et la représentation subjectives du territoire bruxellois. A la
genèse du projet, 8 artistes de pratiques et générations différentes ont été conviés -chacun selon ses
affinités pour le choix du sujet et avec une formalisation personnelle de ses données- à élaborer une
cartographie subjective d’interventions urbaines
de Bruxelles. Ce travail a ensuite donné lieu à
une exposition qui, à son tour, a fait l’objet d’une
première publication…
Depuis, l’eau a coulé sous les ponts et d’autres
événements traitant des préoccupations similaires
ont eu lieu. Au fil des semaines, des mois, des
années, un nouveau visage de Bruxelles voit le jour
et une nouvelle mémoire prend forme: celle des
luttes urbaines, des interventions non-officielles,
du positivisme des associations, de la richesse
des acteurs bruxellois… Celui d’un regard neuf,
loin des clichés touristiques et des négociations
communautaires.
De la création d’un blog à la collecte de nouvelles
cartes, de l’animation de workshops à l’organisation de pratiques in situ, le projet a été nourri peu
à peu par les connaissances et les expérimentations de nombreux intervenants. Mais si la manne
de savoirs qui a résulté de ces contributions est
abondante, elle demeure néanmoins à l’état brut
et mérite d’être clarifiée, synthétisée, revisitée voire
complétée.
Contenu
De manière générale, les actions, considérations
et interrogations qui ont accompagné le projet ont
été menées en poursuivant deux objectifs différents
mais néanmoins concomitants: d’une part la réalisation d’un atlas reprenant les différentes cartes
récoltées (officielles ou non, réelles, imaginaires,
subjectives, artistiques, géographiques, urbanistiques, amateurs, professionnelles, régionales, de
quartier, etc.) et, d’autre part, la création d’un logiciel libre permettant de consulter ces cartes, de les
mettre en parallèle, de jouer avec les paramètres
qui les définissent, de les compléter, les éditer ou les
utiliser dans le cadre de projets personnels.
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Concrètement, cela veut dire:
• Une ligne du temps et un bref compte-rendu
des étapes réalisées. (L’objectif est de donner un
aperçu synthétique de la démarche globale, de
rendre compte des sujets abordés par les différents
intervenants et de tenter de mettre en lumière les
principaux questionnements qui en ont résulté.)
• Une première ébauche (non exhaustive) de
l’atlas. (En se basant sur les cartes collectées, le
but est de proposer une classification pertinente
mais suffisamment flexible pour accueillir des
contributions cartographiques ultérieures.)
• Un preview du logiciel. (Il s’agit de mettre à
plat les spécifications propres à l’interface et de
dévoiler le fonctionnement d’un premier prototype
en cours d’élaboration.)
• Des idées pour la suite des événements…
riments of many participants. But if the knowledge
that resulted from these contributions is abundant,
it remains, nevertheless, in a somewhat crude state
and deserves to be clarified, synthesised, revisited
and even supplemented.
Contents
In a general way, the actions, considerations and
interrogations that accompanied the project were
carried out by following two different, but nevertheless concomitant, objectives: on the one hand the
realisation of an atlas that compiles the collected
maps (official or not, real, imaginary, subjective,
artistic, geographical, urbanistic, amateur, professional, regional, neighbourhood, etc.) and, on the
other hand, the creation of a free software that
allows people to consult these maps, to play with
the parameters that define them, to complete them,
edit them or use them for their own projects.
So, we propose:
• A timeline and a brief report of the past stages
of the project. (The objective is to give a synthetic
idea of the global approach and to show the various
topics dealt with by the different participants)
• An atlas preview. (The aim is to propose a pertinent but sufficiently flexible classification of the
collected maps so as to allow later cartographic
contributions.)
• A software preview. (The objective is to show the
interface specifications and to reveal the workings
of an ongoing prototype.)
• Some ideas for later events …
www.towards.be
Synopsis
Two years ago, Recyclart, City Mine(d), the
non-profit association Constant and the graphic
designers of Speculoos launched the TOWARDS
project, in order to explore questions concerning
the subjective perception and representation of
the territory of Brussels. At the beginning of the
project, 8 artists from various disciplines and generations were invited- each, according to their own
affinities, each with a personal formalisation of their
own data- to work out a subjective cartography of
urban interventions in Brussels. Their work was the
subject of an exhibition and, afterwards, of the first
TOWARDS publication.
Since then, plenty of water has run under the bridge
and many other events treating similar concerns
have since taken place. With the passing of weeks,
months and years, a new face of Brussels has come
to see the light of day and a new memory is starting
to take shape: one of urban fights, of non-official
developments, of the positivism of associations, of
the richness of the actors within Brussels... a new
vision, far from tourist stereotypes and community
negotiations.
From the creation of a Web-log to the collection of
new maps, from the animation of workshops to the
organisation of in situ practices, the project was
nourished little by little by the knowledge and expe69