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1997 2005

B e r l i n

G l e i s d r e i e c k

A G

G l e i s d r e i e c k

B e r l i n

G e r m a n y

E u r o p e

16 17

The AG G is a citizens’ initiativeset up in the early 1990s in Berlin. NorbertRheinländer is an architect and veteran of the Westt ange nte mov emen t, a mov emen t cr eate din the mid-70s to prevent the construction of a new highway by the Wall through WestBer-lin.The group protested against the Westtangen-

te highway essentially on ecological grounds,arguing that there would be considerable da-mage caused to an already suffocating andclaustrophobic city.Norbert is motivated basically by urban eco-logy concerns. The Westtangente project wasabandoned in the late 1980s as a result of the protest.Matthias Bauer is a landscape planner andhis involvement in the Gleisdreieck initiativestems from his living right next to the area.Today, the initiative is m ade up of an additio-nal half a dozen active members and one ortwo dozen less regular members of different

backgrounds. Two other members of the ac-tive ‘core’ are architects, others are neigh-bours and/or ecologically and socially motiva-ted citizens of Berlin.

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The Gleisdreieck is a large vacant area inthe middle of Berlin. As property of the EastGerman railway company but lying on the West side of the Wall , it rem ain ed a no-g oarea for half a century and turned into a wildlandscape harbouring rare vegetation suchas Siberian species imported by transconti-nental trains. The AG Gleisdreieck is keen to

preserve this site against developers and hassuccessfully convinced the city administrationto preserve it as a park. The issue today isthe integration of the local natural and socialecosystems within this future park.

AG Gleisdreieck / B / since 1990 / stAtus nGO, z av / www.b-g.

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18 19

The AG has developed a series of concepts for thefuture park and actively informed the populationas well as the administration through public pre-sentations, public exhibitions as well as throughdirect and permanent lobbying. Our tools includeprofessional planning, public information and po-litical action within the limits of legality, includingmobilisation of the media. Matthias Bauer has de-

veloped and sustains an internet platform with re-levant material published online. He offers regularguided tours through this extensive wild landscapeand has attracted a large public audience over theyears.

As a result of intense lobbying and political, as wellas media activity, public access to the area wasgranted prior to the creation of the park, with AGdeveloping a number of projects as experimentsand ideas workshops for the future of the park.These include urban farming, community garde-ning, intercultural gardening, an international sum-mer camp, a children’s playground, bee keeping

and various art projects, including an internationalarts festival that failed due to lack of funding. AlexToland from the School of Arts identified and label-led over 300 wild species, a project called Galleryof the Wild Herbs, documenting the ecological v alueof the area. Through these projects, the AG ob-tained the participation of the population and of organisations such as the migrant’s associationSüdost Kultur (operating an intercultural garden),the leading ecological organisation Ökowerk Ber-lin (operating an experimental cereal and potatofield on the area), the church community next-door(operating the playground), the ecological organi-

sation BUND (using the area for ecological educa-tion), the Berlin Technical University etc. Seekingout allies is one of the AG’s key strategies.

The AG meets regularly twice a month in the roomsof the neighbouring community church to discusscurrent issues and develop new strategies. Mem-bership is entirely voluntary and informal. The AGhas no permanent office and no budget. Funds ac-quired for individual projects are managed on anad-hoc basis, as was the case, for instance, for theexhibition of proposals for the design of the park a

few years ago, which was carried out through ad-hoc fundraising.Three years ago, the city administration announceda public competition for the planning of the park,ignoring the detailed concepts and ideas developedby the AG. The AG responded with the creation of a legal association that claims planning and deve-lopment rights over the park. The park association

(Parkgenossenschaft) Gleisdreieck, now amountsto some 100 members.

Under pressure from the AG, the planning autho-rities called for public participation in the planningprocess and organised consultation and debateforums, as well as setting up a working group toaccompany the planning process, including electingcitizen representatives. The candidates from the AG were elected and ar e now active in the regularmeetings of the working group. They report a sys-tem of top-down planning, of ignoring public input,a strategy of instrumentalising the conflicts withinthe public, and a tendency for the appropriation by

the administration of citizens’ initiatives. In parti-cular, current planning has been limited to includethe key ecological and social proposals of the AG(preservation of the wild ecosystems and integra-tion of citizens’ activity in the form of communitygardens) in an essentially classical artificial leisurepark. As a response, the AG has launched directpolitical action at parliamentary level.

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Elisabeth Meyer-Renschhausen summarised ecolo-gical and social subsistence farming from a feministperspective in Die Gärten der Frauen, the procee-dings of the 2000 Berlin conference on small-scaleurban and rural farming. Industrial, large-scale far-ming is aimed at the production of commercial va-lue, while small-scale farming aims at subsistence(self-consumption) and at social integration in thesense of oikos, of house and yard. World-wide, wo-men feed the world and are refused the means todo this, namely land property. Small-scale subsis-tence farming arises spontaneously in post-indus-trial centres after commercial markets collapse andthe disappearance of wage labour and the neo-

liberal dismantling of social security institutions.Community gardens differ from allotment gardens,which used to enable workers in the industrial erato survive on low wages, through a system wheresocial exchange is made central as opposed tosocial isolation. Community gardens restore thepre-industrial era institution of the commons, aslandscape architect and garden activist Karl Linn

exclaims: ‘Reclaim the commons!’. Community gar-dens grow food, rather than flowers – the floralsymbols of those decorative royal and middle-classgardens that aim at the public representation of male power. Garden means fence, girdle, like Slawic“grad” for town, as a means for integration as op-posed to abstract borders as a means of exclusion.Subsistence unlike commercial, industrial farming,has a fence that allows the co-existence of unlimi-ted varieties instead of monoculture : a metaphorfor social integration and a means of ecologicalregeneration just like wilderness.

In spite of its ability to transform the city from an

economic machine into a place in which to live,urban farming is not liked by administrations forseveral reasons. First of all, it does not contributeto city finances. This semblance of no returns isnot dissimilar to the early debates surroundingthe exorbitant costs of space travel, which endedup being offset by the more than exorbitant costsof not engaging in space travel. Urban farmingdoes not cost a penny, but not to urban farm atall is in itself an unaffordable luxury. Secondly, itevokes poverty and social decay, thirdly politicalanarchy. Elisabeth Meyer-Renschhausen hasdescribed the attempt by the New York City admi-

nistration to cleanse the city of its many hundredsof spontaneous community gardens. This resultedin citizen action, broadening public awarenessand ultimately to the creation of a formalisedstatus for community gardens. Her conclusion:‘Everywhere, gardens must be defended’, seemsto be confirmed today in the European situation of the Gleisdreieck.

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Berlin

We have no permanent workspace.Our meeting space is a community church nearthe vacant Gleisdreieck area, where we meet twicea month

About 6 active and 10 less active, all voluntary

Landscape architects, local citizens

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Networking of community gardens within Berlin;(informing people by writing about communitygardening in Berlin and New York City / the UnitedStates in informal magazines like ‘Contraste’,‘Rabe Ralf’, etc.); working together with artists e.g.‘Un-wetter’ e.V. Berlin

Funds acquired for individual projects aremanaged on an ad-hoc basis

AG Gleisdreieck / WOrkspAce / OrGAnisAtiOn / tOOls / metHOds

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The AG -action group- Gleisdreieck can be traced back to a grassroots movement of the 1970s, a move-ment that was trying to prevent the construction of a highway along the Berlin Wall right in the middle of Berlin. The movement was quite successful in linkingpolitical and environmental issues. The railway area inthe middle of Berlin (Gleisdreieck – railway junction)is a vacant area of 60 hectares left by the bombing

the world’s largest railway area. Right next to the Wall,it was a strictly no-go area until 1990 and, as such,developed a unique type of vegetation, a so-calledurban landscape of the 4th kind (mixing cultural andindustrial vestiges with fresh, aboriginal ruderal vege-tation). The AG was born in the mid-1980s to claimthe preservation of the site. The issue grew acute inthe 1990s due to the rocketing real-estate value of the land. The AG, then composed mainly of landscapearchitects, obtained the right to create a park as eco-logical compensation for extensive building in the citycentre. The park is now under construction.The issue today is the nature of the park: will it bea classical park of the 19th century type, a passive

zone for the representation of power, or an activepark reflecting current reality: the need for self-orga-nised activity in the post-industrial city? Gardens area key issue in this respect, meaning subsistence andcommunity-oriented urban micro-farming, as opposed

Northeast part of Gleisdreieck area (left), marked 1 on full map of the future park (right). Rebuilt business andcommercial centre Potsdamer Platz in the city centre is just North off the map. Mayor candidate Franz Schulz inaugurating the garden, May 2006

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The garden is run by about 20 women and 3 men,all refugees from the former Yugoslawia, mostly Bos-nians. Its creation was made possible by opening asmall part -6000 square meters- of the 100 timeslarger Gleisdreieck area by the municipal authoritiesor temporary use by the public. In a first step, the AGcreated a community garden in the New York style,

supported by members of the AG Kleinstlandwirts-chaft in Stadt und Land (Working Group on Urbanand Rural Small-Scale Farming) who then invited theneighbouring Bosnian association Südostkultur e.V. tocreate their own intercultural garden, which grew thenfrom 50 square meters in size in 2005 to 400 squaremeters in 2007. The gradual extension of the gardenusing the experimental cereal and potato fields of the

ecological NGO Ecowerk Berlin e.V., also supportingthe project, met with the heavy opposition of the eco-logical faction of the AG Gleisdreieck, who deploredthe destruction of virgin nature for human activity. Theconflict threatened to disrupt the entire AG. At the time of writing, the garden is being relocatedby the planners on a reserved, remote area of 1000 square meters. The garden group of the AG

welcomes the integration of the garden into the park,but deplores its marginalization within the park (‘forsafety reasons’) as well as its modest size comparedto the real needs of an urban area showing extre-mely rapid growth among a large variety of migrantgroups (Turks, Russians, Africans,…), setting thestage for major conflicts in the future.

to decorative and individualised gardens. Communitygardens in the large US cities -the so-called third worldwithin the first- and intercultural gardens of Europeand Germany are major tools for the integration of mi-grants and of neighbourhoods. The AG has developedtogether with Südost Kultur e.V., a local association of migrants from Bosnia, an intercultural garden in theGleisdreieck area.

