#°1 > JANUARY 2008
N°1
WoRKBOOKS THE
REVUE POUR LA CRÉATION ARTISTIQUE DANS L’ESPACE PUBLIC EUROPÉEN / REVISTA PARA LA CREACIÓN ARTISTICA EN EL ESPACIO PÚBLICO EUROPEO / A REVIEW FOR ARTISTIC CREATION IN EUROPEAN PUBLIC AREAS / ZEITSCHRIFT FÜR KÜNSTLERISCHES SCHAFFEN IM EUROPÄISCHEN ÖFFENTLICHEN RAUM
Territoires Territorium
Territories
Territorios
Territoires Territorium
Territories
¡Roterritor!
Territorios
Zone ≠ Territory ≠ Public area RoToR, Europe
#14 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Urban bodies Spaces and new tendencies in street arts
Living arts, food for the city
The experience of the Oerol festival
#17
Message in a bottle
Joop Mulder, Netherlands
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Pierre Sauvageot, France
#8
Eliana Amadio & Giovanni Poleggi, Italy
#3
“I didn’t see anything, but it was great!” Or when art flirts with a working-class neighbourhood
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Imagination makes a city Javier Brun, Spain
It's all very clever but you can't do it here
#4
Disturbing the perception and rules of public areas
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Richard Dedomenici, United Kingdom
Nouveau cirque is leaving Dommelhof
#10
Tuur Devens, Belgium
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#21
Marine Richard, France
Dialogue-controversy versus “realpeoplisation”
#19 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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Sweet-talking the town by creating stories drawn from reality
A stage for theatre The law of necessity
Whose walls?
Stéphane Bonnard, France
Kees Roorda, Netherlands
Transient art for a shared public area
#6
#12
JR, France
#23
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site-specific creation, states Joop Mulder from his island in the northern Netherlands. He endeavours to show how a territory which is nothing if not peripheral, an outlying sliver of civilisation, succeeded in revealing a real cultural counter-model, an extraordinary pretext for inventing outside the confines of the spreading standardisation. The British performer, Richard Dedomenici, demonstrates his The advantage of Europe is that we don’t understand one another. We commitment to a stance against standardisation and indifference by nevertheless share the same political institutions, the lingua franca of taking over a territory until its everyday users become offended or airport English, reciprocal weekend tourism and sporting competitions. drive him away. Without adopting quite as radical a position, Kees But as soon as it is a matter of being precise, of dissecting a question, Roorda uses public areas to change the actor/spectator relationship. we can rest happy in the knowledge that five hundred million people in But if the concept of “territory” can be used in so many different ways, about thirty different countries represent a huge number contexts and to what exactly does it refer? The explorers of the RoToR collective different ways of approaching these questions. distinguish “the zone” (a demarcated geographic area), the “public For this first ViaEuropea.eu Workbook, we asked the question: to whom area” (social and democratic organisation) and “the territory” perceived do public areas in Europe belong? To elected representatives, residents, as a power issue, while the Genoese Eliana Amadio and Giovanni Poleggi passers by, the homeless, shopkeepers? And what do artists have to would tend more towards an analogy between the territory as a living do with all this? organism and the bodies of the dancers and actors as the best means At the heart of the question is the dialectic relationship that artists in of demonstrating this. public areas have with the territory they encounter; the manner in Moreover, probing the memory of the inhabitants of Marseilles in France which they feed from it, even when their aim is to disturb it; how they after Small is Beautiful or of Neerpelt in Belgium (with Tuur Devens) have to negotiate with it just to be heard, without for all that becoming following the Theater op de Markt, we realise that the very existence of lost inside it. events in public areas is just as important as the programmes of the events themselves, the presence of the artists transforming the The numerous points of view of the authors contributing to this workbook inhabitants’ perception of their area. Extending this idea of transforming create a mosaic echoing the voices of different countries. We open the a mundane routine through the eruption of art in life, the photographers debate with the Spaniard Javier Brun: he sees artists as being necessary JR and Marco encourage us to feel surprise at the humanity of our to the public authorities in order to build collective imaginations, to neighbours… Even if they are Israeli and you are Palestinian. combat the feeling of insecurity, to darn the social fabric, to help the Browsing through the texts in this first Workbook, there is an implicit city-territory regain its medieval function of a place of individual freedom. common perception: that a territory belongs to no one. It can have its To which the Frenchman Stéphane Bonnard would answer by pointing regulations, its customs, its owners, its police forces, its prohibitions; out the risks of culturally correct citizen actions. By dint of encouraging it has its own complex and often painful identity. In this multiple reality, inhabitants to participate in artistic projects, do we not tend to present is not art in public areas much less disturbing than it claims to be? Is them with a flattering image of themselves? The artist’s word must it not in fact necessary to the social fabric? retain everything of its inherent power. But this is not contradictory to PIERRE SAUVAGEOT
Message in a bottle
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IMAGINATION MAKES A CITY
When a city becomes a megalopolis, when “gated communities” nibble away at public areas and when the feeling of insecurity no longer corresponds to the reality of the neighbourhoods, what is the impact of public cultural policies on a territory?
