disturbed city

rail panorama

2008-11-20T16:22:00.000-08:00

here the final result of scanning the junction from south- to north-station. hundrets of images were taken on a rather adventurous trip along the railroad tracks on a sunday morning in early november - sticking them together it resulted in the biggest image we`ve ever made - going to the pixel-borders of photoshop and the very end of performance of our laptops (at least my good old dell is ready to retire now)...

a 28m long printversion and an interactive installation allowing to stop the train on a virtual travel at certain positions by walking on a huge city map can be currently viewed in brussels T.A.G. gallery close to north station... the doors will be opened again during the cimatics festival...

final shots...

2008-11-20T15:50:00.000-08:00

the first week of november was marked by harsh (long) belgium nights along the scar... redoing our nightly walk along the railroad tracks we encountered some more hidden spots that we somehow didnt recognize before - an opening in a wooden wall between a tunnel and the adjunct houses serves homeless people as a place to spend their nights - it`s one of those typical cut of spaces - one meter wide and flanked on both sides by more than 6m high walls it`s this sort of places chinese people would build a multi-family house in - here it openes up a narrow view to the sky - a kloof that one might encounter between the towers of a typical street in manhattan - but then in another scale - brussels style!

here a selection of photographic documents showing a variety of places that became staged and disturbed during those nights... (large scale prints of those images will be shown from 20th of nov. until 5th of dec. in brussels congress station).

day II

2008-09-09T06:19:00.000-07:00

this weekend a second session around the north quarter took place. entering a semi public platform of a high rise building one gets a great (urban) view on the north tunnel exit of the railway connection. surrounded by illuminated office towers, the black hole keeps a low profile within the image of the city. Above the raillevel a second layer of cabels "floats" between the towers - like a subtile counterpart to the lines on the ground. this electric cables are hold by masts situated on the side of the "scar" and exactly such one got our first target this time. interfering the elevated parking lot, the mast (column) got a layer of noise-particles, randomly moving within the boundary of the "disturbing artefact". a second shot was done right above the tunnels hole - scanning the surrounding area we could capture a very "typical" brussels (night) atmosphere...

as second location the entrance of the train station "chapelle" was chosen. more difficult in terms of placing the projector and some unexpected obstacles made this one a bit tougher - yet we did two short shots and have to re-view the results...

after all at 5 in the morning we were again surprised of the silence and good conditions we could fullfill our mission - no police interruptions - no thiefs... so far. m&m

LOCATIONS on google.maps

2008-08-16T04:28:00.000-07:00

>> goto full map

day I

2008-08-08T07:34:00.000-07:00

07.08.2008: the preparations are done. a first session along the north-south connection shall happen tonight - improvising on various pre-selected spots important information (regarding environmental lighting, visability, reactions of passers-by,...) will be gathered and documented. Carrying the mobile projection unit with little problems in the train from Ghent to Brussels we had to fix a technical damage first before we could start - unfortunately it started to rain right then and we were doubting about the success of the mission. At the end it stopped for a while and we decided to challenge the (in)famous weather of a typical mid-August night in Belgium in the quest for nice, sad, useless spots along the beloved north-south scar.

With the help of our loyal multimedia-multipurpose-multiterrain-multi fantastic autonoumus unit we took our first steps to conquer the nocturnal city, at least untill the batteries stopped working and it it started raining again.

During the process we encountered various lost wills on their way home, few police cars, a couple of people looking for bitches, an homeless' and rather unfriendly dog and a lot of cold. Upcoming intense sessions.

Sept. 1-7

Mapping the scar...

2008-08-07T02:04:00.000-07:00

We are trying to "slit-scan" the trajectory from north to south station on both sides in order to get a continous panorama and a overview of the project area with odd and unusal insights in the cities backyards... to get an idea here a first trial within a trains cabin...

SAMPLING THE CITY

2008-08-07T01:43:00.000-07:00

ENCOUNTERED TYPOLOGIES OF URBAN LEFTOVERS
from Brussels South- (Midi) to North-Station

MAP:

CATALOGUE (selection):

an full catalogue including a documentation of the interventions shall be published as a project booklet by the end of September 08.

DISTURBED CITY / PROJECT OUTLINE

2008-08-07T01:35:00.000-07:00

historical situation:

„For more than a century, the very centre of Brussels has been the concrete subject (and victim according to many) of radical architectural and urban speculation. Regardless of the success or failure of these grand projects, we cannot negate the concrete impact of a bold believe in modernity and progress in the city of Brussels. Among the many speculations and built ideas the 'Jonction Nord-Midi' can rightly be named the project of the century. The construction of the underground connection between the former northern and southern terminal railway stations through the historical pentagon is the project that best symbolizes the early ambitions of Belgium as a nation-state. The supposedly 'derelict' medieval quarters on the trajectory have been demolished to allow a dramatic modernization of the city centre.“ (from Brussels, A Manifesto – Towards the Capital of Europe)

the scar:

Taking a closer look onto the 'Scar' dividing the upper from the lower city one finds besides the monumental building projects a series of 'urban leftovers'. Fragments of demolished houses on the edge of the erased strip forming 'odd lots' - lacking use and being the by-product of a greater plan; The train stations between Central - Nord (Congress) and Central – Midi (Chapel) with hardly any passenger frequencies and trains stopping (Congress and Chapel stations are served by a limited number of trains during weekday working hours only); Crossings of the rail-tracks managed by tunnels for cars and pedestrians as well as connections between the upper and the lower city in form of stairways bypassing the height-distinction generated through the rail-road tunnels. Several “walks” along the trajectory led to a documentation of typologies of those 2nd rate places and are presented in a catalogue featuring a series of potential “stages” for urban interventions.

motivation:

The sometimes very odd spatial configurations, their surreality and interruption of the common image of the city structure serve as content and basis for our appropriations. City lightening in the common sense follows mainly commercial, touristic or safety reasons and stages architectural icons. The night and it`s natural darkness puts certain elements of the nocturnal city into oblivion, disappearing in our collective memory. A series of interventions along brussels 'scar' is approaching those second-rate places within the centre of our cities in a new light and treats them as “disturbed” architectural monuments telling us from their past and possible future. A mobile projection unit serves as portable instrument for staging public space. The documentation of the 'urban acts' will be presented as an audiovisual feature video with a soundtrack by element012 (stubenmusicstudio.com) alongside a project booklet with maps and photographs. A further development wants to replace the projection mobile with site specific light artefacts. Self sustaining and fixed on location switching themselves on at a certain time and producing an obscure lightening scenario within the everyday perception of the city-night.

"Destruction as Urban Spectacle", Brussels, 1938 (close to Kapellekerk)