At the time of writing, the intercultural garden has beenintegrated into the planning of the park supervised bycity authorities. This appears, however, to be a minorconcession paid for by the replacement of all ruderalwith artificial vegetation and passive «flaneur» zonesthat will make up most of the park’s 20 hectares. Theplanning authorities appear to instrumentalise thepurpose of the inherent conflict between participativeand ecological issues in the interests of top-downplanning, reclaiming for themselves the initiative of the intercultural garden and ignoring the question of participation, reducing it to staging public consultationwithout any real effect on the planning itself. As a response to top-down planning, the AG Gleis-

dreieck created the Parkgenossenschaft (Park As-sociation) Gleisdreieck, a legal association reclaimingcitizen planning and management of the park. Theassociation now has some 100 members across allgeographical and social areas of Berlin.

AG Gleisdreieck / prOject Berlin Gleisdreieck / SITE Berlin / TIMING since 2005 / PARTNERSHIP Community gardens network

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1998

1997 20032002 2007

K a s s e l

H a m b u r g

G e r m a n y

E u r o p e

P a r k F i c t i o n - f i l m

U n l i k e l y

E n c o u n t e r s

i n

U r b a n

S p a c e

P a r k F i c t i o n i n s t a l l a t i o n

V i d e o t a x i g a n z w i e z u H a u s e

N e i g h b o u r h o o d n e t w o r k

22 23

production of desires

independent urbanism

co-operation

constituent practices

parallel planning process

making unlikel encountersmore likel

imagination from everda life

Park Fiction has been organising the Collective

Productions of Desires for a park in Hamburg’s

red light district, St. Pauli, since 1995. With a

scenic view over the harbour, the park is located

in a significant and beautiful enough place for the

city government to want to sell it off to private

investors. These plans by the politicians could be

stopped by a clever Network in the community.

Instead of just protesting against the government’splans, this network, a spin-off from the squatter

fights of the ‘80s, organised a Parallel Planning

Process in the community, creating Platforms of

Echange between people from different cultural

fields: musicians, priests, a headmistress, a cook,

café-owners, barmen, a psychologist, squat-

ters, artists -Interventionist Residents. This

process, was accompanied by a series of lectures,

talks, discussions, exhibitions and film screenings

called Infotainment, and by Activities Anticipa-

ting the Desired Park .

Located in one of the poorest residential areas

in western Germany, (when the project began, 70percent of residents did not possess a German

passport), Park Fiction was also an art project,

organising the planning process in the form of a

game. Special Tools were developed to make the

planning process more accessible. A container

office was placed in the area, housing a Model-

ling Cla Office, a Garden Librar, an Archive

of Desires and a telephone Hotline for people

feeling inspired in the middle of the night. The

Action Kit, a portable planning studio, was used

for visits into the surrounding neighbourhood.

Margit Czenki produced a film, Park Fiction -

Desire Will Leave the House and Take to

the Streets , on Super 8 and 16mm in 1998, as

a way of capturing the different voices and the

moment when ‘art and politics makes the other

more clever’.

Most elements of the par k have now been realised.

The Teagarden Island features artifical palm

trees and is surrounded by an elegant 40 metre

long bench. There are three Open Air Solariums,

a Fling Carpet, a wave-shaped piece of lawn

surrounded by a mosaic inspired by the Alhambra.

The Tulip Patterned Tartan Field is a refe-

rence to the tulip era in Turkey. There are neigh-

bourhood gardens, a boules field, sand boxes

and the so-called Amphitreon. The Woman

Pirates Fountain and the Strawberr-shaped

Treehouse, have not, however, been financed.

These are just some of the casualties of desire,

the unhappy consequences of climbing Into Bed

With Bureaucrac. Local politicians of all partiesalso managed to prohibit the construction of the

Park Fiction Archive as a container floating over the

park even though the culture board had already

approved the project.

To open up horizons once again, Park Fiction is

currently in the process off setting up an Institute

for Independent Urbanism. On the first floor of the

Golden Pudel Klub we will be sharing a space where

we will show a condensed version of the Park

Fiction Installation, developed for Documenta11

in 2002. This archive will, like the exhibition be a

suggestion of how a social movement can present

itself in a self-determined way.

This archive will not be a passive storage system:

it is conceptualised as a parallel public space of

discussion and reflection, and will develop local and

international projects, that link the urban everyday

with the imaginary. To start with, we organised the

international congress Park Fiction presents

Unlikely Encounters in Urban Space in 2003 ,

inviting groups from Delhi, Tijuana, La Plata,

Hamburg and Milan – see project pages.

Our upcoming project Maschine Machen ispieced together from different Plug-ins. If we

secure funding, we will start developing the Park

Fiction Archive, Guide Projects and Urban

Stud Workshops with youngsters from the

neighbourhood, a Mediagarage, a publication, a

local grant called Co-Lab and a series of talks on

spaces created by music-scenes called Rooms of

Desires . We have already started the Videotaxi ,

for audiovisual urban tours, and a public Video

Module in the park, as part of the Boulevard of

Unrealised Desires.

PARK FICTION / Hamburg / SINCE 1995 (as neighbourhood network) / 1997 (as art project) / www.parkfiction.org

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Buttclub, The Park Fiction Archive, home office. We

have two working spaces: the buttclub in St.Pauli

Hafenstrasse 129 and coming soon, the Park

Fiction Archive in the Golden Pudel Klub (St. Pauli

Fischmarkt 26). Our office is still our home.

LOCATION

C O NTExT

T EAM

PEOPLE

COST(S)

S H ARING

PARTNERS

PRACTICE

Park Fiction was eplicitl related to a piece

of land that has now become a park. The

Institute is a flight line, an attempt to find a

wa for this activit, rooted within a neigh-

bourhood, to branch out into other fields

of research, production and intervention

-locall and elsewhere. Our urban theor

is derived from Henri Lefebvre. We believe

that the production of desires -as idea and

practice- should be the driving force behindthe reshaping of cities.

Buttclub is shared with several other groups all

based in the former squats of Hafenstrasse, oppo-

site the harbour. It is near Park Fiction, on theborder of the red light district. The Park Fiction

Archive will be located in the newly-renovated fir st

floor of the Golden Pudel Klub, in the heart of

Park Fiction. This is also a shared space. We will

be working there three to four days a week.

From 1996 to 2000, Park Fiction has approxi-

matively 5 people working on the organisational

structure, one social worker (paid), everyone else

working on a voluntary or «intermittent» basis.

The organisational operations of the Institute are

carried out by 2 people (Margit Czenki, Christoph

Schäfer) working full-time, voluntarily and some-

times intermittently paid on a project-by-project

basis. Occasionally, the network grows in size

with up to 20 people becoming actively involved.

An infor mal network of about 10 people are also

involved in formative discussion.

Park Fiction was solely a neighbourhood network

-of artists, musicians, social workers, architects,

priests, a headmistress, a filmmaker, a cook, a

waiter, a bar-owner, cafe-owners, a graphic desi-

gner. The Institute is made up of artists, musi-

cians, an ethnologist, a designer, young architects,

activists and art theorists.

Buttclub: 350 € per month, shared by club members

plus profits from the bar.

Park Fiction Archive: 15.000 € lump sum over 5

years.

Buttclub is a space shared with the buttclub, jeudi

bouffe, euromayday, kanak attak, queermonday,

and lese-butt. The Park Fiction Archive is shared

with musicians, the Golden Pudel Klub, a half-legal

Bistro, small record labels and other emerging

phenomena.

Local initiatives, activists, the Golden Pudel

Klub,the buttclub, the squatted houses, Dock-Eu-

rope, project related funding from KulturbehördeHamburg and Kulturstiftung des Bundes.

P a r k F i c t i o n O f f i c e C o n t a i n e r , 1 9 9 7 – 2 0 0 0 , F o t o © H i n r i c h

S c h u l t z e , 1 9 9 8

PARK FICTION / WORKSPACE / ORGANISATION

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PARK FICTION / TOOLS / METHODS

H b ’ h b ll t ti i ffi i ll i 1995 / ffi i ll i 1997 1998 / P k l fi i h d i 2005

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PARK FICTION / PROJECT PARK FICTION

/ SITE Hamburg’s harbour wall / TIMING starting inofficially in 1995 / officially in 1997-1998 / Park nearly finished in 2005 / PARTNERSHIP

Hafenrandverein / GWA / St. Pauli School / St. Pauli Church / FUNDS self-financing / Kulturbehörde Hamburg (1 year) / UmweltbehördeHamburg (realisation)

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One year after Documenta11, Park Fiction’s installation

returned to Hamburg. Back in its place of origin, the

work was shown in St.Pauli, on the Reeperbahn. After

seven years of the ‘production of desires’, Park Fiction

was finally in the process of being realised. The first palm

trees, designed by residents, were now standing in the

Park. Just the right time to make this process, where ‘Art

and politics made each other more clever’ accessible in

its model-like state.