Javier Brun Spain Fundación Interarts
Born in 1960, Javier Brun is : vice-president of the Interarts agecy, director of the performing arts center of Aragón, member of the executive committee of " On the move "... www.interarts.net
The world is undergoing an irreversible process of urbanisation. In Europe, in 2030, this will concern 74% of the population. The figure rises to 82% in Latin America. Manuel Castells has even announced the end of cities, to be replaced by megalopolises “which absorb an ever-increasing proportion of the urban population”. This often results in fragmentation, a discontinuous city, where people “escape” to zones protected by private guards, the so-called gated communities, once the public thoroughfares have been closed and privatised. It is there that the high society and middle classes live as prisoners in their own homes, while the working classes are faced with insecurity on a daily basis. Even in old Europe, where the city has long had its own solid and distinct characteristics, we can see
how the development of these metropolitan environments limits the collective areas to educational establishments and road networks. The new settlements springing up around the European metropolises have very few meeting places. They consist of detached and semi-detached houses or blocks of flats. They have no centre to speak of, other than a minimal “downtown” area – a dozen local shops and offices close to the suburban train station. At the same time, leisure activities which used to take place in the street have moved to the modern, characterless shopping malls, veritable non-places to paraphrase Augé. Public space? This concept is becoming more and more vague and can be understood in several ways. García Canclini reminds us how in the Mexican ballrooms – places where thousands of people meet for a small charge – “we experience the ambiguity of participating in a public area with almost private forms of recognition.” Bauman explains: “[…] we do not refer to public areas in general, but to those which refute both the modern ambition of erasing differences from the map and the post-modern trend which causes the fossilisation of these differences through the separation and isolation of one person from another.” Urban or dead. Globalisation has increased the weight of the city. In response to this situation, theorists such as Jordi Borja have pleaded the development of a new concept. Human rights “of the fourth generation: the Rights of the City-Dweller”. In the
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Recovering urban areas to give them a meaning is one of the main challenges facing the public authorities or collective actions in the field of culture.
field of culture, there would be the Rights to Public Areas and to Monumentality. Initially, towns were places of refuge and freedom. Anyone who came to a town in the Middle Ages and lived there for at least one year won his freedom and no longer belonged to the lords, the masters of the land that he worked. Today this situation has changed radically, almost to the point that it has been reversed. In this new configuration, what role should local cultural policies play? They can no longer consist of simply democratising culture. There are new objectives, including the expansion of public areas and intercultural dialogue. Recovering urban areas to give them a meaning is one of the main challenges facing the public authorities or collective actions in the field of culture. Cultural authorities, elected members and artists are aware of the importance of symbolism in the building of collective imaginations. Art and cultural management are the main tools for changing the imaginations of a city. It is through culture that we can and must combat the unwholesome consequences of an often mistaken and exaggerated perception of insecurity. Martín Barbero shows that the “maps of fear” do not correspond to the reality of urban violence. For example, the district of El Raval, in Barcelona, the headquarters of several new and important cultural
institutions1, is perceived as being an area typified by conflict and marginality. Common belief holds that 34% of offences in the city are committed in this district, whereas police data show that the figure is a mere 4%. The presence of cultural events in the zone (Dies de Dansa, etc.) allows us to come closer to this reality without fear, taming the quarter for the inhabitants. One element which could be used as a roadmap for urban policies and which provides useful references in this field is the Agenda 21 for culture, launched by United Cities and Local Governments. It contains the advice and commitments of the signatory cities which can serve as a guideline for approaching these objectives in the right way.
1. Among other: the museum of contemporary art and the centre for contemporary culture 2. www.agenda21culture.net
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DIALOGUE-CONTROVERSY VERSUS “REALPEOPLISATION” Sweet-talking the town by creating stories drawn from reality Should artists seduce inhabitants by painting a picture of them as seen from the outside at the risk of producing a distorted work of fiction, or should they follow their intuition and produce a free “interpretation”? Stéphane Bonnard from the company KompleXKapharnaüM feels that this is a fundamental essential question that we should ask ourselves, as the city is simultaneously the source, site and target of these creations.
Stéphane Bonnard France Artist
Stéphane Bonnard is a member of the KompleXKapharnaüM collective. Created in 1995, this collective creates urban interventions which are performed at the very limit between actors and spectators. Their “in situ” work process primarily involves exchanges with the people who use the performance sites and makes use of all types of media, in particular video projections. www.komplex-kapharnaum.net
Throwing the net, turning on the charm in the hope of bringing these silhouettes together to share an experience, in this part of town which will never again be quite the same.
The city evokes passion in me. For this concentration of humanity, this collection of faces, of emotions constantly shared in a daily promiscuity, a grotesque situation, this strange need to live close to one another, it moves me. And exasperates me when it becomes too much, when in a lassitude of silhouettes in the urban flow, I feel indifference dawning, denial, contempt, fear or hatred of others. Forging an artistic act in a city means slipping into this no-man’s land between the desire to be together and the vague exasperation with others; it means finding the means of stopping the flow, taking a
break: remembering who we live with and where. Each area of the city is codified, signified. The people who bring it to life are not there by chance. There are those who live there, those who use it, the trader, the passer-by, all of them loosely linked. The artist must cunningly invent a way of making everyone meet: throwing the net, turning on the charm in the hope of bringing these silhouettes together to share an experience, in this part of town which will never again be quite the same. Some see a form of populism in this necessary seduction of a volatile audience, where the demand for popular, shared art is primordial.
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“Come and see your neighbour, come and listen to the story of the place where your uncle used to work…”
To provoke this unexpected event capable of attracting the towns attention, if only for a moment, we at KompleXKapharnaüM create our stories by drawing on the reality of the place in which we will perform. Our sets transform the architecture by means of images taken from the area, video diaries recorded here and there on a whim, our encounters. While we try our hands at singular forms of performance, a language which we hope is contemporary, the video diaries are our chat-up line, so to say: they are a familiar doorway for audiences entering our universe. “Come and see your neighbour, come and listen to the story of the place where your uncle used to work…” After that, we have to have something to say in this place to these people we have had the audacity to call on (in the name of what?). Today, “real people” attract attention from all sides: from advertising to politics, TV, radio, talk-shows and so on, the “realpeoplocracy” rules. Rather than the role of mouthpiece (apostle) of the Inhabitant’s word, almost biblical in nature, we prefer the role of “dialoger-controversist”. Based on what we have felt, the feelings inspired by the place, we endeavour to forge a word relating to this reality. But we must remain cautious: starting with the words of an author, a language which we attempt to assert and which defines our framework of intervention, we may sometimes be tempted to adapt the identity of a place to this framework, whatever the cost. Even if it means caricaturising it and squeezing it into the mould.
