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Finally! I made it to the Venice Biennale. My dislike for a city i associate mostly with plastic gondole and unreasonably-priced limp panini takes a short break in mid-October. The weather is pleasantly cool and sunny and that's usually the time for me to visit a fairly quieter Biennale (until you step inside the always sardined room showing Nathalie Djurberg's wonderful little videos and creepy flowers but more about this one really soon.)
I'll kick off the Venice reports with the show MADDESTMAXIMVS at the Australian Pavilion. I wasn't expecting to like that one as much as i did. A 1:1 'sculptural' replica of the V8 'Interceptor' car driven by Mel Gibson in Mad Max and parked at the entrance of the show almost made me run in the opposite direction.
The vehicle started to make sense when i entered the pavilion. MADDESTMAXIMVS reflects Shaun Gladwell's addiction to extreme sports such as skateboarding, BMX bike riding and break-dancing. Instead of exploring the urban backdrop he has used his public to, the artist ventures into Australian hinterland and desert regions. All Gladwell knew about the location until then came from cinema and in particular the Mad Max movies. The first video i saw in the pavilion was mesmerizing. A motorcyclist seemed to be surfing a running car as if he were on a wave. Although the car is following a seemingly endless road at very high speed, the images are shown in slow motion. "Slow motion gets away from the high-speed, high-impact imagery of MTV that was also part of the 'Mad Max' films. I'm more interested in distilling, slowing down," explained the artist.
A second video features the corpse of a kangaroo on the side of highways (one never thinks of kangaroos as roadkill, right?) The same motorcyclist appears again. He never removes his helmet, he takes the marsupial in his arms and carries it like a pieta to a more dignified place for burial. The location to the Australian outback confers a haunting dimension to the videos. A political dimension too i suspect. It's hard not to think about the suffering of indigenous Aboriginal inhabitants, in particular the fate met by the Stolen Generations. Last year, the Australian government issued a formal apology for the mistreatment that the traditional owners of the land featured in the videos had been submitted to in the past. Not only is the Mad Max-style car parked at the entrance of the pavilion (who would steal it anyway? The only vehicle you can drive in Venice is a boat), the motorcycle that stars in one of the videos has been implanted in the outer wall of the building. The videos were so good i think i should just ignore the vehicle antics.
Downstairs, a tower made of monitors - Centred Pataphysical Suite (2009) - shows performers spinning on the spot either skateboarding, break-dancing, dancing on hig sticks or BMX riding. The Arts Newspaper tv has a video interview with the artist, Australia Council for the Arts has another one featuring a journalist with a super quirky accent and Vernissage.tv had a long look inside the show. The Venice Art Biennale runs until the 22nd of November 2009. |
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Another project from the Royal College of Art Show which closed on July 5 (sluggishness has come to characterize my work these days!) This one comes from the department of Design Interactions. The Golden Institute, by Sascha Pohflepp, not only explores the energy issue through the lens of an alternate history of the USA, but also attempts to examine how visions of the future are being created and how they can make us reflect on contemporary issues. What would the world be like today if we could go back to the decade that followed the 1973 oil crisis? To paraphrase a title of an article published on Worldchanging over a year ago: Where would the U.S. (and thus the rest of the world) be now on climate if Carter had won the election of 1980?
As Pohflepp explained in an essay he shared with me, technological progress is often the outcome of very specific interests and decisions, mostly economical or strategic. Networked computers are a perfect example for that, not only because of their obvious history in military use but also the much more subtle opportunities that libertarian free-market advocates saw in the emerging Internet which lead to gigantic investments in these technologies (see Fred Turner, From Counterculture to Cyberculture and Langdon Winner, The Whale and the Reactor). Other examples are the Manhattan project which lead to the development of the atomic bomb, or NASA's Apollo program. Pohflepp's alternate history scenario zooms in a moment in the United States history when the fate of energy technologies could have taken a radically different turn. The neuralgic point in time is the US Presidential election of 1980 in which Jimmy Carter lost against his republican opponent Ronald Reagan. While he was governing the country, Carter implemented policies that focused on the quest for clean energy. He established generous tax incentives for solar energy and gasohol. He turned down the heating system in his office and wore sweaters. He even installed solar panels on the roof of the White House. On the day he presented the 32 panels to the press, the President declared: "A generation from now, this solar heater can either be a curiosity, a museum piece, an example of a road not taken, or it can be a small part of one of the greatest and most exciting adventures ever undertaken by the American people." After he won the election, Reagan almost immediately changed the nation's course on clean energy matters. The National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL) in Golden, Colorado lost about 95% of its funding and the solar panels got dismantled soon after.
