OSV. library 978-82-691597-4-5
# 8: Sustainability and circulation
OSV. library
Freuchen / Major / T enningen osloBIENNALEN FIRST EDITION 2019 – 24
# 8: Sustainability and circulation
What is the relationship between art and environment, work and infrastructure?
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Wind is a flowing wave of air, moving hither and thither indefinitely. 6
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Sol LeWitt, Inc omplete Open Cube (1974) Charlotte Posenenske, Vierkantrohre Serie DW (1967–2007) Franz West, Rrose / Drama (2001) Aase Texmon Rygh, Møbius liggende (2013)
Cold winds are disagreeable, hot winds enervating, moist winds unhealthy. 10
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Robert Smithson, Monuments of Passaic (The Great Pipes Monument) (1967) René Magritte, Ceci n’est pas une pipe (1929) Martin Kippenberger, METRO-Net Transp ortabler Lüftungsschacht (1997) Ormen Lange gas field
Those who know names for very many winds will perhaps be surprised at our setting forth that there are only eight. 14
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For a strong current of air is generated in an aqueduct which bursts its way even through stones unless the water is let in slowly and sparingly from the source at first, and checked at the elbows or turns by bands, or by the weight of sand ballast.
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Dolmen at Anta da Carqueira, 4–3000 BC Richard Serra, Two Plate Prop (1986) Constant Nieuwenhuys, frontispiece for New Babylon (1963) Fishli & Weiss, Rock on Top of Another Rock (2012)
This air, driving the vapour everywhere as it rushes along, produces gales and constantly increasing currents by its mighty blasts. Wherever the winds carry the vapour which rolls in masses from springs, rivers, marshes, and the sea, it is brought together by the heat of the sun, drawn off, and carried upward in the form of clouds; then these clouds are supported by the current of air until they come to mountains, where they are broken up from the shock of the collision and the gales, turn into water on account of their own fulness and weight, and in that form are dispersed upon the earth. 18
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I Friedrich FrĂśbel, Spielgaben, book illustration from 1888 I I Superstudio, Monument o Continuo (1970) I I I Crystal Palace (1851) I V Ă˜kernsenteret, Oslo V Buckminster Fuller, Ge odesic Dome (1952)
The men of old were born like the wild beasts, in woods, caves, and groves, and lived on savage fare. As time went on, the thickly crowded trees in a certain place, tossed by storms and winds, and rubbing their branches against one another, caught fire, and so the inhabitants of the place were put to flight, being terrified by the furious flame. After it subsided, they drew near, and observing that they were very comfortable standing before the warm fire, they put on logs and, while thus keeping it alive, brought up other people to it, showing them by signs how much comfort they got from it. 22
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In that gathering of men, at a time when utterance of sound was purely individual, from daily habits they fixed upon articulate words just as these had happened to come; then, from indicating by name things in common use, the result was that in this chance way they began to talk, and thus originated conversation with one another.
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Drilling bit from Ocean Viking, 1968 Franz West, Schlieren (2010) Archimedes crater, 1967 Herbert Bayer, World Ge ographic Atlas (1953) 16mm hole drilled by NASAs Curiositys on the surf ace of Mars, 2018
Therefore it was the discovery of fire that originally gave rise to the coming together of men, to the deliberative assembly, and to social intercourse. 26
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Herbert Bayer, from The Fundamentals of Exhibition Design (1939) Butterfly overpass Imago mundi, Babylon, 4–3000 BC Ouroboros symbols Clas Oldenburg (1966)
And so, as they kept coming together in greater numbers into one place, finding themselves naturally gifted beyond the other animals in not being obliged to walk with faces to the ground, but upright and gazing upon the splendour of the starry firmament, and also in being able to do with ease whatever they chose with their hands and fingers, they began in that first assembly to construct shelters. 30
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Pablo Picasso, Constellations drawing (1924) Andy Warhol, Dance Diagram (the Charlest on) (1962) Danel Liebeskind, Chamberworks (1983) Guy Debord, The Naked City (1957)
First comes the choice of a very healthy site.
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Later, one of the colonists, to make money, set up a well-stocked shop, near the spring because the water was so good, and the way in which he carried it on attracted the barbarians. So they began to come down, one at a time, and to meet with society, and thus they were brought back of their own accord, giving up their rough and savage ways for the delights of Greek customs. Hence this water acquired its peculiar reputation, not because it really induced unchastity, but because those barbarians were softened by the charm of civilization.