In the production process of Playrec, the most recent creation of KompleXKapharnaüM which uses the history of an emblematic place in a town, we set up a guardrail: before the performance, the fifteen actors meet up for a week. We sift through the material collected during the residence: interviews, archive images, newspapers, bills, adverts, etc. We share and talk about this material, rooted in a different era, we search for what it leads us to and how to use it: consumerist euphoria in the England of the 1960s, the red Poland of the 1950s or the glorious epoch of the electricity in France... On the evening of the show, a type of informal dialogue appears between this re-interpretation of the history of a place which we permit ourselves and the memories of the audience, either experienced or as told by others, tainted by nostalgia, mythology or even bitterness. Finding the balance between an artist’s language, a company’s language, and the physical reality of a place has been at the very heart of our work for ten years... Even if we are only now beginning to understand how to formulate it. Creation in a town is above all a question of intuition.
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SPACES AND NEW TENDENCIES IN STREET ARTS The experience of the Oerol festival Creating in a place, with the place and for the place. That is the commitment of the Oerol festival on the island of Terschelling in the Netherlands. Joop Mulder, the festival’s artistic director, is convinced that the future of street arts lies in site-specific, multidisciplinary and multicultural artistic creation.
Joop Mulder Netherlands
Founder and artistic director of the “Terschellings Oerol Festival” on the island of Terschelling, Netherlands. “Terschellings Oerol Festival” plays host to national and international theatre artists, musicians and visual artists and boasts more than sixty temporary stages: beaches, woods, dunes, polders, barns… www.oerol.nl
At the end of the seventies, street theatre became more and more popular. The Godfather of festivals in Europe was the Festival of Fools in Amsterdam. In 1982, the island of Terschelling hosted its first small street festival, called Oerol. The inhabitants of the island were curious, but also somewhat sceptical. Initially, their support was far from overwhelming, but the inhabitants gave the festival a chance to develop and the use of the island as a stage played an important role in allaying the islanders’ doubts. The island of Terschelling, one of the Frisian Islands off the northern coast of Holland, became the annual ‘stage’ for the site-specific arts festival Terschellings Oerol. An otherwise peaceful 15-mile strip of sand dunes and meadows, dotted with several small, typical
Dutch villages undergoes a complete metamorphosis in the third week of June. For 10 days, it is transformed by the mayhem and merriment of some 200 different acts. Many open air spaces in the beautiful landscape of the island are used by national and international theatre and music groups to create installations, site-specific performances and landscape arts, while indoor locations, such as old farmhouses and sheds, become unusual galleries and theatres. The island of Terschelling has a historical landscape that is shaped by dunes and dikes, man-made pine woods, polders and dwellings. Mankind has greatly influenced the landscape and the shaping of it. Memories within the landscape are one of the sources of inspiration for the protagonists, while the history
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and old folk tales of the island can also be seen in several performances. When organising a site-specific festival, it is of great importance to use the social surroundings as well as the physical environment of the place. Over the years, Terschellings Oerol has developed great expertise in site-specific theatre. Major national and international companies have performed extraordinary projects on the broad beach, among the dunes or in the forests.
culture which is nowadays encouraged by the new economic orientations of the different city-councils. Their main aim is to attract as many people as possible, as this is good for the shops, good for the restaurants and good for the city’s economy. But they forget one thing. It is nothing more than a current trend. Tomorrow, something entirely different might be on the agenda and the discipline of street arts will be impoverished and stripped bare by current commercial policies.
connected to the long-standing identity of its surroundings will ensure greater diversity and substance in European festivals. In a world where cultural identities are rapidly changing through migration and integration, we should aspire to making our local environment, nourished by our own identities, a stage for the new diversity of cultures.
In Europe every place has its own stories and to keep festivals from becoming superficial, it is essential not Street arts are a major vector in spreading and to simply import existing renowned European developing culture. They are very accessible and performances but to direct and inspire the content hugely important in bringing the arts to the people. of the festival. This is only possible if we pay more This is why it is essential to reinvest in street arts and attention to our own environment. one of the spearheads of this investment is siteIn Europe, there is a tendency towards uniformity specific theatre. at every level; political, economic, Since the unification of Europe, social and, consequently, cultural. Every place in the world has people have become more attached Oerol wants to protect and its own stories, its own to their own identity. highlight cultural differences. environment and its own However, it is clear that innovation Every place in the world has its customs which give every in street arts goes hand in hand own stories, its own environment place its own unique culture. with this search for identity. The and its own customs which give awakening of the European every place its own unique culture. Oerol wants to use citizen should not be ignored, but used as a these differences to create a very diverse cultural source of new inspiration giving street arts climate. It is therefore important to create art in the more variety and substance. environment where it will be presented. A festival should be multi-disciplinary, Street arts, however, have become too prescriptive, too putting different cultures centre stage. superficial, with insufficient development. This is a Presenting a broad spectrum of tendency caused both by the lack of funding and identities and cultural diversity in cultural investment and by the city-promotion an environment which is strongly
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IT'S ALL VERY CLEVER BUT YOU CAN'T DO IT HERE Disturbing the perception and rules of public areas
One unforeseen benefit may well be a resurgence in street-based performance art - possibly the most innovative and immediate of contemporary art forms.
Richard Dedomenici describes himself as 'a one-man subversive think-tank'. This text is But of course I am biased.
a reflection of the non-conformist way in which he intends to look at public areas: through his actions, he aims to perturb our usual way of thinking.
Richard Dedomenici
Before I begin, I would just like to congratulate France on losing the 2012 Olympics.
United Kingdom Artist (performer)
“His work comes face-to-face with public areas (often in the form of interventionism), disturbing the normal perception of public space and the rules that govern it, and he questions ownership of public areas and authority in general.” “Involved in human right issues”, Richard Dedomenici “finds ways of ‘getting his message’ across through humour and public confrontation outside of ‘normal’ performance spaces.” (Nikki Milican, director of the National Review of Live Art, Glasgow, Scotland) www.dedomenici.co.uk
I am not trying to be rude. I genuinely think you got the better end of the deal. You see, in the past two years the cost of the London Olympic Games has quadrupled to £9.3bn. As a result, billions of pounds of lottery funding have been raided and Arts Council England grants have, without warning, been slashed by thirty-five percent. The infrastructure of support for artists to create and exhibit work in the UK is quickly being eroded, as funding bodies, galleries and venues face a major financial crunch. But it’s not all doom and gloom.