What if the road heralded by the solar panels had been taken?
Its scope ranged from planetary engineering to the enabling of individual participation and profit from the creation of electricity. Notable projects include the development of the state of Nevada into a weather experimentation zone and the new gold rush in the form of lightning-harvesters that followed, or major modifications made to the national infrastructure in an attempt to use freeways as a power plants.
The project asks how visions like these are being created in the public imagination but also how they are being reflected by the economy and by individuals. In the case of weather modification, people are modifying their cars into lightning harvesters to participate in the experiments, both scientifically and commercially. The car presented in the model below is a modified Chevrolet El Camino that has been fitted with a lightning rod and various electrical equipment like variable resistors and capacitor banks to store the electricity from a lightning strike. Drivers are then able to sell the stored electricity at any one of the drive-through energy exchanges, which have opened around the zone.
The Golden Institute found a way to modify freeways and harness the energy which would otherwise be lost through braking when a vehicle exits the freeway at a velocity of about 55 miles per hour. Now, vehicles are equipped with magnets. As they exit the freeway at high-speed, the cars are gradually slowed down employing the Lorentz force as they pass through a series of induction-coils. The coils are typically operated by a franchise like Chuck's Café and if used effectively can get the driver a discount on a cup of coffee.
The projects presented in this rewriting of history offers an exaggerated yet serious view on current challenges which in scale may be considerably greater than the mega-scale projects of the past (see Saul Griffith, "Climate Change Recalculated": book and video). What logic lies behind major technological pushes of the past and how could it apply to future projects and what could we learn from the visions of an American past that never happened?
The Golden Institute for Energy is a vehicle for further investigation and new material will constantly be added. For example a running collaboration with Rick Guidice who was responsible for painting NASA's space settlements or interviews with various thinkers about the promise of unlimited power. Check out this six-minute corporate-style video in which senior strategist Douglas Arnd (played by Stuart Packer) explains the mission and the ambition of the Institute: More image. Related: Sorry, Out of Gas: Architecture's Response to the 1973 Oil Crisis. |
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Previous stories about AUTO. SUEÑO Y MATERIA : Cars and landscapes, Artificial traffic jam in the mountains and Manufacturing cars.
Leonardo Da Vinci was credited with sketching the world's first self-propelled vehicle back in 1478. But da Vinci was a Renaissance Man, a man at ease in front of a religious scene to paint as much as in front of a technological challenge. There's no artist from the Renaissance in the AUTO. SUEÑO Y MATERIA exhibition, the majority of the works exhibited come from the last two decades but they demonstrate that contemporary artists do not need to graduate as engineers to re-invent the car... even if the result of their experimentation has no ambition to compete with what comes out of a Porsche factory.
Very few of the artists participating to the exhibition are as pragmatic as Pedro Reyes. Reyes is from Mexico City, a place where car use has doubled over the past few years. There are currently over 7.9 million cars on the roads of Mexico City and around 400 000 cars added to that total every year. Traffic is beyond control. Although the government is trying to curb air pollution through public transport improvements and new laws to control emissions of new cars (source wikipedia), carbon dioxide emissions create a smog layer that severely affects the air quality of the entire Mexico Valley, damaging the health and quality of life of all its inhabitants. Reyes' Bicitaxi aims to provide an answer to the problem. If mass-produced the Bicitaxi could be spread all over the city center and provide transport services for short distances. The benefits of this "human-propelled vehicle" would be many, including creating an alternative for self- employment. There's quite a few European cities which have tried to offer bicytaxi services at some point but they were so ugly most people wouldn't want to be caught dead in one of those. Reyes' version, on the other hand, has an almost futruristic and toy-like appeal.
Sometimes compared to da Vinci, Panamarenko is best known for the whimsical blimps, saucers, backpack helicopters and other flying (but mostly non-flying) machines that he spent decades building and experimenting with. The were modeled on natural elements, such as bird's wing or the motions of insects in midair. He has now retired from the art world and started selling his own brand of coffee instead.
Panamarenko's first design for a flying car dates from 1972. One of the prototypes on show at LABoral is not a flying car but a very appealing and simple rubber car. Polistes (1975) is propelled by two turbines that, when turned the other way, make brakes superfluous. Since the propulsion is direct, i.e. not via the wheels, gear changes are not necessary either (via). Panamarenko doesn't really care if his machines flew or not. As Alberto Martín, the curator of the exhibition, wrote: His works embody the technological dream confronted by its very own nature, its free evolution and right to failure, beyond the feasibility or performance studies proper to industry. He seems to be reminding us that the future has always been located on the shore of dreams and ideals.
