EL ULTIMO GRITO_ABANDON ARCHITECTURES

EL ULTIMO GRITO

ABANDON ARCHITECTURES

ROBERTO FEO ROSARIO HURTADO

ULTIMO GRITO

ABANDON ARCHITECTURES

The best books... are those that tell you what you know already.

George Orwell

COCKS IN HELL

A few days after moving to Berlin, we were in a café in Kreuzberg enjoying what, in hindsight, was an amazing spring. Sitting outdoors with two cappuccinos on the table was already an upgrade in our quality of life, coming from London where sun and good coffee are rare commodities. The terrace was packed with punters, which is so Berlin, it doesn’t matter the time of the day you will always find busy cafés and bars with no apparent rush hours, which makes it difficult to read it as a city (you can even wonder if people work at all).

Half way through our coffee we see this guy approaching riding his bike. He was well built, in his forties, with black jeans, black t-shirt (packet of cigarettes tucked under his sleeve), black motorcycle boots and black shades as if out of The Wild One, riding his bike towards us. You might be wondering how we managed to have such an acute look at him… He was riding a huge chopper bicycle and, although not a Harley, he kept his killer face: very much in his role. Surely he noticed all the crowd looking at him, it almost looked staged, as no cars came for a long time allowing him to pedal through the middle of the road like Brando leading his bunch of misfit tribesmen. As if in slow motion

(the pedalling obviously was not easy on that huge bike) we watched him pass, all heads following his progress until we saw his back… There, written in bold white uppercase Helvetica, it read:

“YOUR MOTHER SUCKS COCKS IN HELL”

And with the same relentless pedalling we watched him, jaws dropping, turn the corner and disappear deep into the neighbourhood. Straight away little nervous looks and smiles were exchanged between adjacent tables, almost as if to leave clear that it was not your mother he was talking about… It had been a fantastic performance. We imagined that he was an artist or a provocateur and that most probably the whole event had been recorded, his timing was so perfect and his audience so well chosen.

At the time we did not know that the acrimonious phrase was an extract from The Exorcist, it was not until few months later that we found out. We were really surprised, as we had seen the movie when we were teenagers in Spain, and surely it is not a phrase that you can easily forget. Then we realised that the movie had been censored (they were still the days before democracy in Spain) and that line was edited out. So, as it happens, the whole situation was all a ‘fortunate’ misreading. As even the t-shirt is not completely un-common (we found a few websites where you can buy them), we guess that this guy was just some bloke who is into his rock’n’roll, movies and bike things who happened to cross by. Dare we say, there was no master plan behind it? But it remains a fantastic statement in our memory, one of those moments of greatness. We are not sure why we are choosing to start this book about design with this particular anecdote, but it feels right because all the elements that made the moment so perfectly memorable were related to design: the bike, the shades, the t-shirt, the quote and (most important of all) our reading of it. But let’s just leave it as it was… something that happened one day in Berlin.

#2 A CHICKEN IN EVERY POT

We have always collected quotes and slogans, they are funny ‘objects’, because as long as they have a minimum of common sense they can be re-contextualised into almost any new situation. And this is how we come across them mostly, re-contextualised, opened to current interpretations, as it was the case with the infamous quote of the introduction to this book. But we also realised that, when aware of their source, the historical context that comes associated with them is almost as powerful as the message itself. In this sense, they are like icebergs floating on the sea of experience.

The idea of creating a piece based on our collection of slogans came about later on, when we were trying to find ways of expressing the idea of superimposed architectures, of how these affect and rule the way we live our lives, and how we manipulate them and redefine their uses according to an ever changing set of circumstances.

A curious example of this could be:

‘A CHICKEN IN EVERY POT, A CAR IN EVERY GARAGE’

which was Herbert Hoover’s 1928 US presidential campaign slogan. At the height of the big recession, this slogan expressed and set a vision for the future of the country, which at the time must have felt almost unobtainable for a large majority of its population. Funnily enough, the slogan found its way to Spain, where it was recycled and adapted by the Franco regime to offer that same vision of wealth: ‘NOT A HOME WITHOUT A STOVE NOR A SPANIARD WITHOUT BREAD’ (a bit downgraded to keep with the realities of the country in the post-war years, and with nationalistic undertones of a fascist

government). When reading the original quote now, it is both unavoidable, and ironic, to think that it has managed to become utopian again… Imagine the fight against global warming if we were able to achieve just that: ‘A CAR IN EVERY GARAGE’ rather than the two or three for most average households in the western world.

Treating these bits of text as objects, residual architectures, provided us with manageable materials to play with, assembling them together as ready-mades to generate our own narrative. We put together a list of slogans that had the rhythm of a conversation or a monologue in the style of Beckett’s Not I, where the dogmatic and the sceptical play a game of ‘questions and answers’. The result doesn’t carry a concrete meaning, but is intended to paint a picture that encourages us to question and ultimately ‘abandon architectures’.

FOUND OBJECTS: DIALOGUES

BEFORE I SPEAK, I HAVE SOMETHING IMPORTANT TO SAY

WHAT WAS FIRST THE DOG OR THE TREE?

IT’S NOT THE MONUMENTS THAT TEACH US HISTORY, IT’S THE RUINS

DOGMA!!

I MUST CREATE A SYSTEM OR BE ENSLAVED BY ANOTHER MAN’S

IT COULD BE GOOD FOR YOUR HEART ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE

DON’T BE AFRAID TO SEE WHAT YOU SEE

LENIN LIVED!

LENIN LIVES! LENIN WILL LIVE!

I AM THE WALRUS IN GOD WE TRUST GOD

IS IN THE DETAILS

JESUS LOVES YOU

THERE IS NO INDISPENSABLE MAN

NOW THAT WE CAN DO ANYTHING. WHAT WILL WE DO?