After graduation in 2001 I made a name for myself blowing up balloons in public telephone boxes. As an asthmatic smoker, the 120 minute-long performance – entitled Party of One – represented a feat of endurance; to live-art promoters it was a low-cost, high-visibility work, guaranteed to attract attention. So it was that I repeated the Party of One around the UK until my lung capacity became very good. Also, the endless repetition gave me a rare insight into its effect on passers-by: Many did not notice the performance and of those who did notice, some pretended not to. Some tried to pretend not to notice, but failed. Some stopped and watched, others watched and laughed. Some people would bang on the window and ask what I was doing and why, and others got so angry, that they would open the door, spilling balloons down the street, and, in doing so, greatly increasing the duration of the piece. Subsequent performances include sitting with a sign reading ‘Lazy Student Too Apathetic To Get A Job Please Give Generously’; initiating a Pedestrian
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If we are to believe that art can change the world for the better, then we must also assume that it has the capacity to make things worse
Congestion Charging zone in Edinburgh; climbing into a suitcase outside Helsinki Railway Station; and wandering around Chicago with a plastic bag on my head and my hands tethered behind my back with a nylon cable-tie. The latter performance referenced the US military’s method of choice for detaining enemy combatants. Public reaction to my performance was considerable, people variously applauding and swearing at me. Police intervention was also swift, although I managed to talk my way out of arrest. 48 hours after the Chicago performance the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal broke internationally. Within a fortnight US forces had outlawed the use of hooding in Iraq. I claimed this as evidence of the shamanistic properties of performance art. To expand on this premise, I theorise that artists possess an instinctive foresight that can manifest itself through performance before it can be expressed in words. Thus artists are able to predict the future, but only in ways difficult to interpret until after the case. To quote Art Spiegelman, ‘It's hard to be an artist who's consistently Seconds Ahead of His Time’. If we are to believe that art can change the world for the better, then we must also assume that it has the capacity to make things worse. A case in point was
when I was living in a domestic nuclear bomb shelter I’d installed in London’s Great Eastern Hotel. The performance coincided with the London Bombings, thus on 7th July 2005 I was evacuated from my bomb shelter, an incident that lent an unwanted topicality to the work. I must admit to feeling quite guilty about that. I also began to worry that I was putting less and less into my performances, that I was becoming quite lazy as an artist. By conventional standards few of my street interventions even qualified as ‘performance’, often just involving stillness on my part, and, even then, not so still that it became an effort. I couldn’t even be bothered to maintain a theatrical fourth wall. My work was in danger of being antidisciplinary, rather than interdisciplinary.
The cumulative effects of lots of tiny anomalies can bring about massive discord. By 2012, the uncertainty generated from all the British street art taking place will hopefully give rise to possibility. France, on the other hand, with its well funded arts sector will no doubt be bereft of a street performance scene. But don't worry; there will be a burgeoning influx of British artists willing and ready to perform on your streets. If you pay for our Eurostar tickets, we will come.
Latterly, I have realized that I am merely following in the spirit of the visionary Buckminster Fuller, who coined the notion of ‘Trimtab’ – a system specifically designed and placed in the environment at such a time and in such a place as to maximise its effects, thereby effecting the most advantageous change with the least resources, time and energy.
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A STAGE FOR THEATRE The law of necessity For Kees Roorda, the Frisian playwright, the stage changes with the inherent logic of each play, always with the same the primary objective of using the means necessary to reach into the very being of the spectator.
Dear reader,
Kees Roorda Netherlands
I have been asked to tell you why my plays are sometimes performed in a theatre and sometimes in the open-air. Here are a few thoughts on the matter.
Playwright, scriptwriter
Born in Friesland in 1967, he writes and produces his own plays, both indoors and in the open air. He is the co-founder of “the Glasshouse”, a collective and multidisciplinary production site. www.the-glasshouse.nl
Most of my artistic decisions are subconscious, instinctive and associative. They are a reaction to dilemmas (often moral) that I create for myself. That is not some kind of artistic pretentiousness. I mean that my choices depend on the relationship I have with my surroundings. For me, this relationship is often so troubling that I employ a stylised illusion to present my dilemmas to you, sharing them with you to become part of your reality.
For a long time, I thought that I was stylising reality, although I now realise that I was mistaken. An artist does not stylise reality, rather illusion. Whoever says otherwise does not stylise reality, but simply imitates it. To imitate reality amounts to an arrogant denial of the sublime. A work of art does not represent reality but appeals to your power of conception, making you experience something real: the feeling of anguish, for example, or of beauty or perhaps both at once. It is in the theatre that I have experienced the most intense feelings, always in a strong presence of stylisation or artifice. Realism had nothing to do with it.
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When choosing a theatre hall or outside location, I rely on the initial content and the possibilities for stylisation. The implications of choosing an indoor or outdoor location are very different. I believe that there is little point in recreating a theatre for an outside performance. The same is true of performances where the use of an outdoor site simply for the scenery is the sole artistic goal. In outdoor theatre, the separation between the stage area and the area designated for the audience is far less clear than in theatres, where viewing conditions are more or less the same. That is why I use a specific narrative strategy outside. I abandon traditional viewing conditions, creating new strategies to establish contact with the spectator. In doing so, I try to eliminate the separation between the hic et nunc and the theatrical area, encouraging instead a current flowing between the two. That is why Finster Stimmen [Toxic Voices] was performed outside in a square of stretched white sheets, with four plays in which the audience met a Friesian family and was asked to play the role of the prodigal son. The separation between actor and spectator, between theatre and reality, was abandoned and the spectator lost all notion of time. In another show, I wanted to encourage the spectator to compose his own play. We created an acoustic area where the resonating voices of actors performing a ritual in the semi-darkness pervaded the silence. The spectator had to abandon his passive view to bring the different narratives together. These were part of the theatrical installation and represented the content of the play.