Erwin Wurm's UFO doesn't fly either. Neither does it have any functional ambition. UFO is the epitomy of fanciness and futuristic dream. It is shiny and evokes the flying cars that no engineer has ever managed to pull out of their sci-fi setting.
At the other hand of the spectrum is Xavier Veilhan's Vehicle. That one as minimal as it can get: chassis several pipes, holding a small jet engine and sustained by four bicycle wheels. The vehicle works perfectly but is absolutely useless, its a schematic reduction of the automobile, a prototype with no other quality than its own essential nature. The "primitivism" and extreme reduction of the car is at odds with the sophistication generally associated with car design and technology. Is a vehicle reduced to its most basic functions still be regarded as a vehicle? How far can its reduction go till we don't recognize its essence anymore?
Roman Signer followed the same path of reduction and minimalism with Wagen: four wheels a fan generating energy to produces motion. Here again, spectators are questioned about the true nature of the vehicle they have in front of their eyes: Is it still a vehicle? Is it drivable? What is it for? Wagen brings to the surface the mechanisms implicit in our relationship with the goods around us.
I'll close this post with one of my favourite works in the show, the sublimely absurd Pull by Michele Bazzana. Once again a minimal vehicle but this one it is powered by two drills that probably consume much more energy than would normally be required to move such a basic vehicle.
Related post: Panamarenko retrospective. Auto. Sueño y materia, curated by Alberto Martín, runs until September 21 at Laboral Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial. |
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Previous stories about the exhibition: AUTO. SUEÑO Y MATERIA - Cars and landscapes and AUTO. SUEÑO Y MATERIA - Artificial traffic jam in the mountains. At the beginning of the 20th century, cars were hand built by small teams of highly skilled craftsmen and women. Only an elite could afford to buy one until Henry Ford developed a system of mass-producing cars on conveyor belt-based 'assembly lines' and introduced standardized interchangeable parts. The mass production lowered the unit price of cars, making them affordable for the average consumer. Tobias Rehberger takes history backwards. In 1999, the artist embarked on a project that saw him sending simple sketches, composed essentially from memory, of iconic cars such as a Porsche 911 and a McLaren F1 to a workshop in Thailand.
The artist who grew up near Stuttgart -often nicknamed the cradle of the automobile- selected Thailand, the Detroit of Asia, because the country is also known for its knockoffs of pretty much anything 'the West' produces. The instructions, sketches, clippings from newspapers and renderings he sent in Thailand didn't contained any measurements nor technological details. The only requirements were that the cars had to be drivable and built to human scale. No matter how carefully the Thai craftsmen worked, the resulting vehicles can only reflect the meagre instructions the artist sent them. But Rehberger likes the imperfections because the way they enhance the personal stories behind his work. For the Renault Alpines (the model currently on show at Laboral), he just gave the men the info over the phone. Rehberger claimed that he wanted "to create a car that is in itself a sculpture." The series makes us re-consider our idea of authenticity. It also softens the line that separates a consumer good from an artwork.
Stéphane Couturier's series Melting Point superposes two photographs taken in an automobile assembly plant in Valenciennes to create an almost abstract image. However, workers, machines, car parts, belts and surroundings can still be clearly identified. The series examine the connection between the introduction of new technological tools and the inevitable emergence of changes in our vision and perception of reality. Auto. Sueño y Materia, curated by Alberto Martín, runs until September 21 at Laboral Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial. |
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AUTO. SUEÑO Y MATERIA [AUTO. DREAM AND MATERIAL], the new exhibition at Laboral Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial analyzes contemporary car culture through the lens of some 100 artworks.
What an interesting moment to organize an exhibition on cars. Reading online newspaper over the past few months, i had the feeling that an era is closing. Buying a new car is suddenly not as desirable as it used to be: consumers have a new or stronger eco-conscience but most of all, they've been hit by the financial crisis. Sales of vehicles are hitting rock bottom. Governments are discussing or unveiling rescue packages. Jobs in the car industry are threatened. Car companies from all over the world are forced to resort to creative marketing strategies to seduce consumers: major manufacturers are offering hefty discounts while Hyundai is allowing customers to return their new cars if they lose their jobs.