DIG FOR VICTORY

BENEATH THE PAVEMENT LIES THE BEACH!

I AM TWO WITH NATURE…

ABSTRACTION

IS REAL!

ON THE TIME WHEN THE SURREALISTS WERE RIGHT

I HAVE FORCED MYSELF TO CONTRADICT MYSELF IN ORDER TO AVOID CONFORMING TO MY OWN TASTE

I CAN’T BELIEVE IT’S NOT BUTTER

CHANGE WE CAN BELIEVE IN

BLACK POWER

WHITE POWER

GIRL POWER

FLOWER POWER

I HAVE A DREAM

POWER TO THE IMAGINATION? AGAINST THE STATE TOTAL TRIP OUT!

A CHICKEN IN EVERY POT A CAR IN EVERY GARAGE SALE 50% OFF

IT IS GOOD TO HAVE JUST ONE CHILD

ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR FUCK THE RICH AND FEED THE POOR!

RED OR DEAD?

CAPITALISM IS BORING!

I’M LOVING IT!

I LOVE FIDEL CASTRO AND HIS BEARD!! STICK

IT TO THE MAN! GOD SAVE THE QUEEN!

BEAT ON THE BRAT WITH A BASEBALL BAT, OH YEAH!

NEW FIGHTERS WILL ARISE

MAKE LOVE NOT WAR

HAPPINESS IS OBSOLETE LESS IS MORE

CHILDHOOD WAS INVENTED IN THE XVII CENTURY

YOU ARE BORN MODERN

I HOPE I DIE BEFORE I GET OLD

A WOMAN’S RIGHT TO CHOOSE

ASK NOT WHAT YOUR COUNTRY CAN DO FOR YOU, ASK WHAT CAN YOU DO FOR YOUR COUNTRY

IT’S DANGEROUS TO BE RIGHT WHEN THE GOVERNMENT IS WRONG

BE REALISTIC, DEMAND THE IMPOSSIBLE

SEX AND DRUGS AND ROCK & ROLL

A RETURN TO NORMALCY

WHAT’S THE POINT OF

FREE SPEECH IF YOU HAVE NOTHING TO SAY?

UNTIL VICTORY ALWAYS!

THE OBJECTS

Before I speak, I have something important to say

Groucho Marx

It’s not the monuments that teach us history, it’s the ruins

Carl Hammarén

What was first the dog or the tree? Dogma!!

IRN-BRU TV ad

I must create a system, or be enslaved by another man’s William Blake

It could be good for your heart

Shredded Wheat TV ad

All you need is love

The Beatles

Don’t be afraid to see what you see

Ronald Reagan

Lenin lived, Lenin lives, Lenin will live

Kim Il-Sung

I am the walrus

The Big Lebowski

In God we trust US $20 bill

God is in the details

Mies Van der Rohe

Jesus loves you

Christian slogan

There is no indispensable man

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Now that we can do anything, what will we do?

Bruce Mau

Dig for victory

WWII British slogan

Beneath the pavement lies the beach

Henri Lefebvre

I am two with nature

Woody Allen

Abstraction is real

Joseph Albers

On the time when the surrealists were right

André Breton

I have forced myself to contradict myself in order to avoid conforming to my own taste

Marcel Duchamp

I can’t believe it’s not butter Margarine brand name

Change we can believe in Barack Obama

Power to the people

Socialist slogan

Black power

SNCC political slogan

White power

White supremacist slogan

Girl power

The Spice Girls

Flower power

Hippy movement

I have a dream

Martin Luther King

Power to the imagination

Situationist slogan

Against the state, total trip out!

Anarchist graffiti

A chicken in every pot and a car in every garage

Herbert Hoover

Sale 50% off Retailing strategy

It is good to have just one child Chinese one child policy slogan

New Labour Labour party slogan

One, two, three, four, fuck the rich and feed the poor! Anti-capitalist chant

Red or Dead Fashion label

Capitalism is boring Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination

I’m lovin’ it

McDonald’s trade mark

I love Fidel Castro and his beard

Bob Dylan

Form follows function

Modernist motto

Stick it to the man School of Rock

God save the Queen Sex Pistols

Beat on the brat with a baseball bat, oh yeah!

The Ramones

New fighters will arise

Communist slogan

Make love not war

Anti-Vietnam War slogan

Happiness is obsolete

Theodor Adorno

Less is more

Minimalist design motto

Childhood was invented in the XVII century

Neil Postman

You are born modern

Jean Baudrillard

I hope I die before I get old

The Who

A woman’s right to choose

Pro-choice campaign

Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what can you do for your country

John F. Kennedy

It’s dangerous to be right when the government is wrong Voltaire

Be realistic, demand the impossible

May ’68 slogan

Sex and drugs and rock & roll

Ian Dury

A return to normalcy

Warren E. Harding

What’s the point of free speech if you have nothing to say?

J.G. Ballard

Until victory always

Che Guevara

Love – Hate

The Night of the Hunter

Found objects: dialogues

El Ultimo Grito 2009

Featuring Rosario Hurtado and Roberto Feo

ABANDON ARCHITECTURES

Our departing point for Abandon Architectures was a photograph that we took in Milan during one of our annual visits to the Salone del Mobile. It was a Sunday morning, our plane was leaving for London after lunchtime and we needed to catch the bus to the airport from the Central station. It was a very nice morning, so we decided to walk from our hotel, which was not far away, just off Corso Buenos Aires. The walk was probably no more than ten or fifteen minutes. We crossed the square that precedes the station and as we headed towards the side of the building, where the bus stops are, we noticed that there was quite a lot of activity going on in one of the gardens next to the Central Station. Little groups of immigrants were gathered along the walkway. As we got closer we noticed that at least a couple of dozen ladies had set up shop in the park, in what you could call an outdoor hairdressing salon. They provided service to a clientele that stood around in sort of unorganised queues awaiting their turn, chatting their time away, while the cut hair piled up on the floor and was slowly scattered around by the mild morning breeze.