There are other plays where I don’t actually choose between interior and exterior. For Titus geen Shakespeare, a debate-cum-performance In outdoor theatre, (radio/theatre), I opted for a studio in the separation between which the spectators and listeners (the play was broadcast on radio and the stage area and the area Internet) were able to influence the designated for the audience direction of the performance. The is far less clear than spectators sat together with the actors in a confined area, like a radio studio, in theatres while the listeners were in their own private environment. The performance area was somewhere between the walls of the recording studio and the invisible world outside. My last play was performed in a theatre where the audience was separated from the performance area. A man was subjected to a robust interrogation. The theme of the play was a society in which it is no longer possible to recognise evil and the play moved between different genres (detective and melodrama) and the continuous variations of the narrative. The roles also changed constantly. I used the rules of theatre to create ambiguity in the illusion and to cloak identity in confusion. The choice of an indoor or outdoor location depends considerably on the content of my work. I try to give shape to this content such that it touches the very being of the spectator. In this form, the trick is to make myself invisible and disappear.
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¡ROTERRITOR! Zone ≠ territory ≠ public area The members of the RoToR collective travel through the notion of territory just as they explore it as a physical area, opening new paths without ever trying to reach an end. An experimental “chat” written by three people from three different countries in two languages. And translated into four languages by five different people!
RoToR Belgique, Espagne, France
Created en 2001 in Barcelona (Spain) by Vahida Ramujkic and Laïa Sadurni, Rotor develops actions in public areas as well as cartographic projects evolving with the mutation of urban territories, questionning the notion of border : disorientation maps, underground journeys, urban safaris, creation of public areas with the citizens… http://rotorrr.org
_LA “We are setting off on an adventure to explore the territory around us, so close and yet unknown. Only by entering it do we discover its limits and our own. Each of us in our body, in our area… At the same time creating a new body and a new area. We remap paths, leaving marks and filling voids…”1 _ CHA I see this text as a sort of exploration! – a path that we forge just as it forges us! – thought – in reality, I don’t know if we can share (communicate) like that, directly… what would be the interest in that, except as a manifesto:
a certain relativity (between us, between what it is and what RoToR represents to “the others” as an entity). As it is an exploration, as is often the case under the banner of RoToR, we should perhaps transcribe it as a map, graphically, highlighting keywords, phrases, concepts, references to re-present, commun-icate… to contribute to the common _LA How do you see the difference between ZONE-TERRITORY-AREA? _VAH area can be mental, construed, not physical territory, more physical – it stretches – borders, etc. and zone, it’s more a part of something
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_CHA territory, that speaks of power powers which intermingle zone, that’s a demarcation on a plan _VAH “We like territories in the process of transformation, we feel at ease there – they are territories which are temporarily freed from their meaning, they have a “formal” past and future, but for the moment they are free. We come into contact with the raw material – here, everything is what it is. These territories allow us to see the outside clearly, to have a point of view, to name, evaluate and act... The destruction of a building opens a passageway, plants may have grown there, but there is a shortcut through the middle… New construction closes this passageway… There is a barrier, impossible to cross – but over there, there is a hole where we can climb or slip by… The dog begins to bark and the guard comes out… The children invade the ruins of the old factory… In this abandoned place, Gypsies have built a closed camp… Perhaps it is in these spatial-temporal holes alone that we will succeed in finding a genuine public area on our own scale.” _CHA ask yourself: what might be the definition of the public area? because for me, in practice, there is neither public area nor town
_LA so what does that leave? _CHA beings, the (spatial-temporal) environment and relationships between everything _LA but relationships are defined in relation to a context _CHA so the question should be: how can we create a relationship? or where to we place ourselves in this world of territories? _VAH “The public area is the barometer of the social and political organisation in which we live and participate – democracy. It is precisely in this area that we have the opportunity to question, in the most immediate manner, the quality of the democracy of which the administrative texts talk so freely. The public area can be no more completed or formalised than democracy can. “Public” and “democracy”, inextricably linked, require urgent and continuous confirmation in praxis.” _CHA freedom of consumption. I emphasise this idea of freedom what purpose does democracy serve if not to
guarantee a free area for each and every member of the community? everyone must build his or her own freedom, it is not a given, it is different for every human being _VAH yes, but at the same time we have fewer and fewer skills and tools to build it ourselves “Artistic events and actions in public areas play the role of intermediary between theory and practice by means of a creative process. Attracting and involving the public, educating, creating forums for dialogue and exchange, etc. But beware! Because culture today is a doubleedged sword – culture is the same weapon used to wage contemporary war.” _CHA could this conversation be a public area?! I don’t know… better – a territory – is that better?!
1. The sections in inverted commas are extracts from previous conversations between the protagonists.
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The rules of RoToR’s game RoToR is not us, nor is it what we do. It is a mechanism which is constantly evolving within the relationships we create. Once RoToR came into service in Barcelona in 2001, it continued to introduce different agents, factors and components, constantly mutating its functions and appearances. In a direct action involving no intermediation, and using the body as a tool and its immediate surroundings as a medium, RoToR’s method is based on personal experience and the processing of raw materials so that each person make use of it as he or she wishes. RoToR gives rise to evolutionary processes, opens new corridors and links so that ideas may circulate. RoToR never reaches its conclusion, constantly making new connections and building bridges between the inner and the outer, the personal and the collective. Even when widely dispersed in different places, agents fed by and connected to RoToR function autonomously through independent but interconnected missions and explorations. Local and personal experiences in unknown, abandoned, transitional territories provide a common playground, a form of support in which new codes are established to be exchanged and shared. The final objective is not conditioned by concrete results, rather it is a sum of intentions which itself would define both form and structure. The collected information and materials are translated, organised, visualised and experimented with for later consultation, upgrading and modification.
