9 minute read
A non-aligned narrative in and around KSEVT: Architecture, history and post-gravity (from several points of view
A non-aligned narrative in and around KSEVT: Architecture, history and post-gravity (from several points of view)
by Vid Žnidaršič
Ljubljana, 26th of June 2020
I first met Dragan in 2014 in Vitanje when KSEVT1 had been opened for almost two years.2
When we spoke on the phone, six years later, he invited me to see his theatre play. He told me that he is motivated to help me out and talk to me. In the middle of my conversation (I was pacing up and down the apartment) my partner walked through the door.
CS: Was that him?
She could not have known who I was speaking with, but apparently, I transformed into something she could recognize. I once read that this phenomenon is a remnant of pre-historic evolutionary adaptation – that one starts to mimic the other member of the same species he or she wants to impress or befriend.
DŽ: We’ve been talking for 42 minutes now – that leaves us with four minutes for each!
At this point, he grabbed Mladen Dolar’s book and opened it.3 Although it would be impossible to describe everything that followed, especially if one has not experienced Dragan’s enthusiasm in person, I will try to present what he said during the four lectures as closely as possible to how he did it for me.
The following four lectures showcase what Dragan calls optimal projection and its relation to KSEVT.
1. Image 34
On the right-hand-side, you can see a painting from 1925 by Ilya Chashnik, entitled Red Circle on Black Surface. We see a red circle, which is in essence – a star. Below, we see a planit in some kind of relation to this circle. This represents something that we call abstraction, but other words can describe this as well, such as supremacy.
On the left-hand side, there is a photograph from 2006. This is a photograph of the sun. This is mimesis, not an abstraction! This is a sun that reminisces the circle and this is supremus – The International Space Station. And what is the small black thing? This is Space Shuttle Atlantis, performing a docking mechanism.
THIS IS A PHOTOGRAPH! THIS IS A PROJECTION! THIS IS A REALIZATION!
Art sometimes precedes science. When Chasnik painted this he created an optimal projection for the art on the orbit.
I am not interested in finding solutions for architectural problems but to produce a way of thinking between gravitational – which you can also call terraformative – architecture and orbital architecture, independently of which planet we are talking about.
From all of that, you can understand the relationship between mimesis and anti-mimesis. Anti-mimesis is sometimes also an optimal projection of mimesis or heterotopy – halfway towards utopia.
2. Image 25
On your left-hand side, you can see Supremus 56 by Kazimir Malevich. This is Mona Lisa of the 20th century.
This is not a painting! This is a blueprint of the optimal projection! These are planits. Malevich, besides supremacy, also works with arkhitektons – structures without doors or windows, without a function of entering or exiting. And to a certain degree, arkhitektons are transported into architecture as well, such as in the case of Malevich’s Pilot’s House.
What is planit? It consists of a planet and a satellite, together forming planit. Malevich had a projection that in between Moon and Earth he
would install planits, so if there would be an outer-space intelligence flying by they could say ‘Oh, someone is culturalizing something here!’. This is a projection.
Next to it, Constructivist Ambience of Trieste created a black and white square and in between they installed – what? Levitation Structures! They exhibited this in 1927 and joined supremacy with constructivism. White represents a cosmic space, black represents the economy of planet Earth. With Levitation Structures we gain the historical support in Constructivist Ambience of Trieste!
WHAT IS POST-GRAVITATIONAL ART?
POST-GRAVITATIONAL ART IS NOT A STYLE!
It is any kind of form of art that for its synthesis uses the mindset of gravitation zero.
Supremus 56 is the most important painting of the 20th century, however, it is not Post-gravitational painting, since we know exactly where it hangs, where the nail supporting it and its gravity is installed.
This painting is an optimal projection!
3. Image 46
Remember the axiom? These four architectural offices are all magnificent. But before we started building we needed a projection – an architectural one!
Do you see this painting? This painting is THE ONLY suprematist painting that is not painted on either black or white background.
This is THE ONLY ONE that is painted with the horizon!
THE ONLY ONE that was painted as an architecture!
If you look at Zaha Hadid, she only brings organic into the constructivism – something that Rozhdestvensky did already in 1935! Constructivists or de-constructivists, El Lissitzky and Alexander Archipenko influenced Zaha Hadid, but she COULD NOT HAVE KNOWN ROZHDESTVENSKY!’