Cars have shaped the 20th century probably more than any other product of technology. Ever since Carl Benz created the first "horseless carriage" (1885), the automobile has had a deep impact on almost every single aspect of our life: landscapes, architecture, geo-political relationships (necessity to gain control of the areas that produce its fuel), social and labour movements, even the air we breathe. Cars are also objects of desire, ambitions and dreams. They symbolize independence, power, they've starred in movies and their commercials feature the sexiest women around. Referring in particular to the Citroën DS (the only car that has ever managed to get my attention), Roland Barthes famously said: "I think that cars today are almost the exact equivalent of the great Gothic cathedrals: I mean the supreme creation of an era, conceived with passion by unknown artists, and consumed in image if not in usage by a whole population which appropriates them as a purely magical object."
AUTO. SUEÑO Y MATERIA keeps a balance between the dark sides and the most attractive aspects of car culture: mobility, speed, power, sex, damages to the environment, alteration of the landscape, energy waste, traffic, etc. Most of the pieces on show embraces several themes at a time. I found the exhibition fascinating and timely but a bit encyclopedic. I'll try and give you a tour in a couple of posts. This one is going to focus on the imprint that car culture has left on rural and urban landscapes: fast highways of course but also rural roads built on purpose for tourists to leisurely enjoy picturesque landscapes, sidewalks for the un-motorized, signage to control traffic, architecture that had to be adapted or created from scratch in order to enable driver to refuel their car, simply park it or lure them into spending the night by the road, etc.
Koen Wastijn is a sculpture made of neon tubes bent and twisted in the shape of Brussel's highway interchange which, for the artist, is "the most beautiful Belgian sculpture." The luminous characteristics of the sculpture remind Belgians (like me) of that tale our parents like to repeat us over and over again: Belgian highways are so brightly lit that they can be seen from space. The sculpture evokes also the number of time we've been stuck in jam right into that knot. The car, this icon of speed and movement becomes a box in which we curse and pray till the traffic finally resumes its fluid course.
Eric Aupol's photos of a glass recycling center in Picardie, reminiscent of Edward Burtynsky's Oxford Tire Pile (also present in the exhibition), portray waste a an inevitable but also highly aesthetic corollary of industry and consumerism. Its accumulation designs "new" landscapes. Piled up broken bits of glass are paralleled with geological formations.
Alain Bublex tackles this idea of new landscape with the photo Achetez de l'acier (Buy Steel) is a photograph shot with what looks like a Düsseldorf-style detachment. A battered American car from the 1970s is parked in front of a wooden house on a side street in some small industrial The artist explained that his photo highlights the "false paradox" between the issue of preserving the landscape (which is usually restricted to nature) and that of the disappearance of industrial landscapes. Buy Steel and we'll have smoking factories and dramatic landscapes! This solution is in opposition with the one of our time, which tries to convert old factories into cultural centres. Moreover, the shooting distance from the subject and the lighting patterns reinforces, even more than the sense of our voyeuristic witnessing of a story, the certainty that we are brought in contact with the projection of a mystical dynamic. In this way Kokkinias manages to transform the familiar into an unexplored, remote place, at the same time turning his stories into fantasies which may become true at any moment.
El Capitan, an imposing rocky granite mountain located in Yosemite National Park, has been photographed time and time again by hordes of tourists and masters of photography. Thomas Struth portrayed the rock formation from the road, the place that, as we see in the photograph, is also the place where many visitors stop their car and look at the mountain. Unlike most photographers, Struth chooses not to obliterate the road and the cars. They might not seem to belong to the pristine beauty of nature but they enabled tourists to get a fast and easy access to it.
More soon... The exhibition is on view until September 21, 2009 at Laboral Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial in Gijon, Spain. |
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I've stopped counting the number of emails i received about my latest flickr set titled AUTO. SUEÑO Y MATERIA [AUTO. DREAM AND MATERIAL] . Yes, my friends, it's an exhibition about cars. It's quite spectacular, it's overwhelming and you can visit it until September 21 at Laboral Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial in Gijón, Spain. Over works 100 explore, each in their own way, the relationship between car culture and art creation in recent decades. 100 works that's a lot to write about so i'll start slowly with a first piece i saw at LABoral. A more detailed report will come soon(ish).
In 2005, Maider López bought advertising space in the press, he had leaflets distributed and posters glued on walls. His objective was to invite car drivers to come and create an artificial traffic jam on the slopes of the Aralar mountains in the North of Spain. On the 18th of September 2005, 160 cars (with approximately 425 people) joined the jam from 11am. until 3pm. The artist's team directed the traffic and documented the event.
The photographs document an absurd confrontation between the urban and the rural, an extravagant Waiting for Godot, which today resonates with an added layer of ecological threat.
All images courtesy Laboral Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial. |