We are sure that no Milanese would ever imagine doing something similar. The city has a protocol that dictates how

we behave within it. There are a few negotiable spaces, but that is it. But people coming from other places read this city in a completely different way because their own situation is new, and this city is not a known place. It is unexplored territory still to be colonised. To be a foreigner gives you that space. Everything is new and interesting, but also (knowingly or unconsciously) you do not have to comply because you are free from both the dominance of the local culture and the pressure of the culture from your place of origin.1

Reflecting on the thoughts raised by this photograph gave us the idea for the title Abandon Architectures. We chose to use the word ‘architectures’ (meaning the structure of anything) because it implies that they are constructed by people, and are not ‘natural phenomena’ although sometimes it might seem that way, which we guess is what Baudrillard calls ‘The Perfect Crime’. Consequently we find ourselves living victims of the residues and the structures that other people have thought for us. Although sometimes we are able to reinterpret their meanings, these are always subjugated by the origins, which become even more unquestionable as we lose consciousness of their sources and just accept them with a ‘this is the way things are’.

“This here’s a re-search laboratory. Re-search means look again, don’t it? Means they are looking for something they already found once and it got away somehow, and now they got to re-search for it! (…) What is it they’re trying to find again? Who lost what? 2”

Ultimately, Abandon Architectures is a reflection around our interest in how structural residues are incorporated, re-used and re-interpreted within our culture. Raising the idea that, perhaps, the exact moment we launch a product, an object or a thought into the world, is the very moment we abandon it.

2. From Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle

1. Max Borka’s interview to El Ultimo Grito. First time published in the Nullpunkt exhibition catalogue (DE) 2009.

WHAT WAS FIRST?

In 1990 we squatted a flat in Peckham, South-East London. At the time there were organisations that would aid potential squatters who were looking for ‘empties’ and explain the steps to follow (our advisors were SHIP on the Old Kent Road). Living as a squatter in Britain was not illegal, but breaking in to a property was. This is the paradox; as soon as you have a key to a property the local Council (owners of social housing in Britain) must go through a court case to evict you. How you acquire this key is, however, a ‘mystery’. In its fight against squatting the Council developed some subtle discouraging techniques, breaking the toilet or the bath were the most frequent tactics, thus making the properties unsuitable for living. As we were ‘acquiring’ our key via a window of our chosen flat, torch in hand, we went around the rooms exploring the terrain. We didn’t know that something really puzzling was in store for us. Ah! There is a working toilet… good! Another room… there is a sink!… great! We have a kitchen too! No, wait, there is a bath by the sink… we have a bathroom! Check the rest of the rooms! There is no kitchen… We fitted our own lock on the door and left.

We returned the morning after, this time as lawful tenants, to get familiar with the property in daylight. We checked the first door to the left and, yes, the toilet was still there and fully functional too. Then to the right we expected to see the bathroom. Well, the bath was there, but now that we were able to see the room in daylight we realised that we were in a kitchen. There was a nice old-fashioned sink fitted with a wooden board to drain the dishes, shelves and a ventilated cupboard to store your perishables. There was also a socket that clearly said “cooker”. Well, the bath was in the kitchen, but the flat was lovely so we stayed there. Two years later we were given the option to become legal tenants, which we took.

This situation is not unusual in London where lots of prewar flats were fitted with a bath (once it was decided that a bath in each home was necessary) in the place where it made most sense: the kitchen. Of course, in the kitchen there were water pipes and enough space… The baths had wooden tops so they doubled up as tables when no-one needed to bathe. Perfect sense.

For 16 years we enjoyed the bath in the kitchen, together with the very particular social interaction that it generated. At the time we were starting our design studies while working in bars and restaurants to pay our way in London. This meant that the only moment we really had an opportunity to spend time together was during our early morning breakfast or late at night after work. In a standard build, that time together would have been cut by half: one would have a shower whilst the other prepared coffee and began breakfast, waiting his or her turn to go to the bathroom. In our case as everything happened in the same space, breakfast time became a real social time. One of us would prepare breakfast while the other was bathing; we had long talks in the morning and left home on a high. Years later, already in the 21st Century, we were forced to move to another home as the bath in the kitchen situation became illegal. To our surprise, there was a small uprising from many of the neighbours, who opposed the move to change our bathroom/kitchens. Everyone had somehow made it a central part of their life. We resisted for a couple of years, although we knew it was a lost battle, because it gave the residents a bit more bargaining power against the Council.

It has now been a few years since we left our flat in Northfield House and although we still live in Peckham, which we love, we do not enjoy a bath in the kitchen anymore… But in the mornings, we still have coffee and talk while one or the other is bathing... So far, this is still perfectly legal.

FOUND OBJECTS: LINE

ALIVE DEAD

Oscar Narud

1. Text originally published for the catalogue of the Under The Same Roof at Aram Gallery. London (UK) 2008

2. From Fox in Socks by Dr. Seuss

TROUSERS IN SOCKS 1

We know, the title sounds like a Dr. Seuss story… In fact we could call it a homage.

“Two socks. New socks. Whose socks? Sue’s socks.2”

In this case they would have to be Oscar’s socks.

We believe we noticed Oscar wearing his trousers tucked inside his socks pretty much from the first time we met back in 2004, when he joined Platform 10 at the Royal College of Art. In the beginning I thought it was probably one of those bicycle things, but as time went on we realised that it had no connection with the two-wheeled sport. We then assumed that it must be some kind of fashion statement. It was both weird and cool (like cool things normally are) and, in fact, we believe it did catch on with some of his colleagues. For us it just remained one of Oscar’s idiosyncrasies.