Congress: June 26th - 29th

The congress aimed to open out the view to the globa-

lised horizon – based on the experiences of Park Fiction

– and create relationships between similar projects in

different countries. Groups from diverse professional

backgrounds presented their practices, drew connec-

tions from their discussions, and created links between

their diverse practices and aims. Not least, the meeting

was about the exploration of possibilities for an urbanism

of the multitudes, that is starting to emerge.

Congress issues: Constituent Practices... consti-

tute social relations without being commissioned by

authorities to do so -this avoids having to address the

state directly, as much as it avoids trenchant battles

with power. More so than street level study, constituent

practices connect arts and social movements, invent new

games, engage in alternative forms of science, squatland, build new settlements and whole cities, redefine

public space- and thus challenge dominating systems of

urban planning, and reality description.

Unlikel Encounters:

These groups develop tools, attitudes, courage, practices

and programs, that make unlikely encounters, meetings

and connections more likely, deliberately seeking these

out, leaping over cultural and class barriers, going where

noone else goes. They do not allow their activities to be

reduced to symbolic action, mirroring, critique, negation,

or to an analysis of their powerlessness -nor do they

muddle along in their designated corner.

Local Knowledge - Global Echange:

The private living space, the space of everyday life,

everyday knowledge and everyday poetry -is the level

that is most devalued, culturally, economically, and in poli-

tical thinking. But it is precisely from here that the urban

revolution will emerge. It is from here that its direction will

be found. How can local knowledge develop in tension

with global forces? How can local forms of knowledge

and movements exchange with each other and challenge

global powers?

The conference presented groups from Asia, Europe and

Latin America : Ala Plastica from Argentina, who work

on the rhizomatic linking of ecological, social, and artistic

methods. In early 1991, in the former La Plata zoo,

the group occupied a former library to reconstruct this

public space destroyed by the dictatorship. With projects

at the Rio de La Plata, polluted by Shell, Ala Plastica is

successful both in intervening directly into ecologic and

social systems, while exposing at the same time the

structures that cause the global catastrophes - the diffe-

rence between local and global knowledge. Maclovio

Rojas started as a squatted settlement in Tijuana, with

an impressive system of self-organisation, autonomousand independent schools, a centre for political theory

and philosophy. The ejido, led mostly by women from

southern Mexico, organises a clever networking policy

with artists and other parts of civil society on both sides

of the US/Mexican border.Cantieri Isola / OUT- Office

for Urban Transformation: between car mechanics,

established metal workers, and young communists, OUT

organises exhibitions and discussions on art and urba-

nism, in a squatted factory. Isola, an affordable residential

district, close to the centre of Milan, will, according to

city government plans, be split by an access road in two

as a way of directing large amounts of traffic from the

suburbs right through the district to the ‘City of Fashion’

a gigantic investors’ project, designed by Documenta11

-architect-cum- artist convert Stefano Boeri. Residents,

artists, and political groups have united to stop this

project. The ‘Stecca’ factory, located at a strategic point,

has been occupied, drawing public attention to the threat

posed to it and the surrounding park. Bert Theis planted

Milan’s first ‘palma clandestina’ (illegally imported palm

tree) in the park. Sarai from Delhi, India, is an ‘experi-

mental field for collective digital work, an urban research

centre, and a media lab’. Sarai is a reader of everyday

urban life and a publisher of his fantasy-world readers,

accomplishing the feat of dealing with urban studies,

academic analyses of the city’s hotbed of rumours, and

everyday poetry -with dignity and in a ‘horizontal’ way.

Sarai’s work is limited neither to the Internet nor to the

art world, rather it conveys open source concepts to

other social realms- to the city.

In Delhi’s self-organised, informal settlements, which are

constantly under the threat of being demolished, Sarai

operates a series of computer labs and urban studies

centres called Cybermohallah. Young people go on

to describe cities within the city that remain unchartedterritory on official maps. With their sensitive accounts of

improvised settlements, the youngsters not only create

a fragmentary urban literature of the mega-cities; their

poetry, which is published in Hindi and English, reinforces

the settlements on a second level. A medium completely

remote from power turns into an element of constituent

power. Already before the congress, Shveta Sarda and

Joy Chatterjee from Sarai made workshops with youngs-

ters from St.Pauli in collaboration with Park Fiction. Finally,

the congress is interrupted by Schwabinggrad Ballet. A

group made up of Hamburg musicians, searching for

ways to intervene in public spaces in unexpected ways.

Flexible performance strategies were therefore deve-

loped. Theatrical elements were increasingly includedand bespoke street musicals were developed for specific

situations. The Schwabinggrad Ballet operates rhizoma-

tically and is not dependent on permanent members; it

is expanded by additional artists and activists depending

on the occasion. The ballet focuses on the fight against

the ‘racification’ of public space and gentrification, as

well as on anti-war actions. Schwabinggrad is part of a

network operating the Buttclub and organising discus-

sions, readings, exhibitions, concerts, reading circles,

and actions. Schwabinggrad (whose name combines

the Nazi’s greatest defeat and the Federal Republic’s

first innocent street-musician riots) developed the Hellas

Musical for the No Border camps in Forst (2000), Fran-

kfurt (2001) and Strasbourg (2002). Other groups and

individuals who were involved: Ligna, expertbase, Galerie

für Landschaftskunst, the Bambule, Jelka Plate und

Stephan Dillemuth.

Subcurated by Margit Czenki, Christiane Mennicke and ChristophSchäfer for Park Fiction, the Unlikely Encounters were preparedby a team of 12 people, and it moved through different loca-tions in the neighbourhood: cellars, clubs, discos, flats, commu-nity centres, private gardens – including an uninvited visit atSAP schooling centre in Hafencity. A new feature was inventedby Margit, the “heure fixe”, a 1 hour open discussion before thestart of the lectures, where talks and thoughts you had the nightbefore, could be flow back into the congress.

2PARK FICTION / PROJECT UNLIKELy ENCOUNTERS IN URBAN SPACE / SITE Hamburg / TIMING June 19 – July 6, 2003 / PARTNERSHIP neighbourhood network / FUNDS Kulturstiftung des Bundes

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32 33

3

The cultural policy in Hamburg, as in many cities,

has changed. Budgets for art in public space are

increasingly spent only in connection with urban

(re-) development projects. In preparation for IBA

2013 -the international building exhibition- artists

are asked to develop work to, blandly, gentrify

former harbour and working class areas close to

the River Elbe.

In this context we were invited to participate in anexhibition called „Wilhelmsburger Freitag“. As we

like perverted situations, we decided to take part

-but of course not with a participatory work, which

would have done nothing but add to the democr atic

camouflaging of the event.

We found three places made by inhabitants of the

area, which, in our view, featured urban qualities,

like: an openness to the outside, (mis-)appropria-

tion of given urban structures, and, most impor-

tantly for us, that had a moment of resistance

against an all-too-easy integration into a superfi-

cially multi-cultural consensus culture.

To avoid exposing these spaces -and the people

who had made them- to the touristic gaze, thatexoticises and damages what it stares at, we shot

videos of these spaces. They were shown in an inti-

mate, private space: the Videotaxi -a car equipped

with monitors and a sound system.

For a month, the Videotaxi offered regular free

tours through the neighbourhood. Texts analysed

the paradigm shift in the urban planning policy

of the globalised powers from one that serves

industry to one that produces images. These texts

were juxtaposed with the videos and interspersed

was a secret story of film, desire and technology.

The Videotaxi is one of the plug-ins of maschine

machen, the first project of the Park Fiction Institute

of Independent Urbanism, that tries to find a more

sustainable way for local and global knowledges, for

experiences from the fields of art and the ever yday,

to feed back into each other.

Concept: Margit Czenki, Christoph Schäfer; Video: Margit

Czenki; Text: Christoph Schäfer; Music: Ted Gaier; Voices:

Nikola Duric, Melissa Logan, Christiane Müller-Lobeck; Driver:

Fernando Diosa Velézwww.ganzwiezuhause.de

2PARK FICTION / PROJECT VIDEOTAxI GANz WIE zU HAUSE/ SITE Wilhelmsburg / exhibition participation « Wilhelmsburger Freitag » / TIMING September 2007 / PARTNERSHIP Margit Czenki, ChristophSchäfer / FUNDS Cultural board

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19991997 2005 2006

E u r o p e

B a r c e l o n a

L i m i t e L i m i t e

L - A t l a s

M i c r o - M a r c h é - M i d i ( M M M )

K R A X

M I C R O N O M I C S

g e n e r a l i z e d e m p o w e r m e n t

P r e c a r e

V a n S c h o o r

P l e i n O P E N a i r

B u n k e r S o u p l e

S o a p b o x r a c e

B r u x x e l . o r g B

o c a s L o c a s

B r u x e l l e s

B e l g i q u e

200320022001

n e i g h t b o u r h o o d

c o m m i t e e

B B O T - B N A

C i n e m a N o v a

a s s o Q u

a r t i e r

L e o p o l d

C o l l e c t i f

s a n s T i c k e t

C o l l e c t i f c o n t r e

E x p u l s i o n

C o ö r d i n a

t i e

E u r o p a

34 35

A trans vers al approa ch recog nised by local as

well as supra-national bodies, a professional

core with offices in Brussels, London and Barce-

lona and 10 years experience offer City Mine(d)

a unique position within the broad spectrum

of urban movements. With the legal structure

of a non-profit organisation -which allows it to

be both project manager and framework for a

wide variety of initiatives- City Mine(d) currently

functions as a participatory platform for urban

creativity. Over the last years it has develo-

ped a cumulative system of art interventions,

workshops and meetings, which it applies for

the involvement of creative initiatives in urban

development.