The most important thing is the title of the painting:
COSMIC DEVICE.
We knew this painting but haven’t told anyone! Architects did not know! NO ONE KNEW! The optimal projection existed before KSEVT was erected. And what is more – utopic projection existed. The only motive they got was the Space Wheel. One could only be amazed by their virtuosity.
And the result is here: the horizon, grass, supremacy… This has nothing to do with a flying saucer, this has everything to do with the cosmic device.
Cosmic Apparatus.
4. Image 57
The last sketch is about the first turn of the Tatlin’s project for the Monument to the Third International. You know about Tatlin’s tower right?
Look. This is the first turn in the projection that is going upwards.
In the culturalization of space and cosmification of art.
1 KSEVT stands for The Cultural Centre of European Space Technologies, or Kulturno središče evropskih vesoljskih tehnologij in Slovene, hence the abbreviation. The institution, the building itself and the consequences of their existence for the people connected to it are put in the focus of the dissertation that this extract is taken from.
2 In 2014, at the time of my first visit to Vitanje as a part of the Visiting School, everything seemed possible. At the final day of our projects’ presentations, Dragan held a talk where he spoke about his work, about KSEVT’s mission, about future plans and everyone in attendance was impressed – both by the prospects of what this project might become as well as by his personality. 3 Mladen Dolar, Uprizarjanje Konceptov: Spisi O Umetnosti (Ljubljana: Maska, 2019). 4 Mladen Dolar, Uprizarjanje Konceptov, 207. 5 Mladen Dolar, Uprizarjanje Konceptov, 206. 6 Mladen Dolar, Uprizarjanje Konceptov, 208. 7 Mladen Dolar, Uprizarjanje Konceptov, 209.
A collection of postcards sent to friends. The watercolour on the reverse is entitled ‘View of Space Centre Noordung’ by Jože Svetina in 2019, Vitanje. Author’s own photograph, 2020.
A selection of images from The Allotment Garden:
The COVID-19 pandemic underscored the much-reported sense of dislocation felt in many urban communities. Likewise the newly imposed spatial conditions drew attention to a community which found themselves exempt due to their existing partitions, and whom, may find it difficult to survive in the city otherwise - the occupiers and users of the allotment garden.1 A place for private conversation, time and space away from family and the impulse to slow down, to repair and recuperate rather than intensify productivity – it was these kinds of conduct and the possibility that occupants, users and the sites spatial quality might lead to a more insightful debate necessary for defying any unidirectional flow that our current food system provides, that an engagement with the allotment became most preoccupied.
The overall objective of this dissertation was to identify, understand and document a location in the urban landscape by creating images and dialogue with those who currently engage in urban gardening practices. Pinhole cameras were made by upcycling cardboard waste from various major supermarkets with pieces of negative film cut and loaded into the camera the evening prior to visiting the site. These pieces of film intersect throughout the work with discussions held by those currently occupying the site and are inserted into the text, when the occupiers
voice is referenced. At each partition, the camera remained in place, exposing while the occupant worked the plot, allowing each point on site to be concentrated into a durational framework. The colour cast let loose across the film follows a seasonal trajectory from the months April to August, we don’t see the images here in seasonal order nor do we see them as linearly organised, more so as aids for disrupting the conventional terms of landscape and to forge alternatives to those passive forms of representation that often fail to document the spatial and material complexities of urban locations. Each piece of negative film cumulatively builds a spatial assemblage of the site from which we can weave together to form an index of land use and thus conceive of a wider picture of the landscape.
1 For many at Garratt Park allotment site, the ability to visit and continue nurturing their gardens was a lifeline, as one gardener said, “Um, and I think it’s saved a lot of loneliness, actually.”
03-07-20 Tesco, north central region next to the river, 3 hours.
13-06-20 Lidl, central north region up from the river, 1 hour.
04-08-20 Sainsbury, south west corner, 10 minutes.
08-07-20 Lidl, far east corner, 20 minutes. 04-08-20 Sainsbury’s, north central region up from the river, 15 minutes.
17-05-20 Sainsbury’s, south east region, 2 minutes.
10-05-20 Sainsbury’s, far east corner, 2 hours.
04-08-20 Sainsbury’s, central west region, 20 minutes.
06-08-20 Asda, far east corner, 20 minutes.
29-08-20 Tesco local, south east corner, 2 minutes.
Copyright of images
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