We found out by chance one day, chatting over lunch, how this ‘trousers in socks’ thing had started. He explained that he began to wear them this way to prevent his trousers from touching the floor, especially when going to bars and clubs, where the toilet floors were consistently wet, soiled and stinky. We guess he then ‘developed a taste for it’ and wore them like that at all times, so it became part of his persona.

For us, knowing this bit of information completely changed the way we understood it, and in a second it was transformed from the purely anecdotal into a classic piece of DIY.

Bricolage (DIY), according to anthropologists and the Nouveau Petit Robert – which is not nouveau let alone petit, but is famous for being a good dictionary – was a “Travail dont la technique est improvisée, adptée aux matériaux, aux circonstances.” Meaning, work realised with improvised techniques, adapting to certain given materials and circumstances. That bricolage, in French, also means botch should not come as a surprise, especially if we take into account that it was specifically in France where all the mothers of all of the world’s ‘Academias’ were born. And what is an Academia if not a way of inventing, sanctioning, institutionalising and fossilising the canon, the one that, from now on, will be the only and unquestionable measure of ‘good taste’?

Similarly, we could agree that tucking your trousers inside your socks, although useful, is hardly elegant or for that matter tasteful, but rather weird and geeky. So much so that, even in a city like London, home to all fashions, it still catches your eye. It feels strange because you can see, frozen, the freshness of the moment, the gesture of the improvised technique and its remnant functionality. It enjoys a distinct aesthetic value – honest, personal and without nostalgia – coming from the confidence of a designer who claims ownership of his idea and a complete disregard for the accepted norm.

“All right, here’s a useful lesson for you… Give up. Just quit. Because in this life, you can’t win. Yeah, you can try, but in the end, you’re just gonna lose, big time, because the world is run by The Man…

Oh, you don’t know The Man? Well, he’s everywhere. In the White House, down the hall. Miss Mullins (referring to the school’s head mistress), she’s The Man. And The Man ruined the ozone, and he’s burning down the Amazon, and he kidnapped Shamu and put her in a chlorine tank!

There used to be a way to stick it to The Man. It was called ROCK AND ROLL. But guess what. Oh, no! The Man ruined that too with a little thing called MTV!

Cardboard, tape and resin table. Berlin (DE) 2009.

Tape Lighting Track. Installation @ Marta Herford Museum (DE) 2009.

This installation highlights an inaccessible space within this museum gallery. We managed to reach an impossible place and mark it with an X by climbing through the building’s internal structure and sticking out our hand through a ventilation opening. Then we created a taped circuit that brought electricity to a spotlight that had been placed on the furthest accessible point with the means available at the museum.

So don’t waste your time trying to make anything cool or pure or awesome. The Man’s just gonna call you a fat, washed-up loser and crush your soul.3”

… But we must, what’s time for anyway?

Over the last months we have come to think of ‘Trousers in Socks’ as a very concise design manifesto. Open to interpretation, like all concise things of course, but perfectly exemplifying the argument for the demystification of design. As Walter Benjamin contends in Author as Producer, it is not the content of a culture (the work of art or design) that makes it radical, because it is clear that such things are easily assimilated when presented within the context of high art or entertainment. For him, truly radical culture has to challenge and eliminate the line between the producer and consumer by encouraging everyone to create. We could say: design.

‘Trousers in Socks’ is not just a sweet anecdote. It symbolises an approach to design that is very relevant today, in these times of design nonsense.

“Because, what’s the point of freedom of speech if you have nothing to say?4”

Maybe this is a good occasion to launch a new movement… Or is it an old one? Does it really matter?

Pull up your socks! (It’s now a statement! But also useful, remember?) Don’t comply. Invent. Use art. Make change. Keep rocking!

4. From Kingdom Come by J.G Ballard

3. From School of Rock directed by Richard Linklater with screenplay by Mike White

I MUST CREATE A SYSTEM

As we enter the building we can see a wide-open space to the right and a smaller space to the left. The open space on the right is double height and the ceiling above is the two-way roof of the building itself. The space to the left is more contained; it sits right under the mezzanine where the offices are located. To its far end it also opens up to the full height of the building, so lots of natural and artificial light flow in making this corner a very desirable spot.

Accessing this space we encounter two of the structural columns that hold the mezzanine floor at exactly three meters high. As we analyse the space, applying a certain sense of survival, we find that the space to the right is far too open and exposed. Although a much airier and beautiful place, it has less character and, consequently, fewer possibilities.

We decide to set up camp on the left side. With basic packing materials to construct and manipulate our surroundings, we begin to explore the possibilities of the space and its architecture. The exploration is primitive and sensual, working the space with our bodies… A column is the first element that catches our attention.

With sharp edges and immobile character, the columns are always very difficult elements within a space; they are unavoidable objects. In a way, they work like tree trunks but without the same life and warmth.

So, these could be our ‘trees’; they could be soft and inviting trees where we could sit, thinking about falling apples, or climbing up for a sporadic retreat and a different point of view. We rapidly cover the columns with bubble wrap and other packaging materials, and subsequently wrap them tightly with cling film.

This is a technique that we’ve developed to encapsulate and compress the air inside bubble wrap. It creates amazingly uncontrollable shapes, very much like living organisms with tensed muscles.

We use our bodies as tools to shape and create spaceobjects. Working just with our hands does not produce the same results. Our hands are too trained; they respond to our brains in a comfortable way…

Using our bodies in this way is essential. They can be employed to shape spaces that are a truer representation of our search for an un-typological object; one without embedded history, programmed use or prescribed social interaction.