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URBAN BODIES Living arts, food for the city For Eliana Amadio and Giovanni Poleggi, the city is a complex living organism possessing a memory and capable of evolving. Urban arts are the sap of this large urban body, watering the land with an essential sensitivity.
Eliana Amadio Giovanni Poleggi Italy
Co-artistic directors of “Corpi Urbani (Urban bodies) festival di danza urbana” www.associazioneartu.it
It is possible to define a territory, recognise it, belong to it and change it. We can watch it evolve over time, sculpted by natural phenomena or human will. Today, we can even discover a territory without necessarily experiencing it at first hand. New technologies and the Internet, which invade places and eliminate distances, mean that we are part of a shared space, a cyberspace, which encompasses and unifies everything. And yet a territory consists first and foremost of a meeting between architectural and urban elements and the socio-cultural sphere. From a “bodily” point of view, a territory can be seen as a collection of parts comprising an organism. A productive and welcoming or, inversely, a damaged and anonymous organism. An organism which, in order to function, needs to be observed and listened to so that it is fed in the most efficient manner possible. Although a territory can easily become weak – as shown by the fragility of its environment and the
precarious nature of the physical, social, economic or political balances – it is also possible to make it blossom. In general, culture can contribute to such a blossoming. A culture nourished by tradition and novelty, living both on the present and on what it has inherited. A culture which needs to be recognisable and recognised to avoid being snuffed out. And so a relationship develops between urban bodies and human bodies, each reflecting and feeding the others. The architectural bodies reflect the culture of a place and the human organism which lives in the city reflects the urban physiognomy. The body is part of the reality with which it is in contact. It shares the environment with the other bodies and perceives the areas it crosses to such an extent that we can physically “feel” the difference between urban environments. We have a feeling of well-being in coastal towns where the vista is much wider and where we can see the
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horizon, while we feel more claustrophobic in cities built over a small area, circumscribed by miles of streets lined with arcades. The intervention of art in an urban area contributes to increasing the sensitivity of the place: the physical intervention of a person or an unusual structure destabilises people, confuses them or makes them happy, causes them think or encourages them to pay more attention to the environment. And if art endeavours to speak of reality, it can do so in two different ways: by talking about it or by changing it. Contemporary art is perceived as the new sap needed by a territory either to follow the traces of the past or to set off on a new path. Regenerating itself, getting into shape, exploring new possibilities of wellbeing: is it really so different from the needs of a human body? Moreover, the body has a memory which allows it to relive the past, while it also has the possibility to evolve and enjoy new experiences. Even if it may sometimes be transient and ephemeral, urban art becomes part of a territory’s memory, enriching it in a manner both subtle and surprising, unique in its flourishing and yet universally accessible. If we really can “feel” a territory, then the performances and installations created in an urban context can transform this feeling, even leaving a mark in the
The physical intervention of a person or an unusual structure destabilises people, confuses them or makes them happy, causes them think or encourages them to pay more attention to the environment.
collective and individual memory. Urban art can also reflect the manner in which a city is seen, precisely because it breaks with habits. Generally, we hurry from one place to another, we follow the same paths, partly due to practical necessity, partly by habit. We rarely find the time to slow down. Taking the time to stop, admiring a work of art or an artist is in itself an extraordinary event. A time out from the frenetic pace of our daily life while enjoying a pleasant moment of entertainment. We should take time out a little more often. In the experience of the Corpi urbani / Urban bodies festival in Genoa, the relationship between the body and urbanity is constantly explored from two standpoints – that of the dancer or the actor invited by the artistic directors to interpret the site, and that of the spectator who, deliberately or by chance, witnesses this relationship. During the performance, the area, the artist and the audience are the protagonists of a transformation which extols cultural heritage, provides new meanings and constantly enriches our points of view. And this with the intention of making art and culture two factors of a city’s development. Art which, designed to be part of the urban fabric, can contribute to changing our perceptions of this very fabric and enhancing not only the architectural appearance of a city, but also, and in particular, the sensitive aspect of urbanity.
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“I DIDN’T SEE ANYTHING, BUT IT WAS GREAT!” Or when art flirts with a working class district for a few days At the end of September 2007, Lieux publics organised the “Small is beautiful” festival in collaboration with the IN SITU network – an invitation for twelve European companies to participate in an original event in the Saint-André district of Marseille (France), an area where the inhabitants aren’t used to “things happening” and hesitate between reticence and enthusiasm. A few weeks after the festival, they gave their impressions: they were there without really being there, they saw without participating, happy to have been disturbed by this artistic intrusion into their daily lives but disturbed to be happy, preferring to let someone else talk about it…
“Did you see it?
Marine Richard France
Author, coordinator of ViaEuropea.eu www.marinerichard.blogspot.com
In the Bar du Progrès, a regular bistro in the about me! It was the sketch “Nicole the Me neither!” Saint-André district. Hossin, the owner, butcher’s wife watching the sea”. Did offers me a coffee: “The festival? I saw part you see it? Me neither! I suppose as viceof a show on the square, catching a glimpse from the president of the traders’ association I should have bar. There were a lot of people. It’s good to get the gone, but my sciatica was playing up. Annie, from people out of their houses. It brings the place to life, the tobacconists’, she was there… Oh, but she went something to do. If you want a real opinion, go to the into hospital yesterday!” butcher’s. They went to watch the shows.” Mrs. Garau, sitting on a chair is waiting for her meat. The butcher’s is just next door. Mr. Adanalian “I didn’t go either, but I heard it was good. The kids continues to wield his chopping knife as he talks: enjoyed themselves... Even those who live in the “We didn’t see anything, we were stuck here. When Tuileries 1! Last year there was the Compagnie Créole2 you finish work at 8 o’clock what can you expect?” on the boules pitch. But that wasn’t the festival. I Mrs. Adanalian, hands deep in a pile of “piedsdidn’t go to the festival. I think Raoul the florist paquets” [speciality of Marseilles]: “They did a show was there.”
