#1
FLUXUS MUNDI
Studio review Marc Vaye
Spring 2008
Once upon a time the silok roads A princess of Han’s empire Huang-Ti make up a material of thread secreted by Bombyx Mori, the silk. Manufacture will stay, more than six centuries, a state secret jealously guarded. Luxury industrial article, may be the first, silk is straight away offered to nomads, as a tribute for peace. Since the IInd century before our era, for the same reason as gold, it is an exchange currency between nations of Antiquity : Han, Persian, Syrian, Roman.
A german geographer During the XIXth century, Ferdinand Von Richthofen gives a name to the network of communication who cross Eurasia since two thousand years, the silk road. The silk roads. Those of caravans, with fluctuating journey, those of navigators, so uncertain. Roads of religions, sciences, arts and technics. Roads of exchanges, dialogues sometimes tumultuous.
What we can see from the moon? The Earth, our new landscape.
A genoese navigator During the XVth century, Byzantium is surrounded by turkish, the road is cut. In Europe, new conceptions of world appear. August the third 1492, Christopher Colomb clear an harbour in south of Spain. He hopes to reach Japan and China, by sea, sailing to West. Looking for Cathay, he carries one of the first printed édition of Marco Polo’s book The description of the world. In default of reaching the described régions by the venetian merchant, he reveals for the Old World, the one we say New, America, and open the way for a new laying out of the silk roads : Pacific Ocean Mexico Atlantic Ocean. Since 1571 and during two centuries, the galleons of Manilla, Nao de china, connect Philippines to Acapulco. Then the silk go across the mexican isthmus, by caravans, and shipped in Vera Cruz for Sevilla. The road reverse, became transoceanic and global. Christopher Colomb’s travel open Modern Times. The flows of exchanges are now circumplanetaries introducing in the same time the finitude of the world. The buckle is buckled. Five centuries later, after turning around at velocity of light, we live it to go to see it from the moon.
Short history of silk roads Antiquity 200 BC / 476 It is a fluctuating network of transcontinental roads established between China, India and Roman’s empire. This network cause Êmergence of intermediate nations, historical interlocutors, peoples from steppes of central Asia, those from persian high plateau and Mesopotamia. Middle Age 622 / 1457 Arab peoples become principal intermediates. Since VIIIth century, expansion of arab and chinese maritime roads. Those new roads result in decline and desertion, at the end of XIIIth century, of the transcontinental road. During XVth century, arabs are in Canton, and chineses in Bagdad. Modern Times 1492 / 1815 Supremacy of maritime roads, becamed transoceanic, of Europ and its ports, as Lisboa and Sevilla. Portugal open the circumafrican road and introduce a triangular trade between Macao in China, Malaka in Malaysia, and Nagasaki in Japan. Spain open the occidental road. Pacific Ocean, Americas and Atlantic Ocean integrate the silk space. Shipping line Manilla / Acapulco open in 1571. The galleon of Manilla will sail till 1815.
Acapulco Aden Agra Alexandria Alma-Ata Anxi Athens Bagdad Bahrain Baku Bamiyan Bangkok Mumbay Brunéi Bukhara Canton Colombo Damascus Delhi Hamadan Hérat Ispahan Istambul Jeddah Kabul Kashgar Havana Lahore Lanzhou Malaka Malindi Malé Manilla Mascate Merv Nishapour Ormuz Palmyre Puebla Roma Samarcande San Augustin Sévilla Smyrne Surabaya Tashkent Tbilissi Tehran Trébizond Turfan Tyr Urumqi Venice Vera Cruz Xian
Fluxus Mundi ArchĂŠtype of planetary exchanges networks, the silk road with a constant fluctuation (transcontinentales roads of Antiquity, sea roads of Middle Age, then circumplanetarium roads of Modern times) is a global myth and a local reality according to locus spirit. To treat the question of public space and monument at the time of telepresence. To evoke the discharge of flows, weaves a poetic relation between the space of localities and the space of flows. For legendary cities. For cosmonauts, to be seen from sky, at night. For lonely walkers, to travel through, in silence. For living better as in paradise. For making visible the immatĂŠrials. Peripatoi & otium : to manifest the sense and the taste to be at once, here and the messenger of elsewhere. It is an experiences territory, physic and symbolic support of shared times. Fluxus Mundi is an urban allegory. .
Roadway Roadway introduce a breaking in landscape as much as reveal it. Roadway found inside the territory a continuity beetween men. Connexion from here to elsewhere, from threshold to skyline. Roadway is reversible, what distinguish it from the track of free wandering. Artefact against primitive insubordination of spaces. Roadway is a base, hard, weighty, a song to matter. Layer of stone, chippings, sands, asphalt and bitumen. Mineral universe. Aqueduct Fragile Mirror to contemplate reflexion of sky. Classical figure of canalised flowing. Static vehicule. Aqueduct challenge topography, simply, by gravity. Lightway Windmills & photovoltaﾃｯc cells With the solar flow of photovoltaique collectors, the breath of wind. Climatic energies. Renewable ﾃｩnergies becamed electri窶田ity to conquer night. 4 Monoliths - Garden for solitude A perfect garden must contain nothing less than the whole univers. A garden is in the same time, a planetary index and a enclosure to collect the best. It is an open shut. A real enclosure for protection. A virtual opening to favorise the sailing of pollen, the mixing of species for the conquest of the sweep of territories and difference.
1 Monolith - abyss Mysterious mass, without window. Hide access. Inside in darkness, some windows open on the world : projection and rooms for telepresence. Teleport The electrical telegraph constitute a singular révolution breaking with old forms of carrying trade on behalf of impalpable propagation: deterritorialised immédiate immaterial. Teleport transmit signals, it is a visible point of invisible roads, it is a relay as port or airport. The road that we know. Figure of the space of flows, it introduce the supremacy of the distance– velocity to those of space-time, knowledges transmited in absolute velocity. Overflowing pool Fresh murmur of running water.
Marie-Emmanuelle Cavarec Nishapur
BenoĂŽt Buttin Malaka
Rebecca Lévy Lixian
Mathias Tenca Acapulco
Guillaume Henry Khotan
Thang-Long Vo Shangha誰
Alexandre Courtois Vera Cruz
Nenad Zizcovic Manilla
Stanislas Eurieult Agra
Claire Davisseau Manama
#1 Fluxus Mundi Studio review Marc Vaye Assistant Frédéric Richard Guests Yves Lamblin Philippe Lancry Licence Cycle students Alexandre Buttin Marie Emmanuelle Cavarec Pierre Chastel Alexandre Courtois Claire Davisseau Alexandre Diner Stanislas Eurieult Henry Flouzat Inès Gaïsset Blanche Grane Guillaume Henry Rebecca Lévy Mathilde Lucas Edouard Molinari Candice Morandi Dimitri Petroff Marc Quilichini Hélène Raoul Gaëlle Renoncet Mathias Tenca Young-In Seol Thang Long Vo Nenad Zivkovic Fluxus Mundi Villa Médicis Hors les murs Prizewinner1998 École Spéciale d’Architecture Spring 2008