This is also why the use of packing materials is ideal for these projects, as they are highly malleable and do not constrain or dictate at the time of making. They can be cut, glued, joined, folded, twisted etc, without any of the preciousness or skill required when dealing with other materials. Plus, they produce shapes that are slightly uncontrollable, allowing room for mistakes and surprises.

The light is another attractive feature, especially as it is concentrated at the very back of the space. We’ll try to capture and somehow control this light, like cavemen trying to keep an ember alive, building a ‘living in light container’.

We formed a space for harvesting the light, distributing it throughout its inside. The light container evolved on the outside, eventually doubling up as a resting place and working surface.

After a few days of working and living in both this space and the adjacent one (where other work for the exhibition was evolving) we decided to settle and ‘freeze’ the space in that very moment.

100 Metre Bench @ La Casa Encendida. Madrid (SP) 2007.

Griffin Ephemeral Shop @ Carnaby Street. London (UK) 2003.

GauDIY @ Elisava. Barcelona (SP) 2004.

Nullpunkt @ MARTa Herford Museum. Herford (DE) 2009.

Public Seating @ Bombay Sapphire Space. Berlin (DE) 2008.

If we render it completely with stickers – adhesive structural units – working like a very slow computer, we can unify it as a single entity.

We created this method both as a structural solution, producing a plastic skin that keeps all its parts together, and as a graphic layer, designed differently every time, thus giving each intervention its own identity.

Griffin & El Ultimo Grito @ Selfridges. London (UK) 2003.

POST-DISCIPLINARY

We declare ourselves a post-disciplinary design studio. Post-disciplinary, because we do not acknowledge the disciplinary classifications imposed by the Academy and the Market. We understand culture and its objects from a multiplicity of perspectives, generating interpretations of the world around us through an informative collage where all elements are treated without establishing any hierarchy. And design, because design is not a discipline but the processes through which people materialise thought, as signs, symbols, objects, food, images, buildings, languages etc, thus viewing creativity as the driving force behind every human endeavour.

Just so that we understand one another, from now on we will refer to all these materialisations of thought as ‘objects’. We, humans, need to translate our ideas and observations about the world into objects to be able to decode, understand and relate to them and the rest of humanity. This group of objects we call ‘culture’ or ‘knowledge’ is, therefore, also an object (or in the context of this book an ‘architecture’).

Knowledge is acquired, analysed and manipulated through design processes. For example, within a laboratory context different theories are tested (these theories are objects elaborated through graphic languages, written as much as physical or applied). To make this analysis possible it is necessary to design the ‘object’ experiment, which will allow us to materialise the theory into a manageable ‘entity’ (we know that this is simplistic but the point is to show that the process we call design is common to all of these mediums).

Ultimately, the purpose of design is to decode the world around us with the intention (often unfortunate) of transforming it into a more sympathetic and/or

NOWASTEEUR laborious poem

Video-Activism-Poem-Seating @ IFEMA, Madrid (SP) 2008

Video production by Zaunka.

controllable environment for humans (because, what is a better world?). To this end we have developed tools that allow us to interpret this world, creating social, material and spiritual architectures, which help to translate complex ideas into ‘objects’.

Let us use the word ‘mountain’ as an example (without trying to get to deep into Semiotics, although it might be the right place, it is definitely not the right moment). The word ‘mountain’ represents the thing ‘mountain’. If we asked different people to draw one (given that they have seen one before) they would draw it more or less the same way: a line that goes up in a certain angle to a certain point from which it would start going down in a certain angle to another point, most probably at the same height as the point at which they started. Therefore the word ‘mountain’ has a graphic and conceptual counterpart with an object that, in our minds, represents ‘mountain’.

“That mountain, for example,” (…) “That big and glorious mountain. For one transitory moment, I think I may have actually seen it.”

(…) For one flash, the Mommy had seen the mountain without thinking of logging and ski resorts and avalanches, managed wildlife, plate tectonic geology, microclimates, rain shadow, or yin-yang locations. She’d seen the mountain without the framework of language. Without the cage of associations. She’d seen it without looking through the lens of everything she knew was true about mountains. What she’d seen in that flash wasn’t even a “mountain”. It wasn’t a natural resource. It had no name.

“That’s the big goal,” she said. “To find a cure for knowledge.”

“For education. For living in our heads.1”

Compartmentalised knowledge does not allow us to contemplate the ‘mountain’ simultaneously from all

1. From Chuck Palahniuk’s Choke.

elultimogrito

Knowledge is gained, analyzed and manipulated through design processes

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The post-disciplinary addresses the imposibility of understanding an ‘object’ from a sole point of view at any given time

1:59 PM May 4th from web

The post-disciplinary abandons architectures

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The post-disciplinary does not engage in cultural hierarchies, it is interested in the message regardless of the medium

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Design is not a discipline but a PROCESS which humans use to materialize thought

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POST-DISCIPLINARY_does not acknowledge the disciplinary divide and refuses to conform with academic or market led definitions

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of these points of view. Therefore the challenge for us is to create ‘objects’ that disassociate from learned representations: representations that dictate certain ways of living, working and communication. We aim to bypass cultured filters, as the mother from Chuck Palahniuk’s Choke is able to do for a split second.

IT IS NOT THE MONUMENTS

I remember when I was a little boy, probably five or six, I used to stay quite often at my grandma Maria’s house. She lived in Duque de Sesto, a small street that runs parallel with the Calle Alcala in Madrid. I have quite clear memories of that time, I guess because there are memories that are not only shaped by the things you see but also by your own size. Most of these memories are very soon put against the new realities that your body is constantly creating when you are growing up. But if I look back I can easily visualise two very significant places for me at that time: one of them was the Retiro Park, I guess because it was the place I was taken to play, and the other was my grandparents’ house.