The different steps involved in art interven-

tion give an exceptional access to grassroots

knowledge, information and contacts about

cities and urban development that seems to

escape traditional universities. To make this

acquired knowledge accessible for new initiati-

ves, to policy makers as well as to intermediaryorganisations while at the same time answe-

ring recurrent questions from universities, City

Mine(d) is currently launching the City Mine(d)

LAB. The City Mine(d) LAB collects the acquired

knowledge in a documentation centre (CARGO),

has several blogs, gives master classes, tutorials

and workshops in different educational centres,

edits publications and organises conferences

and seminars. A many-branched network in the

arts, academic and activist milieus -the result of

ten years of urban interventions brings these

partners together on a regular basis- giving

City Mine(d) access to speakers and writers of

international renown.

City Mine(d) believes that local art interven-

tions can be harnessed to create transversal

coalitions that manage to bring local concerns

into the urban development agenda. In 2004

City Mine(d)’s strategy was published by the

European Commission as best practice in

innovative forms of urban development. City

Mine(d) currently works on Micpuc, Methods

for Intercultural Participation in Urban Civil

Society.

ticity ltfm

citecte f ticitin

yndictin, nt c-dintin

dein f ckbility

eetl bet

t te ln til, nt jt te ed

CITY MINE(d)/ www.citymined.Bel / Lndn / Bceln / sINCE 1997 / sTaTus bl (non-profit-making organisation) /

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36 37

LoCaTIoN

C o NTExT

T EaM

s h arINg

praCTICE

spaCEs

Brussels, London, Barcelona collective), LABO (film collective), CINQ HEURE

MOINS DIX (film production house), GLOBE AROMA,

FOTON (leftfield collective), Kris Verdonck (artist)

and CYCLO (cyclists support), Brusk (skate collec-

tive), Mon vélo sans frein (>Multimedia collec-

tive). In Camden in London City Mine(d) shares

workspaces in Scar, a building that houses music

rehearsal and recording space, PLANET DRUM

(drum school), instrument repair workshops, adarkroom, LONDON STUDIO DESIGN (a music

studio design and build company) and ALEXINA

(fashion designer).

In Barcelona City Mine(d) is housed in a former

shop called Paloma, which it shares with OVNI

(documentary archive), Docupolis (Festival of Art

Documentaries - CCCB), D-I-N-A (festival Influen-

cers), Alternativa (Filmfestival - CCCB), 7 Poten-

cias, Nuria (translations), Eva and Kim (subtitles)

and Ana Soini (Grafic Design). City Mine(d)’s local

embeddedness in London, Brussels and Barcelona

allows an immediate exploration of local public

spaces.

The urban context seems increasingly fragmented

by demographic and functional changes and

accompanying planning and economic challenges.

Informal initiatives share the field with more insti-

tutionalised organisations, some of whom are

active on a local level, others on urban, regional

or even up to European-wide scale. Meanwhile the

need for transversal initiatives linking formal with

informal or linking up different scales of gover-

nance becomes more widely recognised. City

Mine(d) is a pioneer in bridging these differences

from grassroots level with a wide platform of local

actors in different European cities. Art interven-

tions in the city continue to provide an opportunity

to bring different actors together in a single situa-

tion, which brings about new encounters, debate

and the mediation of social, cultural and economic

differences.

On a regular basis individuals with similar interestslink into the structure. With the status of volunteer,

they develop their own projects and thereby realise

a hands-on exchange. This allows for the most

diverse ideas, proposals and initiatives to come

together while at the same time keeping institutio-

nalisation and cost to a minimum. In addition, the

participatory platform enables an open and colla-

borative approach (minimising inequalities and

allowing for all to contribute) that goes beyond the

fragmented character of the city. So City Mine(d)

contributes to bridging social, economic, political

and cultural differences in the city.

City Mine(d) currently has workspaces in Brussels,

London and Barcelona.

In Brussels a building called Nepomuk is put at

the disposal of a group of organisations through

City Mine(d)’s project Precare. Nepomuk currently

accomodates 8 initiatives in addition to City Mine(d):

MIXCITY (a theatre collective), Kokliko (theatre

Fm lcl Bel cllective CityMine(d) develed ve 10 ye timeint n intentinl bn mvement, in wic diff eent inititive find tei lce.It tcte i bet decibed ti-city ltfm tt enble lcl ndtnntinl, fml nd le fml initi-tive t cllbte in new ject, tecne knwlede, eeience int-ment. at it et i mll-cle fe-inl tcte in Bel, Lndn nd

Bceln nded by wide netwk fbn inititive fm nd te wld.Te 73 inititive tken by City Mine(d)ve te lt decde ve cntibted t efinement f c. genetin inte-et in blic ce, eitein ide ndcncen fm wic t bild tn tinteventin, i cmltive ce tt wn it vle fm te tt. ovete lt 3 ye n intentinl ect been dded t ti c.

CITY MINE(d)/ WorKspaCE / orgaNIsaTIoN

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38 39

‘ticity ltfm’Though the collective City Mine(d) on occasions, for

reasons of pragmatism, presents itself as an NGO,

charity, non-profit association or even a company,

what it really aspires to be is a platform. More

precisely a ‘participatory platform’ deriving its bare

existence from the coming together of people’s

ideas, awarenesses and concerns, and aiming to

be a device to forge an urban ci vil society. It hopesto do so by enabling innovation, the exchange of

ideas and sharing experiences without leaving the

personal gratification of participants and a sense

of fun aside. Urban civil society is defined here in

its broadest sense, as the urban public sphere, the

physical and political space where people come

together to develop ideas and alliances and where

settled beliefs are challenged.

City Mine(d) does not have a hard boundary, but

rather a gravitational core consisting of a set of

methods and practices contributing to urban civil

society. The development of a ‘participatory plat-

form’ is happening with varying degrees of success.The continuous output of projects in urban public

space -like Micro-Marché-Midi-, the involvement of

volunteers, strong footholds in Brussels, London

and Barcelona and an international network around

urban in-between spaces are the first signs of the

emergence of this platform. However, the system

is far from functional. The ‘participatory platform’

borrows its name from information technology.

A closer look at the phenomenon in that same

industry allows us to draw conclusions that could

clarify the work of City Mine(d), whilst also provi-

ding inspiration for others intervening in urban

political, social and public space.

The term ‘participatory platform’ emerged as

recently as 2005 in an attempt to describe the

proliferation of social networking websites. Two

years later, the presence of these sites increased

dramatically, with the social network Facebook

counting 43 million users spending on average

of 20 minutes per day on their site, MySpace with

168 million members, Wikipedia 60 million views

per day, LastFM counts 20 million active users,

Flickr 4 million and del.icio.us 2 million users.

software that hasn’t left the development stage.

Since users are considered to be co-developers on

a ‘participatory platform’, they constantly require

new material to test and work with, rather than

the finished, ‘boxed’ products. In a similar way the

work of City Mine(d) is not lab-tested and boxed

before being shipped. Rather, in an early stage a

public space is ‘occupied’, sometimes even with

activities unrelated to the envisaged intervention.The fear of losing face by issuing an unsuccessful

beta in public space has been a cause for nothing

to happen at all. Besides, these betas are often the

first steps towards the networks on which urban

interventions are built.

5. ‘T te ln til, nt jt te ed’:

small sites make up a large part of the internet’s

content, and a lot of applications only serve small

niches. Therefore a ‘participatory platform’ is no

longer an engine or server with rock solid archi-

tecture, but consists of small pieces loosely joined

together. Similarly, it is City Mine(d)’s conviction that

the creative and innovative strength of cities lies intheir in-between spaces (KRAX), and the creation

of a true public sphere will depend for a large part

on the successful involvement of the small initia-

tives that happen in the ‘cracks in the city’.

These two pages raise the question whether –

parallel to the emergence of online ‘participatory

platforms’- groups like City Mine(d) can initiate

real world ‘participatory platforms’ that would be

able to use the wisdom of the crowds and ‘the

long tail’ to build an urban civil society. The compa-

rison above is not meant to be a roadmap or a

recipe, but rather it places these phenomena next

to each other in order to see if there are lessonsto be learned, as with platforms.

Some observers see these interactive communities

and host services replacing the old internet, and

speak of a second world wide web. What marks the

change from the ‘old internet’ is that websites are

no longer isolated information silos, but become

platforms that visitors can use as software to add

to or with which to create their own data. To some

this heralds a social and political online revolution,

in which the internet is no longer driven by a coregroup of designers, but where every individual

becomes an ‘online citizen’ and part of a global

democracy. Though pompous statements like these

arouse suspicion, one cannot deny that the user-

friendly and lightweight architecture of websites

allow more user participation. This, combined with

the open source formula of innovating by pulling

together features from independent developers,

means that more people are using, testing and

feeding back on websites, spotting bugs earlier

and thereby making the sites more r eliable. Once a

critical mass of users is reached, a network effect

kicks in, meaning that the more users there are,

the more meaningful and valuable it becomes totake part. A traditional business school for mula for

success.

The way ‘participatory platforms’ manage to

harness collective intelligence is what makes them

interesting and a potential source of inspiration

for groups like City Mine(d). Their online presence

becomes a portal to the collective work of its users,

and user engagement, activity and reviews become

a process of ongoing development. Some even

note that ‘users pursuing their own selfish interests

build collective value as an automatic by-product.’

In a sense this is also what City Mine(d) aspires to

through its presence in public space: the result of a collective effort that brings together the self-ins-

pired efforts of disparate agents.