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Archimedes screw amusement ride, Scientific American (1904) Anish Kapoor, ArcelorMittal Orbit (2012) Vladimir Tatlin, Monument t o the Third International (1919–20) Archimedes screw, from an edition of Virtruvius’s De architectura (1522) Athanasius Kircher, Turris Babel (1679)
Perhaps some reader of the works of Archimedes will say that there can be no true levelling by means of water, because he holds that water has not a level surface, but is of a spherical form, having its centre at the centre of the earth. 38
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For when the morning breezes blow toward the town at sunrise, if they bring with them mists from marshes and, mingled with the mist, the poisonous breath of the creatures of the marshes to be wafted into the bodies of the inhabitants, they will make the site unhealthy.
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Oddvar I . N. Daren, Lars Paalgard and Terje Munthe, Kile (1985) Charles Ray, Plank Piece (1973) Bruce Nauman, Setting a go od c orner (2000) Marco Tirelli
At first they set up forked stakes connected by twigs and covered these walls with mud. Others made walls of lumps of dried mud, covering them with reeds and leaves to keep out the rain and the heat. Finding that such roofs could not stand the rain during the storms of winter, they built them with peaks daubed with mud, the roofs sloping and projecting so as to carry off the rainwater.
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After insuring on these principles the healthfulness of the future city, and selecting a neighbourhood that can supply plenty of food stuffs to maintain the community, with good roads or else convenient rivers or seaports affording easy means of transport to the city, the next thing to do is to lay the foundations for the towers and walls. Dig down to solid bottom, if it can be found, and lay them therein, going as deep as the magnitude of the proposed work seems to require.
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Fossile trilobite tracks Tire tracks Road system Overpass bomb shelter (1955) Louis Kahn, Plan for Midt own, Philadelphia (1952–53)
From these early beginnings, and from the fact that nature had not only endowed the human race with senses like the rest of the animals, but had also equipped their minds with the powers of thought and understanding, thus putting all other animals under their sway, they next gradually advanced from the construction of buildings to the other arts and sciences, and so passed from a rude and barbarous mode of life to civilization and refinement. 46
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I Trap I I BĂĽrd Breivik (1970) I I I Aleksander Calder, Flamingo (1973) I V Martin Kippenberger, Untitled (1992) V Lever
We now have fresco paintings of monstrosities, rather than truthful representations of definite things. For instance, reeds are put in the place of columns, fluted appendages with curly leaves and volutes, instead of pediments, candelabra supporting representations of shrines, and on top of their pediments numerous tender stalks and volutes growing up from the roots and having human figures senselessly seated upon them; sometimes stalks having only half-length figures, some with human heads, others with the heads of animals. 50
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I Nancy Holt, Sun Tunnels (1973–76) I I Aqueduct at Roquefort I I I Spacetram I V Vacuum post tube system V Divje Babe flute, 55 000 years old
Such things do not exist and cannot exist and never have existed. Hence, it is the new taste that has caused bad judges of poor art to prevail over true artistic excellence. For how is it possible that a reed should really support a roof, or a candelabrum a pediment with its ornaments, or that such a slender, flexible thing as a stalk should support a figure perched upon it, or that roots and stalks should produce now flowers and now half-length figures? 54
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I Babylonian toilet drain I I Styrofoam food containers I I I Joseph Beuys, Fettecke (1968) I V Fatberg in New York City sewer V Michelangelo, The Atlas (1520–23)
The fact is that the eye does not always give a true impression, but very often leads the mind to form a false judgment.
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59 For the higher that the eye has to climb, the less easily can it make its way through the thicker and thicker mass of air. So it fails when the height is great, its strength is sucked out of it, and it conveys to the mind only a confused estimate of the dimensions.
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Fragments from The Forma Urbis Romae (203–211 CE) Illustration from Andrea Palladio, I quattro libri dell’architettura (1570) Joseph Beuys, Das ist das Ende des 20. Jahrhunderts (1983) Gustave Brion, Les misérables book illustration (1870)
[‌] the moon is a ball, one half luminous and the rest of a blue colour. 62
OSV. is an art project by Jan Freuchen, Jonas Høgli Major and Sigurd Tenningen, specially conceived in response to an invitation to participate in osloBIENNIAL FIRST EDITION 2019 – 2024, curated by Eva GonzálezSancho Bodero and Per Gunnar Eeg-Tverbakk. OSV. (the Norwegian equivalent to etc.) consists of a series of booklets and an evolving exhibition held in a sculpture pavilion at Økern, Oslo. The booklets provide a complete description of the collection of works of art held in the public sphere in the City of Oslo. www.oslobiennalen.no
OSV. # 8 Sustainability and circulation 2019 © OSV. ISBN: 978-82-691597-4-5 All text fragments are taken from Vitruvius’ Ten Books on Architecture, translated by Morris Hickey Morgan, London: Oxford University Press, 1914. Design: Andreas Töpfer Paper: Munken Lynx rough 120 Font: Grotesque MT Print: Steinmeier, Deiningen Printed in Germany Print run: 1000