It was the end of the sixties in Madrid, so probably the equivalent to the fifties in many other European countries. I still remember clearly the day I saw for the first time those tricycles… “WOW!” I thought. I ran up to one of the kids riding them and stared till my grandmother caught up with me, grabbed me by the hand and pulled me away. There was a little piazza in the park where these huge tricycles could be rented for children to ride. They had the largest wheels ever at the back… They were amazing! I never got to ride on one of them, no matter how much I begged, so they stuck in my mind and I used to dream about them. Still today, as I am writing these lines, I can feel this longing and I picture them as I did in those days.

My grandparents’ house was number 27, it was a dark and old house. When you entered from the street you walked through a short hall and, after climbing up three steps, you were facing an old iron lift (all caged) up to the fifth floor of the building.

The stairs crawled around the lift. I remember I was quite scared of that lift so I always ran up the stairs and waited

for my grandparents on the landing of the first floor, which is where they lived.

There were three flats on each floor. I can’t recall ever seeing any of their neighbours. When you got into their flat you immediately encountered my grandfather’s home office, he was a lawyer. His studio was my favourite room in the house. His desk was sitting at the end of the room facing the double door that opened into his space. It was a desk in black stained wood, very geometrical now that I think of it, quite modern in a way. I loved to sit at his desk when he was not around. The thing that attracted me most was the letter opener and the big Bakelite telephone that was on the left. On his desk he also had a collection of pipes although he preferred cigars (which over the years was always a successful present to buy him, thinking now makes me realise that probably the whole family were all slowly contributing to his death, so it goes). Looking from his desk, on the right wall of the room, was a fitted bookcase filled with law books. To its left hung, what was for me, the most intriguing object of the room: a portrait of Franco (the Spanish dictator).

It was intriguing because I just could not understand why my grandfather would have this portrait, and I knew it was Franco because it looked exactly like one of the postage stamps of the moment. It was puzzling because my grandfather was a republican and had been sentenced to death during the war. He was finally expelled from his hometown of Valencia to Madrid together with his family, which at the time were my grandmother and their first two sons Pepe, my uncle, and Roberto, my father. Even at the age of five I remember Franco as the bad guy. So I just couldn’t work this one out, why he had this portrait; for many years I tried to build the courage to ask but never really dared to do so, as I had the feeling it would not be a happy answer.

I’ll spare you the suffering of going through yet another of my memories, and stop here to clarify the big mysteries of my childhood.

The tricycle of the Retiro, that colossal object, subject so many times of my daydreaming… Years later when I unintentionally walked by the place where they used to rent them, I saw them again… They were just regular children’s size, neither as big nor as special as I remembered. What a letdown! Even to this day I would have preferred not to have seen them ever again, keeping my memory intact.

As for the other big mystery of my childhood, the portrait, I remember one day finally asking my granny. She was dusting in my grandfather’s studio, now or never… and then I found the courage to ask her: “Granny…” I started to mumble… “Tell me Robertin” (she used to call me Robertin, kind of Valencian way of shortening Roberto by making it even longer). “Why does granddad have a portrait of Franco hanging in the office?” My grandmother turned away from her chores for a second and looked at me in disbelief, to see me pointing at the ‘Franco’ portrait. “HA, HA, HA, HA…” I think actually it was the first time I had seen my gran really laugh. “That is not Franco… it is your Grandad!” I remember staring back at the orangey picture and it was true… It was my grandfather… As if by magic someone had suddenly

‘Robertin’ as a teenager and his grandfather Pepe ready for Sunday paella

changed the subject of the painting (I have to say that in my defence, it did bear a remarkable resemblance to one of the most common postage stamps of the time). My grandmother took a closer look and kept laughing, she left the room and headed down the corridor carrying her “HA HAs” with her (I think she also for the first time had appreciated the resemblance).

Surely we can all recall similar stories, especially when thinking of our childhood. We are made of memories; all we know are the memories of something we lived before, what we call experience ‘I presume’. Most times these memories are not even first hand, we have been told or we have read somewhere or they are ‘as seen on television’, and we call that culture: a shared collection of memories. And, of course, memories are not objective. Memory is a space that is negotiated, transformed and blocked in our heads through the constant juggling of ‘reality’.

When you try to ‘draw’ on memory you always pull along a learnt way of looking at things, but this memory is never entirely perfect: it has lost or gained along the way. This is a subject that interests us a great deal and it is reflected in our work.

As the exercise of trying to draw a map of the world from memory would easily reveal1, most of us would use the kind of accepted way of representing the world used in atlases and, as I am European, I would have the Atlantic Ocean at the centre of my page (as space is not a problem you wouldn’t cut out the most western parts of America or the most eastern ones of Asia) so I would draw to the right Europe and then Asia, under Europe would be Africa connected to Asia by the Middle East. Then to the right of Africa, the island of Madagascar and right under Asia we would start drawing the islands that lead to the big mass of Oceania. To the left I would draw North America connected to South America by Central America and to the right of it some island representing the Caribbean countries. On the top would be the Arctic

Sea. 2009. Printed paper.

1. Our friend and colleague Matt Ward does this exercise with students as part of his Map talk.

Island. 2008. Wood, glue and paint. Circle Ceiling Lamp. 2008. Wire mesh and tape.

and on the bottom the Antarctic. Then depending on how well travelled you are, how much attention you were paying in geography class when you were at school, you would be able to do this with more or less accuracy.

We like this exercise because it becomes a dialogue between the information you remember, methods of representation and your ability to implement them. But also these become elements that you can play with, which help you deliberately to interpret the world in a different way. We have been working for a long time around the idea of memory and space, its representation and its materiality. Investigating how we could use our memories of space to create links with new ideas, so that a dialogue can be generated.