Though ambitions are similar, outcomes are as yet

nowhere near as close. In terms of harnessing

collective intelligence, urban interventions are

often still stuck in the age of Tripod and Geocities

(remember, those mid-‘90s web hosting services

that came with a then awe-inspiring WYSIWYG

page editor?). Why are urban interventions as yet

unsuccessful in initiating real world ‘participatory

platforms’ that reach a critical mass of partici-

pants while at the same time meeting political

objectives?

a cle lk t 5 ccteitic f nline‘ticity ltfm’ mit inie:

1. ‘acitecte f ticitin’: online

‘participatory platforms’ have a ‘built-in ethic of

co-operation’. The website is an intelligent broker

harnessing the power of the users. In cases like

Myspace, Facebook or Flickr, the fact that people add

their personal data or images makes it potentially

interesting for other users. In an urban inter vention

City Mine(d)’s role has similarly been described as

that of a broker, identifying the personal interests

of potential participants, and safeguarding that

these interests are met in the course of the project.

The success of projects –like MiicroMarchéMidi or

LimiteLimitehangs to a large extent are dependent

on the way this broker role is played.

2. ‘syndictin, nt c-dintin’: syndica-

tion is the design by which a section of the website

is made available for other sites to use, often for

web feeds that provide a summary of a webiste’s

recently added content. City Mine(d) never consi-

ders urban interventions as a finished art work. Its

presence in public space is often no more then a

physical and temporal framework for other artists

and activists to make a case. For each intervention

there is a tension to manage between an open invi-

tation and a clear, directing framework.

3. ‘Dein f ckbility’: online this impliesthat barriers to re-use are extremely low, most of

the software is open source, and there is little intel-

lectual property protection. If urban interventions

want to contribute to a public sphere, they must be

designed in such a w ay that people can easily take

ownership of them; either by creating some sort of

impact on the development process, or by gaining

access at no cost during the moment of staging or

presentation.

4. ‘peetl bet’: ‘beta’ is used to describe

CITY MINE(d)/ TooLs / METhoDs

CITY MINE(d)/ / SITE Brussels Brabant neighbourhood / TIMING from 1999 to 2004 / PARTNERSHIP Architect Chris Rossaert / Wijkpartenariaat / APAJ /

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40 41

Limite Limite was a landmark building, the start of

a local coalition and a trademark for the Brabant

neighbourhood in Brussels from 1999 to 2004.

Limite Limite turned an urgent need for green

space into an opportunity to bring stakeholders

together and to put the Brabant neighbourhood on

the Regional agenda. Architect Chris Rossaert desi-

gned a highly visible 9-metre high translucent tower

that protruded into the street, and that served as

a meeting and exhibition space. Through Wijkpar te-

nariaat local residents were involved in the design

and building process. APAJ, an apprenticeship trai-

ning scheme that prepares the local unemployed

for jobs in the construction industry, trained a

number of its students through the construction

of this tower.

The construction and use of the building served

as a catalyst to bring together disparate groups

in the neighbourhood. JP Morgan Guarantee Trust

Company financed the structure, but also took

responsibility in keeping the new network together. A number of local high schools -Vlekho, Sint-Lucas,

Social Highschool- participated with their students

in one or more stages of the project and local

shopkeepers also took part in the network.

The temporary tower had to make way for a more

permanent building in 2004, but the organisa-

tion, Limiet Limite vzw continued to work in the

area with both the material of the tower and a

number of partners who took the project a step

further in Relimite. In May 2004 APAJ dismantled

the tower in Brussels. While architecture practice

Laud redesigned the structure, the pieces were

shipped to Belfast. There, the team of male andfemale builders from Brussels worked alongside

a team of young people from the Belfast Institute

to exchange skills and raise educational and prac-

tical issues around architecture and public sculp-

ture in the city. In January 2005 the project was

completed by the Lawrence street workshops for it

then to be used as a temporary arts venue in the

Botanic Gardens.

CITY MINE(d)/ proJECT LIMITE LIMITE/ SITE Brussels, Brabant neighbourhood / TIMING from 1999 to 2004 / PARTNERSHIP Architect Chris Rossaert / Wijkpartenariaat / APAJ /Vlekho, Sint-Lucas, Social Highschools / FUNDS JP Morgan Guarantee Trust Company

CITY MINE(d)/ é

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42 43

Micro-Marché-Midi (MMM) is a market based

on creative exchange of product, services and

ideas, and a way of highlighting the creative

economic potential of the city. MMM went live on

30 September 2007 and will run until the end of

December 2007.

BRUSSELS IS RICKETY! In the third richest region

in Europe 1 in 4 people live in a household with

no paid work and two thirds of the money earned

in Brussels is spent outside Brussels. This is the

rickety state of the Brussels economy. And yet

there are many people who challenge this state

with creative products and small scale initiatives.

But what about the administrative and social

risks?

A market like MMM provides a place for these

people; it is a free space promoting administra-

tive flexibility while still working completely legally;

and is an open space for encounter, experiment,

exchange and debate around the rickety state of

the Brussels economy.

The conditions to sell on the market are:

- sold products are self-made products or

imported with a personal ‘touch’,

- import/export products will be refused, vendors

need to address the sustainability of their

products (recycling, energy consumption, waste

reduction, etc.),

- each vendor abides by the law: health and safety,

environment, hygiene,

- by their own means or through the umbrella

structure provided by MMM, products, or at least

their presentation, needs to be innovative (tradi-

tional arts and crafts are only possible if thevendor adds value to it).

CITY MINE(d)/ proJECT MICro-MarChé-MIDI (MMM) / SITE Brussels / TIMING september 2007 to december 2007

CONSTANT /

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1997 2002 2005

S t i t c h A n d S p l i t , S e l v e s a n d T e r r i t o r i e s

i n S c i e n c e f i c t i o n

O S P

- O p e n

S o u r c e

P u b l i s h i n g

D i g i t a l e s

S a m e d i s - F e m m e s e t L o g i c i e l s L i b r e s

B a r c e l o n a

S e v i l l a

A n t w e r p

A n t w e r p

B r u x e l l e s

B e l g i q u e

E u r o p e M

u t e

A m i e n s

B e r l i n

2004 2006 20072001

un échantillon des projets de constantselected projects of constant

constant

44 45

Constant is een non-profit organisatie die sinds1997 gevestigd is in Brussel en werkzaam is ophet gebied van feminisme, kunst, copyright alterna-

tieven en werken via netwerken.Constant ontwikkelt projecten die zich door middelvan radio, electronische muziek en databaseprojecten bewegen tussen culturele activiteit en decultuur van werk.

Constant est une association sans but lucratif baséeà Bruxelles, active depuis 1997 dans les domainesdu féminisme, des alternatives au copyright et dutravail en réseau.Constant mène ses projets en matière de radio,musique électronique, vidéo, bases de données,en se déplacant dans les lieux de culture et detravail.

Constant is a non-profit association, based andactive in Brussels since 1997 in the fields of femi-

nism, alternative copyright and in working throughnetworks.Constant develops radio, electronic music anddatabase projects, by means of migrating fromcultural work to the workplace and back again.

sotwa

ns

oata

CONSTANT / Bsss / SiNCe 1997 / STATuS asb / vzw (non-profit-making organisation) / www.constantvzw.co

CONSTANT / WOrKSpACe / OrgANiSATiON

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46 47

We work at 5 Fortstraat, 1060 Brussels in a

shared office with other organisations such as LeP’tit Ciné, Radioswap, and individual artists, likethe photographer Laurent Turin.

lOCATiON

T eAm

peOple

COST(S)

S h AriNg

pArTNerS

prACTiCe

SpACeS

Constant xos toy, ctca s o t

nw tcnoos, atstc bavo an

otca qstons on t intnt, as w

as oansn woksos, conncs an

xbtons n bc sacs. T o’s

an concns a: sotwa an wa,

n sss, coyt (coyt) an

skn ways o san nw nstan-

ns o t a.

A core group of 5 people wor king part-time. Thiscan vary a great deal for each project and depends

on the funding and partnership that we find.

Artists, activists, computer geeks, scientists,students, hobbyists, unemployed people, writers,dancers, musicians, etc.

Our workspace is not only composed of bricksand mortar but also of ones and zeroes. Constantwebsites host a wide variety of tools that helppeople work together and develop their thoughtsand projects: blogs, CMS, wikis, temporary webradios, etc.

The rent is cheap since our landowner wantsto support the organisations that work in herbuilding.

We share the meeting rooms and sound/videoediting facilities operated by open source softwareas well as the common video archive in ourbasement.

Many of our projects take place in other spacessince they are usually collaborations be these

with training centres, schools, exhibition spaces,museums or squats.

CONSTANT / WOrKSpACe / OrgANiSATiON

CONSTANT / SpACe / TOOlS / meThOdS / prACTiCeS

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48 49

‘Wat w t contons n wc won

v? i ask ys; o cton, a-

natv wok tat s, s not o k a

bb on t on, as scnc ay b;

cton s k a s’s wb, attac v

so ty as, bt st attac to

at a o cons. Otn t attacnt s

scacy ctb; Saksa’s ays,

o nstanc, s to an t cot

by tsvs. Bt wn t wb s

askw, ook at t , ton n t

, on bs tat ts wbs

a not sn n -a by ncooa ca-

ts, bt a t wok o sn an

bns, an a attac to ossy at-

a tns, k at an ony an t

oss w v n.’

Virginia Woolf, A room of one’s own , 1929.

1. Constant’s oo

Constant is a non-profit organisation, based in Brus-

sels and active since 1997 in dealing with art andnew media or rather dealing with art in new media,or to put it more accurately active in between art andnew media, dealing with new media in art, or to putit better still: Constant is a non profit organisationdealing with cultural work/ers using among otherstools, digital media.