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So I go to see the florist. A smell of tobacco, pink neon, a few plants in pots. And at the back, sitting at a desk, Raoul. “We saw them go past in the street from the shop. The little shows looked nice, but I didn’t go. There are always a few teenagers making a nuisance of themselves, but they’re harmless. In general, we don’t let them get out of hand. Look there’s old Mr. Garonne going past, why don’t you ask him, he’s always in the street – he sees everything. – Mr. Garonne, did you see the “Small is beautiful” festival?” He looks away. “No: I was in Rome with the Pope.” Laughing, Mr. Garonne trots off. A little further along Boulevard Grawitz, a young woman is washing the pavement. “What about you, miss? – I got the flyer, but I was ill so I stayed at home.” She takes her pendant and kisses it without thinking.
everyone agrees. Normally there’s absolutely nothing going on here…” Another women and here twoyear-old daughter join us. “Yes, it’s true! And on top of that it was free and outdoors! That’s why everyone was there. Tell them from Anissa Hammache that they should do it again next year!” 1. Council housing block in the district. 2. Caribbean music group from the 1980’s.
Just as I am thinking of abandoning my quest, a man standing still in the half-light of the arcades of the Tuileries council housing block calls to me without actually looking at me. “What are you looking for?” I explain. “Yes, I saw something! – Really? – Yes! I saw the pianist! It was great what they did with that piano. Really great!” I throw in a more detailed question: “There was a clown there as well, wasn’t there? – Ah, no, I didn’t see the clown.” A young woman wearing a smock stops nearby. She switches off her Ipod, puts her bucket and wiper down. “I saw the clown. I was there with my daughter. I swear it was like match day at the stadium there were that many people! It was great! That’s the truth,
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NOUVEAU CIRQUE IS LEAVING DOMMELHOF In the autumn, Theater op de Markt, the international festival of street arts and contemporary circus, invades the Provinciaal Domein Dommelhof in Neerpelt, Belgium. For a few days, the site is transformed into a village ruled by the power of the imagination, beating to the magical rhythm of living art. But then what happens?
Circus is leaving town Oh Ruby, roll your stockins down Circus is leaving town Oh Ruby, dry your eyes 1
Tuur Devens Belgium Journalist, author
Born in 1951, Tuur Devens is a theatre critic and teacher. He is interested in theatre both for adults and children, contemporary dance, puppetry and circus. He is a member of the Flemish Ministry of Culture’s committee of theatre experts.
A sad (and therefore beautiful?) song in which the departure of the circus is used as a metaphor for the departure of a loved one. The farewell evokes sadness and melancholy. Only memories of being together will remain. A loved one leaving is like a circus leaving town. But does that metaphor still stand in 2007? And can it be reversed: is a departing circus like a loved one leaving? Are we dealing with real ‘duende’ here, or with false romance? These past few summers, we have been flooded with so many street theatre festivals, open-air festivals and side shows that you
could be forgiven for wondering whether circus theatre (and consequently also the departure of a group or groups) still produces a deep cathartic effect, stirring the emotions and evoking theatre lovesickness. 8th November 2007, the grounds surrounding the Dommelhof in Neerpelt, a small town of 16,000 inhabitants in north-east Belgium. Provinciaal Domein Dommelhof is situated on the edge of town. The venue comprises a theatre, a couple of halls, meeting rooms and offices. A little further on, beyond a large sports hall, there is accommodation for 130 guests. Between and around the buildings there are paths, a brook, many trees and grass. In the “wood of sounds” created here, people walk their dogs, strollers find peace and quiet, cultural or otherwise. Besides the chatter of birds, you can hear sounds from installations stirred by a breeze. Gentle sounds. At the sports hall, 50-year-olds work out and the handball team is in training, while on the recently constructed running track outside, a host of girls dream of matching Kim Gevaert’s performances. This is the heart of Theater op de Markt, the international festival of street theatre and contemporary circus. This is where artists can work
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on their new productions, undisturbed. Every two has its own territory. This small company wants to go years, in summer, the great open-air festival is held all the way, literally baring all, and does so by throwing in the bigger town of Hasselt while in the autumn of all show, frills and other excess overboard. The title the intervening year, the more intimate circus theatre of their production is appropriate: Smaller, poorer, festival is held here. Circus and theatre, the real cirque cheaper. Theatre of poverty, as Peter Brook called it. nouveau. This autumn, the festival ran Theatre of imagination, during the holidays from 31st of October Six circus tents, some large of amazement, of until 4th of November. Six circus tents, some small, were pitched admiration. In all its some large some small, were pitched among among the buildings, the harshness, full of the buildings, the sports hall was converted sports hall was converted into humour, full of subdued into an indoor circus stage and the theatre an indoor circus stage anger at the gratuitous hosted both large-scale and smaller entertainment too often performances. For four afternoons and shown in circus tents. evenings, 11,000 people walked from theatre to Acrobat wants to be honest and pure. And yet other tent, from theatre to sports hall, from tent to companies participated in Neerpelt, producing open-air stage. a wonderful mix of circus acts and theatre, a crossover of art disciplines. A couple of hundred juggling youngsters rode around on unicycles, participated in workshops and watched Theatre aficionados could indulge themselves for the shows. For four days and four nights this was days in this land ruled by the power of the their playground. From the theatre, illuminated paths imagination. wound their way to the tents like gleaming threads. The new circus has left. An empty space is all A circus tent towered above the trees, very romantic, that remains. A ‘duende’-feeling creeps up on and at the sports hall, you had to cross the track me. What a shame it has gone. Most people are (much to the dissatisfaction of the sports council) to not bothered and hurry to the next event to reach the tent belonging to Acrobat. Their tent was consume more performances. Basking in the at the edge of Dommelhof, a well-chosen spot for afterglow of the show, I am strolling through this Australian circus theatre troupe. The central the deserted wood of sounds. I can see a lonely town square is not for them. That is where the likes girl running laps on the track. My loved one of the Cirque du Soleil belong with all their glitter and is not gone. I know she will return and occupy glamour; Acrobat’s place is on the edge of town, at the these grounds in two years’ time. margins of society, far away from the places where 1. From Ballad of broken seas, by Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan (2006 V2 Records International) ostentatious citizens compete with one other. Acrobat
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WHOSE WALLS? Transient art for a shared public area Gigantic portraits of Palestinians and Israelis plying the same trade, stuck face to face in public areas, on either side of the Dividing Wall. That was Face2Face, a daring project which brought fame to its authors, JR and Marco. Since then, the two authors have pursued their work, springing surprises in daily city life to change our way of seeing things.