When our daughter Elba was three years old, we were playing hide and seek in our flat in Peckham, not a big place by any means (rather the contrary) so the opportunities to hide in adult terms were scarce. Elba was counting to ten (more or less) so even though she was not the fastest counter, the amount of time to find a hiding place was rather short. We were playing in the living room, Elba was counting just outside the room: “One, two, three…” I was sitting on the sofa “…five, six…” so I rapidly lay down “…eight, nine…” and pulled a blanket over myself “…TEN! Ready or not here I come”. From under the blanket I heard her come into the room, knowing I would be found at any moment. I heard her walking around the room for few seconds and then she said “Daddy, where are you? I can’t find you”. I had to contain my laughter. I remembered that we had been reading some books, which were still on the floor, so I told her “I am in the booook”, overdoing it a bit. I heard her picking up one of the books and anxiously turning the pages… After a minute or so she says again “Daddy! On which page are you? I can’t find you!”

It was both fantastic and revealing that she saw the space inside the book as a more plausible hiding place than the sofa, not realising that the massive thing under

Theatre 2009 Imaginary Architectures. Pirex one off piece.

Parking 2009. Imaginary Architectures. Pirex one off piece.

Apartments 2009. Imaginary Architectures. Pirex one off piece.

Spa 2009. Imaginary Architectures. Pirex one off piece.

Massimo Lunardon Workshop. January 2009.

the blanket could be her father. She was able to see the potential of that space, she was able, without any need of intellectual exercise, to project herself inside the space of the book and experience it. I have to say I felt terribly jealous… I too wanted to know what it is to open a book and feel this other dimension as ‘real’. Maybe this is why we keep trying to reproduce this experience, to be able to see space without preconceptions, to see the potential of things rather than their limitations.

Hotel 2009

Imaginary Architectures. Pirex one off piece.

BLANK WILDERNESS

What is the Blank Wilderness? It represents a mythical space where everything is potential; where there is no context. In reality it is the ‘space in the book’ but as blank space, where nothing (or everything) has been created. A space into which you project yourself in order to think differently about the world, or imagine alternative ones… Maybe it’s just a space of make-believe where we play at being ‘God’.

Blank Wilderness is, in one respect, the abstract beginning. We may think of ‘God’ floating around in nothingness (or what ever It had created before, which we don’t know about) thinking about what to do. “Now that we can do anything, what will we do?” says Bruce Mau. This space that has no context, where the only measure is Man against himself, offers no clues, no challenges, no problems… What would we design then? Would we be able to think a new world? Where would we start? Definitely a difficult question, maybe better left to the mice1. Perhaps it is all a big experiment.

But Blank Wilderness also represents an idea of a future; a future where Man has gone from the conquest of the world and the mystification of the object, to a moment of idealisation where objects become their idea, a moment that represents the existence of function and not form. If we could imagine, or even conduct a survey, the ideal outcomes would probably relate to the dematerialisation of objects or the materialisation of thought. If we imagine the ultimate mobile phone for example, inevitably this will be linked to the disappearance of the object. The supreme communication device would be some sort of telepathy (albeit technologically replicated) that would allow users to hold conversations, view and store audio-visual data within their own heads. Of course issues of privacy and loss

1. From Douglas Adams’s The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy

of information would be solved, together with any other problems, through yet another device. In the same way we have fantasised about the idea of travelling just by snapping our fingers, or being “beamed up” by Scotty2 or being able to “jaunte”3. To have our clothes made, or get any food we desired by merely thinking about it. In our ‘old’ world we still needed the machine to act as an interface, but not ‘now’… We just have to want to sit, to be able to do so without the need for a chair object…

But the problem in this new world deprived of objects, deprived of myths, is that everything becomes natural and unquestionable, conservative even, and in a way meaningless… Or meaningful… Or 424.

Mico. 2006. Polyvalent Object. Rotation moulded plastic. Manufactured by Magis.

2. Captain Kirk’s catch frase from the science fiction tv series Star Trek

3. From Alfred Bester’s The Stars My Destination

4. From Douglas Adams’s The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy.

ADVENTURES IN A BLANK WILDERNESS

Once upon a time there was a man

or WOMAN

Man or Woman 2002

Adventures in a Blank Wilderness started as a brief that we gave to some of our students. It contained just this little man in the middle of the piece of paper as an exercise in de-contextualising design. Naturally we got the typical smart pants asking: “why is it a man and not a woman?” Roberto reacted fast and said: ‘“that is because you are looking at her from the front”.

that lived in this piece of paper. He didn’t know about culture, family or objects. He hadn’t even had thoughts yet. He could be anybody, do anything…

One day he got up and WALKED

Title: Man Walking on the Snow 2004

Author: Simon Isherwood

Place: COFA_Sydney

He discovered a third dimension and started exploring this newly acquired ability…

He went to the seaside got stranded on an island

Title: El Mediterraneo 2001

Author: Enrique Corrales Place: Elba Benitez Gallery_Madrid

and climbed the highest mountain.

Title: Land Ho! (concept for outdoor bench) 2002

Author: El Ultimo Grito Place: EUG Studio_London

Title: The Hill 2001

Author: Raky Martinez Place: Elba Benitez Gallery_Madrid

Title: Man on the Moon 2003

Author: Will Smith

Place: Royal College of Art_London

…he was on TOP OF THE WORLD!

Title: Sacco 2001

Author: Ana Dominguez

Place: Elba Benitez Gallery_Madrid

Title: Wallpaper 2002

Author: unknown

Place: Castlefield Gallery_Manchester

Title: Are You Talking to Me? 2001

, Madrid

a car

Author: Carmen Gomez

Place: Elba Benitez Gallery_Madrid

a three piece suit a swimming pool

Title: Before ‘The Splash’ 2001

Author: Rosario Hurtado

Place: Elba Benitez Gallery_Madrid

he even bought himself a very BIG MEXICAN HAT!