In the begining Constant was defined as a platformand network for the production, exhibition, andcritique of digital art works such as electronic music,video installations, cd-roms (whoever rememberswhat that was), net art, etc.But following:

- on the one hand, the evolution of the use andexhibition of digital media in Belgium. Meaningthat more and more media festivals and exhibitionsare organized in a way that focus increasingly onthe spectacle of technology via the display of inte-

ractive installations, and electronic music. And thatweb pages are now being brought into the museumcollections - and on the other hand, following ourown internal evolution. That is, the members andfounders of Constant, from curators, were replacedby people with an artistic practice and who started

to use Constant as a ‘place’ to raise questions, to

experiment with contexts, to open tools and meansof production, to question the tools and means andconditions of work.People didn’t come anymore to work ‘with’ Constantto produce a ‘piece’, but came to work ‘within’Constant to challenge and question conditions of exhibition, distribution and production as well asquestion and challenge the access to the type of work carried out within digital media.These questions take on the form -in public- of talks, seminars, workshops, software, actions, andsometimes, of course, of exhibitions and concerts,because we want to meet and learn from others, andshare in public this exchange of knowledge, expe-rience, technique and processes.

2. Toos an tos

Sac

a temporary music space in the dressrom of the Palais des Beaux Arts before renovation

a regular collaboration with the Fundaciò Antoni Tàpies

festival and workshops in Interface3, a professional training cen-ter for unemployed women

a Print Party organised in a temporary space occupied by theBrussels association City Mine(d)

We do not have a room of our own for public

events, we have an office, we have servers,we have websites, all shared. When we want tobecome public, we have to enter other people’sspaces. This could be a museum, a trainingcenter, an empty bar or a squat. We often usespaces that are not used to being used in thatway, in the hope that they might stay culturallyactive or open to technological practices. Some-times they do, sometimes they don’t. We position oursel ves and our actions in theinterstices:- in between institutions,- in between institutions and associations withsocial, cultural, technical or artistic practices- in between institutions and individuals withacademic, scientific, technical or artistic prac-tices, with professionals, activists, amateurs andfans of or actors within the cultural field- or any and all of these at one and the sametime.

So you could say that we always attach the webof our actions, our narrative, to the materialconditions of others. That we always enter into adialogue, to share resources, to share interests. We exp erience differ ent types of collabo ration sand settings in our encounters with others:- Time-and place-specific action: We actually ne gotiate from wi thin the con text of agiven space, the schedule, the images, the voca-bulary, the economy, the technique, etc. Resis-tance, dialogue and collaboration begins whenwe enter matters of institutional representation:considering which image to display on the flyer,which taxonomy to use within the texts (voca-

bulary, naming, languages), which economy, withwhich technique, what licence on the material toreproduce, etc- Internal collaboration:This can take the form of advice, the conception

of software, discussion on archiving principlesand institutional organisation. Maybe this isclose to what might be called social software.Social software is software that supports groupinteraction[1]. The important words here aregroup and interaction, not software.



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50 51

at the same time we act, perform both ‘sides’:

the creator and the creature. But sometimeswe would like to be Mary Shelley, writing thenarrative, the fiction that makes these bodieswork together, coheren tly. With time we tend to real ise that the bodyand our performing, creating relationshipsin between people is our main tool, our maininstrument of work. We gesture and talk a lot,we are present, we touch often. Our bodies,gestures, voices and our own settings, createand propose a space, place and environmentfor the use of technology, technique andsoftware. Hospitality becomes another tool of creativity.

extnsons & abtats

Sotwas as qstons

We have integ rate d softw ard and compu tersin our everyday life. When we talk about the

disappearing borders between private life,

work and art in our own rooms, and in ourminds we can feel the same with our machines. We edit sound , video s, texts, liste n to music ,listen to the news, send e-mails and makepayments on the same workstation, and if atall possible all in the same flux of time. In ourart practice, like in our daily operations withsoftware, software has become the interfacewith our environment, our utensil, our tool tosense, touch and define our work. Femke Snel-ting, an artist and a graphic designer, uses thefollowing metaphor: ‘My physiotherapist usedthis analogy to explain how humans use toolsto negotiate the space around their bodies:

if you prepare a sauce…’ she said, ‘and stirit with a wooden spoon… you will be able tofeel at which moment exactly the starch startsto burn at the bottom of the pan’. A woodenspoon might not be the kind of glamour and

glitter a post-human cyborg is looking for, butI think it is in this unspectacular way that ourdaily operations with software help to makesense of our environment.She goes on to say: ‘Software has becomeour natural habitat. We practice software

until we in-corporate its choreography. We

make it disappear into the background. Aseamless experience. We become one with

One cannot specify in advance what any group

will do, and so one can’t implement in softwareeverything one expects to happen. Technicalissues cannot be separated from social issues.Quite a basic principle, but always surprisingwhen it touches on issues of software and inter-face design for archiving and communicationpurposes, are these questions of power struc-tures, hierarchical behaviours, (lack of) commu-nication between sectors of the same institution,openness of information, taxonomy (categories,classification).

If feminism can be described as one of ourtools of action to open the gaze to questions of access, working conditions definition of artisticpractices, as a tool to provoke new imagina-tion, new imaginaries. Then, the fact of usingthe space as reactive and as performative couldbe be seen to be another tool of creativity. Thein-between, the interstitial space as relational

object.

Let’s now approach the body of theorganization...

ebo & nabt actcs

made. Unaware of their social rights, they

are all too perfectly well aware of the latestsoftware and technological improvements.In this context, to be concerned about freesoftware brings with it the potential to reduceour economic dependency on big companies,on their rhythm of marketing and on theirdefinitions of needs and aesthetics.More importantly, free software allow usto choose our way of binding ourselvestogether, to choose the community that weare dependent upon, linked to; (like thespider web so dear to V. Woolf), to choosethe community we we want to work with. Touse free software is not always so easy. Forvisual creation software especially, develop-ments are slow, because only a minority of people in the community use it extensively. And dev elo pme nt may be hec tic , bec aus emost of this type of free software is deve-loped in spare time at free will. If free

software provides a certain autonomy in

terms of economy, it gives also the opportu-nity or the obligation (depending on the wayyou see it) to be a form of interaction witha group, a code, with an economy developedon the margins.

[1] Clay Shirky, A Group Is Its Own Worst Enemy, 2003http://www.shirky.com/writings/group_enemy.html[2] Femke Snelting, A fish can’t judge the water, 2007http://ospublish.constantvzw.org/?p=85[3]Anne et Marine Rambach, Les intellos précaires, 2001,Fayard

To speak about Constant, we sometimes usethe following metaphors: scattered body, frag-mented body, constructed body, using Frankens-tein and his creature as a metaphor. Because

our extensions.’[2]Computers and softwares being our habitat,like any room, are linked to an economy, and

like any machine, there is a dependency onthe new version, new formats, the plug-insarriving on the market and all kinds of tech-nological improvements. Ann e & Mar ine Ram bac h in the ir boo k «Le sintellos précaires»[3], is a piece of researchthat they conducted in 2001 into their ownenvironment and friends: a group of intellec-tuals and artists, living in unstable financialconditions. In their research, they observe,amongst other things, the paradox betweenthe glamorous life they and their group wereliving in contrast to their poor conditions of health and housing... Part of the glamour,

but necessary to all this, was the computer.If at all possible the latest hyped-up modelwould be, as they wrote, there enthroned

in the middle of a one-room kitchen/office/bedroom, models belonging to those intel-lectuals that they were visiting, living inthe most precarious circumstances. Thecomputer is their workplace, their extension.They depend on the economy and the costs of it, between the dentist, a new pair of glassesand a new computer, the choice is quickly

This text was the base for a lecture on October 14 2007, onthe panel Frontbildung, at the event , «Wir sind woanders»,HamburgCopyright © 14/10/07 Laurence RasselCopyleft: this work is free, you can redistribute it and/or modify itaccording to terms of the Free Art license.


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CONSTANT / prOJeCT OpeN SOurCe puBliShiNg/ SITE Brussels / Berlin / London / TIMING since 2006, ongoing / PARTNERSHIP Mute (London) since November 2006 / FUNDS essentiallyConstant and on commissions ie transition to Scribus for Mute

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54 55

on soc bsn

Much of the work designers do takes placethrough software. And not just any software- the set of programmes you probably useis limited to In-design, Photoshop and Illus-trator; for web designers add Dreamweaverand Flash. Now that the monopoly of Quark X-press is on the decline and Macromedia hasbeen acquired by its competitor, the standard

working suite of any designer anywhere in theworld can, in fact, be purchased through anyone single company: Adobe Systems Inc. Andeven if Adobe continues to develop brilliantpackages, it is not a particularly comfortingthought that one single party is responsiblefor the development of most digital designtools.

A Flas h m ovi e r eve als itse lf as muc h by a r e-cognizable style of drawing and typography,as it does by a ‘missing plug-in warning’.

Software does help you make things, but at

the same time it defines the space withinwhich that making can take place. There isnothing wrong with a poster, website or apiece of typography which uses the specificcharacteristics of the software with whichit was made, but it is questionable whetherthe choice of tool is ever in your own hands. Ado be soft war e has beco me l ike the weat her :you might complain about it now and then,but it is useless to think you could actuallychange it. What if we wanted to adjust, rein-vent, change or alter our tools? In proprietarysoftware, those forms of use are preventedby extremely restrictive licenses. How can we

even understand what software does to de-sign aesthetics and working patterns withoutbeing able to step away from them and try outdifferent ways of making things?