JR France Photographer
Clandestine photographer born in France, JR currently lives in Paris. Since 2001 he has turned his photos into posters, using public areas as his gallery. http://face2faceproject.com
The relationship between a street artist and public areas is ambivalent, as it relies on his taking over a space which does not belong to him, be it for a day or forever. When I began to express myself on walls, I wanted to leave my mark. I would walk past places I had already tagged and try to find the marks I had left. My approach changed when I undertook a tour of European street arts. I met amazing tag artists who created huge projects, but I understood that I would have to abandon tagging for posters. I had a much more pressing desire to represent people than to create solitary works. I also wanted to leave memories on walls and not just indelible marks. A poster on a wall is a living thing. You are in contact with the material – glue, water, paper, sweat. You can
come back and revisit the poster a month later. Perhaps it is still intact, perhaps someone will have added a red nose to a portrait, perhaps it will have been torn poetically or aggressively. A poster is transient. Every day, it is subject to the reactions of the “audience”, who may decide to tear it, cover it up or transform it. Sometimes, the wind and rain become involved, turning a portrait into confetti on a wall, with only an eye or an ear sticking out, or sometimes nothing. Then there is the question of property. I stick works on walls which don’t belong to me. And I generally have no permission to do so. Sometimes, the walls on which I stick my work don’t really belong to those who control them. So the situation becomes more and more complex. Who does the “safety barrier”
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belong to, the Israeli “Dividing Wall” which in some property is a universal reaction, but we can overcome places is on Palestinian soil? Or the walls of the favelas it by explaining our approach. This sometimes in Brazil, whose occupants have leads to surprising encounters no property deeds? Or the walls and an owner may become Public areas belong to of abandoned houses in Africa? an accomplice. Public areas belong to those who This cannot be said of the those who live there. live there, people who aren’t in authorities. Can you the habit of visiting museums but who walk past imagine, if everyone did the same walls which often have nothing to say. That is who I thing? I have already organised illegal am talking to. I want to bring them face to face with exhibitions where the authorities themselves. And that is why I invade their privacy began to remove my posters (with a with my 28mm lens. They are not the subjects but the high-powered cleaning machine) actors in the work I display on the walls on a large against the wishes of the local scale so that the image burns into our psyche, so that population. In this case, to avoid the passer-by looks at the photo just as the photo tolerating the intolerable (like I said, looks at the passer by, much to his surprise. if everyone…), they turn the Genuine surprise lies not in being surprised by unofficial exhibition into an official something surprising. That would be no surprise at exhibition. Order is respected and all. Genuine surprise happens when you are surprised art wins the day. by something which is not inherently surprising, such as yourself, your neighbour or your enemy. And it is here that the public area may play a role – by creating surprises and asking questions. Of course, to take possession of this public area you must have something to say, an original message to convey. It has to be worth the effort for the police, the legal system, the local elected representatives or the owners of the buildings sometimes adopt a restrictive approach to the issue of public areas. To my great surprise, during my illegal exhibition in the Near East, the strongest opposition that I encountered was from the owners of the walls on which I stuck my work. The preservation of private
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Aurel
The Workbooks of ViaEuropea.eu are an on-line publication from Lieux Publics, Centre national de création (Marseilles, France), in partnership with IN SITU, the European network for artistic creation in public areas, and Le Fourneau, the national centre for street arts in Brest (France).
France
1980: Birth. First contact with a breast. 1986: First steps in the world of music (recorder) and football (primarily Panini cards). 1994: Moped: a step on the road to freedom. 2007: Still hasn’t tidied his desk. (Full biography on his site) His drawings are published in CQFD, Diagonal, Marianne, Le Monde Diplomatique, Le Monde, Psikopat, Phosphore…
www.agentdupoum.com
a review for artistic creation in European public areas 16 rue Condorcet - 13 016 Marseille - France +33 (0) 491 03 81 28
The workbooks of ViaEuropea.eu are published in English, Spanish, German and French in pdf format under the Creative Commons licence “Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 France”. You can download, copy or share them in accordance with the conditions stipulated here: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/fr/
PUBLICATION MANAGER Pierre Sauvageot EDITING COORDINATOR Marine Richard (info@viaeuropea.eu) TRANSLATION John Baker Soledad Guilarte Jean-Philippe Riby Sylvain Mastrogiovanni Andrea Stettler Marine Richard Christoph Jankowski LAYOUT Anne Gieysse Marine Richard
www.lieuxpublics.com
THE FOLLOWING PEOPLE CONTRIBUTED TO THIS ISSUE
Pierre Sauvageot Eliana Amadio Aurel Stéphane Bonnard Javier Brun Richard Dedomenici Tuur Devens JR Joop Mulder Giovanni Poleggi Kees Roorda Rotor collective
THANKS TO Ariane Bieou Neil Buttler Nikki Milican Geert Overdam Diana Brus Kees Lesuis Éric Aubry Mercedes Giovinnazzo Anne-Marie Autissier Yveline Rapeau Werner Schrempf Yvonne Franquinet Alexandre Cubizolles Sébastien Dubost Frédéric Kahn
Conception graphique : www.zutraficdesign.com
Cartoonist