Title: Mexican Hat 2001

Author: Daniel Charny

Place: Elba Benitez Gallery_Madrid

Title: Suburban Nightmare 2001

Author: Eduardo Alonso

Place: Elba Benitez Gallery_Madrid

He wanted e v e r y t h i n g... but he w a s al one.

Title: The Spectator 2001

Author: Roberto Feo

Place: Elba Benitez Gallery_Madrid

Title: The Usual Suspects 2003

Author: Carl Clerkin Place: Teknion_London

Title: The Others 2003

Author: Diana Cocrhane Place: Teknion_London

...and made friends.

He decided to meet people from his outer SPACE

He worked

Title: Sisifo 2002

Author: Gabriel Klasmer

Place: Royal College of Art_London

GOT LUCKY

Title: Intact! 2002

Author: Shaun Webb

Place: Castlefield Gallery_Manchester

climbed the ladder fell down

Title: Doing Time 2003

Author: Bill Evans Place: Teknion_London

Title: Now I’m here...so what? 2002

Author: Matt Ward Place: Goldsmith University_London

and got UP again.

Title: Superman 2001

Author: Rosario Hurtado

Place: Elba Benitez Gallery_Madrid

Title: Big in Lillyput 2001

Author: Roberto Feo

Place: Elba Benitez Gallery_Madrid

He wanted to be FAMOUS an ARTIST

Title: Joseph Beuys 2001

Author: Almudena Alonso

Place: Elba Benitez Gallery_Madrid

a work of art, followed his

Title: Duchamp’s ‘Nude Descending a Staircase’ 2001

Author: Terry Rosenberg

Place: Goldsmiths University_London

and found GOD!

Title: Super Ego 2001

Author: Diego Sanmartin

Place: Elba Benitez Gallery_Madrid

HEROES

Title: Maradona 2001

Author: Sergio Feo

Place: Elba Benitez Gallery_Madrid

Title: Down With This Sort of Thing 2002

Author: Unknown Place: Castlefield Gallery_Manchester

He questioned the establishment

Title: Mirror 2003

Author: Luis Eslava Place: Teknion_London

HIMSELF

Title: Little Big Man 2001

Author: Rosario Hurtado Place: Elba Benitez Gallery_Madrid

and his little... sorry, I mean... BIG ego

Title: Universe 2001

Author: Vicente Blasco

Place: Elba Benitez Gallery_Madrid

Title: No Exit 2002

Author: Tomas Galan Place: Castlefield Gallery_Manchester

He had to deal with other dimensions of the SELF that he neither expected nor understood

only to realise that he was the centre of the UNIVERSE

and that what once was a beginning... could also be... the end.

Object Aside Series

El Ultimo Grito: Abandon Architectures

[NAME] Publications

Editors: Gean Moreno and Ernesto Oroza

Printed in Hong Kong, 2009

ISBN 13: 978-0-9840566-2-0

ISBN 10: 0-9840566-2-9

Concept, Contents and Texts: El Ultimo Grito (Roberto Feo & Rosario Hurtado)

Texts Editor: Laura Potter

Graphic Design: El Ultimo Grito & Optimastudio

Photographs:

Found Objects: Dialogues: Mario Feo

Found Objects: Line: Mario Feo

Kreuzberg Café: Sven Baumann

Island and Circle Ceiling Lamp: Allison Dring

Imaginary Architectures: Michael Torque

NOWASTEEUR poem: Zaunka

Adventures in a blank wilderness: Enrique Corrales

Oscar Narud’s portrait: Hanne Brett

Stanley Picker Gallery: Gareth Gardner

La Casa Encendida: Miguel Angel Blanco

Bombay Sapphire: Mario Feo

© of texts: the authors © of photographs: the authors

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Gean Moreno and Ernesto Oroza for inviting and trusting us with the production of the first book of the ‘Object Aside Series’.

Thanks to Sergio Feo, for his work and dedication to this book that goes far beyond the line of duty.

To Daniel Charny, Laura Potter, Diego Sanmartin and Matt Ward for the conversations over great food (usually cooked by them), their comments and contribution to the contents of this book.

To Mario Feo for making the time to take photographs for this book and to Elba Feo for her thoughts.

To Kingston (University London) Design Department, Goldsmiths (University of London) Design Department and Royal College of Art Design Products Department for their support.

Many thanks to Carmen Gomez, Francisco Hortigüela, Hilaria Hurtado and Ilka Schaumberg for always being there for us.

To Eduardo Alonso, Stuart Bannocks, Sven Baumann, Max Borka, Allison Dring, Gala Fernandez, Sam Hill, Pilar Hurtado, Susana Hurtado, Nathalie de Leval, Liran Levi, Massimo Lunardon, Vanesa Moreno, Roland Nachtigäller, Oscar Narud, Gloria Rodríguez, Jerszy Seymour Daniel Schwaag and Zaunka for their friendship and help with this project.

www.eugstudio.com

El Ultimo Grito is the creative partnership of Rosario Hurtado and Roberto Feo. Self proclaimed ‘post disciplinarians’‚ they are Senior Research Fellows at Kingston University and both lecture at the Royal College of Art (Feo) and Goldsmiths, University of London (Hurtado).

We find ourselves living victims within a world of ‘structural residues’, occupying an environment that has been materially, graphically and linguistically shaped by previous generations.

Abandon Architectures reflects upon El Ultimo Grito’s interest in how contemporary culture incorporates, re-uses and reinterprets the systems and structures it has inherited. Within this context the challenge is to create new ‘objects’, which can be typologically disentangled from our conventional (learned) understandings of the world, and thus offer alternative ways to live, work and communicate.

U.S. $15.00