It would be exciting to think out loud aboutwhat other tools might be possible and what ispossible to do with other tools; a bit less exci-ting but still greatly needed is for designers tofile bugs and report back on pleasant and lesspleasant experiences. For this we will need to

find a common language with those people

who developed Gimp, Scribus or Sodipodi etc.Graham Harwood described The Gimp (OpenSource image processing software) as ‘Pho-toshop with its guts hanging out’, painting agraphic image of what software can be more,than a user-friendly tool seamlessly doing its job. Open Sou rce tool s are not alw ays ‘us er-friendly’ in the usual sense of the word. Partly

because ‘user-friendliness’ might mean some-thing else altogether depending on the expec-tations of its users, and partly because mostOpen Source software is ‘work in progress’and this means that its cut-off points are notnecessarily concealed.

This project is for designers curious enoughto try this out. We will make an attempt toseriously test out what the possibilities andlimitations of Open Source software are ina professional design environment, without

expecting to find the same experience as the

ones we are used to. In fact, we are interestedin experimenting with everything that showsup in between in the cracks.

Femke Snelting

tt://osbs.constantvzw.o

CONSTANT / prOJeCT OpeN SOurCe puBliShiNg Constant and on commissions, ie. transition to Scribus for Mute

Text released under the Free Art License - www.artlibre.org

RECYCLART / Brel / sinCE 1998 / sTATus abl (non-profit-making organisation) / www.recyclart.be

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1998 2002 2006

L ' E s c a u

l t

B r u s k

S q u a r e

d e s U r s u l i n e s

E n

B r i k

!

I B A I

D i s t u r b

E u r o p e

B r u x e l l e s

B e l g i q u e

56 57

artcatve arctectre

ocal e

arttc alty

tra a eloyet

RECYCLART est un laboratoire artistique,

un lieu de création, un centre de formation

pour chercheurs d’emploi, de confrontation

et de diffusion culturelles, un acteur de l’es-

pace public urbain, un lieu de rencontres et

d’expérimentations.

Un tout constitué de parties. Autonomes mais

complices. Qui participent d’une dynamique

commune, dont la gare Bruxelles-Chapelle

est le point de départ. Située sur la jonctionferroviaire Nord-Midi, entre la gare Centrale et

la gare du Midi, elle est aussi le lien entre le

centre de la métropole et les zones d’habita-

tions populaires du centre-ville. Recyclart est

devenue une entre-gare à la croisée de voies

multiples.

Recyclart puise son inspiration dans la réalité

quotidienne bruxelloise, une réalité qui se

nourrit de nombreuses cultures et de différentes

communautés linguistiques, projetée dans une

dimension locale, nationale et internationale.

Recyclart est ouverte aux initiatives et prend

les choses en main, pour la création de projets,

de systèmes, de méthodes et de concepts liant

des individus, des médias, des modes d’expres-

sion entre eux, de manière productive.

arena, a training centre and a place for meeting

and experiment.

A broad singl e entity, consisti ng of var ious par ts,

autonomous yet complementary. A communal

dynamic, with the station Chapelle-Kapellekerk

as the epicentre. Located on the north-south

train axis between Brussels Central and Brus-

sels South, we link the metropolitan centre with

the common living quarters of the inner city.

Recyclart has developed into a way station witha wide range of switches and destinations.

Recyclart finds its inspiration in our capital’s

fascinating daily reality in a local, national and

international dimension. This reality is fed by

the city’s varied cultures and communities.

Recyclart is open to initiative and is not afraid

to take the initiative itself. It devises projects

and concepts that link people, various media,

expressions and sectors. All with a productive

end result in mind.

Recyclart is a transitional area where people

find the inspiration to take their next steps.

Recyclart is a locomotive for renewal and is not

stuck to proven success formulas.

Recyclart is a generator that from a tough area

in town radiates positive energy to the surroun-

Recyclart est un espace de passage, où

chacun peut donner/recevoir des impulsions et

évoluer.

Recyclart est une locomotive pour toutes formes

d’innovation, sans s’arrêter à des formules

toutes faites.

Recyclart est un générateur, propulsant une

énergie positive à partir d’un lieu « difficile »

de la ville.

Recyclart est un laboratoire, lieu de rencontreentre différentes disciplines artistiques.

Recyclart est un relais amplificateur, à taille

humaine, grâce auquel des individus sur des

longueurs d’ondes différentes peuvent se

rencontrer.

Notre volonté est d’ouvrir l’oeil et de mettre le

doigt sur ce qui se passe chez nous et ailleurs,

maintenant et demain, et de le traduire -de

manière efficace, systématique et lisible- à

travers le large éventail d’activités proposées.

RECYCLART RECYCLART currently functions

as an artistic laboratory, a creative centre for

cultural debate, an actor in the municipal public

ding city.

Recyclart is a laboratory where the mix of

various ingredients often leads to fascinating

reactions.

Recyclart is an amplifier where people of diffe-

ring wavelengths get together.

Our aim is to show what is happening on the

ground in an efficient, targeted and systematic

manner. These elements are all intrinsicallybound in a wide range of activities that are

organised on the basis of or in a polyvalent

infrastructure.

C C / / / ( p g g ) / y

RECYCLART / WORKspACE / ORgAnisATiOn

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58 59

Brussels actvte. Fleble, rob, oe, -to-

ate a tve... Vare cle

a te blc ofte f teelve a

refre cofrotato. Oe-off roject

alterate wt lo-ter rocee.

uRBAn REFLECTiOn And ART in ThE puBLiC

AREnA

Te tato bot a area for reflecto o

te rba eoeo a a b for ee-

rat arttc terveto te blcarea. Tee offer ew le wt a

ocal erectve for artclar area te

cty; wtee to Brel o te ove.

TRAining And EmpLOYmEnT

By ea of or ot yte, we offer

aly tra a lo-ter eloyet

rora for te le ecate a te

eloye. T aceve tro tree

teccal tea (‘reovato’, ‘woowork’,

‘etal work’) a a cater tea.

mAnAgEmEnT

Every ay, a ol trctre of ly

otvate eloyee a a ee-et aaeet oraato work to

ere effcet olcy, ol ocal ro-

a otal teral a eteral

cocato.

sTATiOn

sce t recovero 1997, tato

‘Brelle-Caelle’ ote oe of te

ot vere evet, ra fro cocert

a arte to ebto a ebate.

Cocrete, toe a recycle ralway

eleet are te a reao wy te

‘erro caracter’ aeal to te

aato of o ay fferet eole.

O to of tat te bl tate tecetre of Brel, a ort walk fro te

‘gra place’, ‘sablo’ or ‘marolle’ wt

lare ark faclte cloe to te tato.

For te oet te bl oe of

all bac coveece lke eat, atary

ftt, frtre, lt, o, a bar

a a retarat. Te vee a a caacty

of aroately 450 ero.

LOCATiOn

C O nTExT

T EAm

pEO

pLE

COsT(s)

s h ARing

pART

nERs

pRACTiCE

spACEs

mOBiLiTY

suppORTs

Functioning railway station

Approximately 45 people

Full-time and part-time

Architects, artists, inhabitants, social workers

230 m²

10 €/m²

No

No

Institutional and private

Government funding (local and regional), private

sponsorship, European Commission funding

A muLTiFunCTiOnAL sTATiOn BuiLding And

puBLiC AREnA

Te tato roo ave bee coverte

to a fe wole of ltfctoal

area tat oe a we rae of art for

a fetvte, a café-retarat, tec-

cal a arttc to a a ecretarat.

Te ralway bre fcto a a rba

oe-ar allery. Te tato are oe to bot loer a kateboarer,

a er café terrace a oe-ar evet.

pROgRAmmE

Recyclart offer actvte tat callee

tratoal lt a ct acro te ta-

ar coartetale etalty. Every

ay, we eek a balace betwee te arttc,

te ocal a te rba.

ARTisTiC pROgRAmming

We offer a we rae of oor a otoor

RECYCLART / TOOLs / mEThOds

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60 61

Recyclart coe late-fore ble e la

vlle, e l’arctectre et e

Dès sa création, l’association a pris sa place dans le

débat de l’architecture et de la ville. Recyclart est en

effet une des rares institutions culturelles dont la création

est liée d’abord au lieu: la Jonction Nord-Midi -rupture

urbaine, exemple même de la bruxellisation des années

50. Travailler sur la transformation de cette rupture en

liaison durable, réinscrire ce lieu dans la carte mentale

des bruxellois et des non-bruxellois, remettre ce lieu au«goût du jour» est le premier défi que l’asbl a dû relever.

Au fur et à mesure des années, grâce à son expérience

«de terrain», l’association s’est construite un discours

original sur la ville et l’architecture. Partie de réali-

sations concrètes sur l’espace public et de la défense

d’un espace contemporain de qualité, ouvert à tous,

la programmation s’est étendue au fil des ans à une

réflexion plus théorique sur la ville et le territoire en

général, son usage et sa fonction en particulier.

Il en résulte aujourd’hui la construction d’un réseau

réunissant différents acteurs du design, de l’architecture

et de l’urbanisme. Ces acteurs proviennent d’horizons

très différents (concepteurs, mais aussi utilisateurs,

fonctionnaires, curateurs, critiques,...). Ce réseau est

aussi bilingue et veut dépasser le contexte parfois tropétriqué de nos institutions belges.

Recyclart y joue le rôle d’intermédiaire de mise en rela-

tion des idées et des hommes. Chaque projet est un

prétexte à confronter des personnalités ou des métiers

oeuvrant dans le même domaine mais n’ayant pas l’ha-

bitude de se cotoyer. L’exemple de l’aménagement du

square des Ursulines illustre à merveille ce propos. Il

s’agissait en effet de prendre au sérieux une demande

du monde du skate et de transformer cette demande

en un concours d’idées pour jeunes artistes dont le

lauréat (Bjorn Gielen) a été accompagné par un bureau

professionnel (L’Escaut sprl) pour le développement et

la concrétisation de son projet. Grace à Recyclart, des

skateurs, architectes jeunes et confirmés, différentesadministrations et les habitants du quartier ont oeuvré

ensemble à la réalisation du projet. Une partie de la réali-

sation a été confiée à nos équipes en réinsertion profes-

sionnelle. Il en résulte un espace aux lignes nouvelles à

la fonctionalité évidente où un public de jeunes adeptes

de la glisse en ville, de curieux, de famille se mélange

agréablement dès les jours de beau temps. Cet espace

a été désigné comme lauréat par le MACBA au concours

européen des espaces publics en 2006.

Recyclart défend une vision politique du design et de la

Recyclart, te cty’ blal latfor for arc-

tectre a e

As soon as it was created, the association took its seat

in the city’s debate on architecture. Indeed, Recyclart

is one of these rare cultural institutions whose crea-

tion was first linked to a site: the Nord-Midi junction -a

breach in the city, a true example of 1950’s Brusselisa-

tion. The first challenge that the asbl had to face was to

work in turning this breach into a sustainable connection,

re-inscribing the site into the mental map of Brussels’and non-Brussels’ inhabitants, and refreshing the site

altogether.

As the years went by, thanks to its ‘field’ experience,

the association developed an original discourse on the

city and on architecture. Starting off with actual accom-

plishments in public space, and the defence of quality

contemporary space that is open to all, the program

enlarged itself year after year to become a more theore-

tical reflection on the city and territory in general, and on

its use and function in particular.

A network uniting different actors from design, archi-

tecture and urbanism is developing as a result of this.

These actors come from very different horizons (people

who conceive ideas, but also users, civil servants,

conservators, critics…). The network is also a bilingualone, and wishes to go beyond the, often narrow, context

of Belgian institutions.

Recyclart plays an intermediary role, bringing ideas and

people together. Each project is a pretext to confront

personalities and skills from the same sector, but which

aren’t necessarily used to working together. The lands-

caping of the Ursulines square is a perfect example.

The idea was to take a demand from the skateboard

world seriously and to transform it into a competition

of ideas between young artists, who’s winner (Bjorn

Gielen) was then assisted by a professional design

office (L’Escaut sprl) in order to develop and carry out

the project. Thanks to Recyclart, skateboarders, young

and confirmed architects, different administrations andneighbours worked together to realize the venture. A

part of the work was given to our teams in professional

rehabilitation. The result is a space with new lines, an

obvious functionality, where a public of young adepts

of urban skate sports, curious passers-by and families

pleasantly mix with the first sunny days. This space was

awarded the first prize by the MACBA in the European

contest for public spaces in 2006.

Recyclart advocates for a political vision of design and of

the city. A bench placed in a public space is not just there

ville. Un banc installé dans l’espace public n’est pas là

que pour l’embellissement de la place ou du quartier,

mais aussi pour laisser l’opportunité à tous de s’assoir,

s’installer, se rencontrer. Dans une ville et une société de

plus en plus «capsulaires», il est primordial que les créa-

teurs ayant une vision non marchande et défendant des

valeurs d’égalité et d’éthique de l’objet comme de l’es-

pace soient soutenus. Par ces actions, Recyclart entend

oeuvrer à la construction d’une ville où l’innovation, le

respect de l’autre et l’ouverture à d’autres cultures estprimordiale.

D’autre part, Recyclart ose aussi mettre en débat une

nouvelle définition de la ville européenne qui ne s’arrête

ni aux frontières du bâti, ni aux frontières de l’institu-

tionnel, mais qui englobe un territoire plus large qui, à

l’instar du Vlaamse ruit, de «l’unicity», de Must.nl, ou de

la Metapolis de F. Ascher, se définit par rapport à des

critères de densité de population et d’échanges écono-

mique et culturel en son sein comme avec d’autres

continents .

Enfin, Recyclart risque l’expérience, tant du point de vue

de la méthode de travail que du contenu des projets

proposés. Oser la «carte blanche», faire confiance aux

personnes plutôt que vouloir à tout prix montrer des

projets déjà aboutis. Les conférences ibai (institutbruxellois de l’architecture-brussels architectuur insti-

tuut) de 2007 en sont l’exemple même. Les «lectures»

proposées aux publics s’apparentaient en effet presque

à des performances, puisque tout en respectant un

contenu et un dispositif scénique original, elles permet-

taient de réaliser et d’imprimer -en ‘live’- les actes. Ce

choix comportait certains risques... que nous avons

assumés.

L’ouverture des domaines de l’architecture et du design

à des pratiques artistiques autres est une idée que nous

continuerons à défendre. Certes, architectes et desi-

gners restent indispensables à leurs disciplines, mais il

est intéressant de confronter leurs savoirs-faire et leurs

idées à d’autres plasticens ou chercheurs: explorateursde ville, créateurs de lumières, scientifiques, géographes,

graphistes... afin que leurs travaux créatifs s’enrichissent

mutuellement et se confrontent quotidiennement.

Par cette ligne de programmation, Recyclart espère

répondre à deux nécessités: permettre la confronta-

tion de nouvelles pensées afin d’éviter une normalisa-

tion de l’art et de la culture et soutenir les créateurs

qui feront l’actualité artistique de demain.

to make the square or the neighbourhood beautiful, but

also to give anyone the opportunity of sitting down,

staying, meeting others. In a city and a society evermore

‘capsulated’, it is essential to support creators who

have a non-commercial vision and who defend values of

equality and ethics of object and space. Through these

actions, Recyclart intends to work for the construction of

a city where innovation, the respect of others and the

open-mindedness to other cultures is primordial.

Furthermore, Recyclart dares to bring to the debate anew definition of the European city which does not limit

itself to the frontiers of the constructed space, nor to

the institutional frontiers; but like the Vlaamse ruit of

Must.nl’s ‘unicity’ or the ‘Metapolis’ of F. Ascher, defines

itself in relationship to the density of the population, the

economic and cultural exchanges that take place within it

as well as with other continents.

Lastly, Recyclart risks the experiment both from the stan-

dpoint of the working method as well as by the content of

the projects it support s. To dare to write a blank check, to

trust people rather than to want to put together a project

which is already finished. IBAI’s (Architectural Institute of

Brussels) conferences of 2007 are the perfect example

of this approach. Indeed, the public ‘lectures’ that were

given were almost close to art performances, for whilerespecting the content; an original scenic device enabled

the live conception and printing of the proceedings. This

choice involved some risks... which we assumed.

Architecture and design’s expansion to other ar tistic

expressions is an idea that we will continue to defend.

Certainly architects and designers stay indispensable

in their fields, but it is interesting to confront their

know-how and their ideas to other artists and resear-

chers: explorers of the city, lighting designers, scientists,

geographers, graphic designers... so that their creative

works mutually enrich and confront each other daily.

By this program, Recyclart hopes to respond to two

necessities: allow the confrontation of new ideas in

order to avoid the normalisation of art and culture,and support the creators who will make tomorrow’s

art scene.

RECYCLART / pROJECT squARE dEs uRsuLinEs / SITE Brussels - Ursulines’ square / TIMING from 2002 to 2006 PARTNERSHIP/ BRUSK skater collectiv / L’ESCAULT achitecture office

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62 63

Le kate & la vlle - iarato sare

e urle

Depuis l’année 2002, en collaboration avec un

jeune collectif de skater BRUSK (aujourd’hui orga-

nisé en asbl «skateboarders»), Recyclart avait

lancé le débat de la place du skate dans la ville.

Suite à cela Recyclart recevait une commande de

l’IBGE afin de coordonner le réaménagement du

square des Ursulines en espace public de qualité

ouvert à tous mais possédant une forte iden-tité skate. Pour cela Recyclart s’est associé avec

BRUSK (asbl Skateboarders) et le bureau Escaut

(architecture, scénographie et exposition).

L’année 2006 a permis de terminer le chantier

en beauté. Nos équipes techniques ont de plus

décroché un marché de réalisation de l’équipe-

ment en bois du site... Mobiliers urbains, plancher

et escalier monumental ont été réalisés de mains

de maître par nos ouvriers. Un gros chantier et

une excellente collaboration avec une entreprise

privée.

Fin avril 2006, le site était inauguré! Une journée

de fête ouvert à tous: habitants, pensionnaires de

la maison de repos toute proche, futurs utilisa-

teurs, «branchés» de la capitale, touristes...

Aujourd’hui le site est utilisé: le matin par des

promeneurs/touristes, le midi comme site de

pique-nique et le soir comme piste de skate. Pari

gagné!

RECYCLART / pROJECT En BRiK ! / SITE Brussels / TIMING 2006 / PARTNERSHIP DISTURB collectiv

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64 65

procére/Becark(1)

L’atelier s’est proposé d’examiner la façon

d’aborder la procédure de marché public en

matière de logement.

- Comment aboutir à la qualité et à la gestion des

coûts?

- Faut-il scinder les marchés architecture/

construction/maintenance?

- De quels moyens disposons-nous?

- Quelles procédures utilisent nos voisins?

urbae

L’atelier a abordé les problèmes de typologie, d’im-

plantation et de localisation à l’échelle de la ville.

- Où se trouvent les zones à renforcer en logement

moyen ou social?

- Comment aborder la mixité tant réclamée?

Arctectre

La construction du logement social a, dans le passé,

été l’occasion de la création de formes et de types

architecturaux qui ont fortement marqué l’histoire

de cette discipline: familistères, cités jardins, unités

d’habitation...

Ces modèles sont tous liés à la conjonction forte

d’un projet social et d’une ambition architecturale

et urbanistique. L’atelier a analysé le rapport entre

projet social et forme architecturale.

Evroeet Ecooe geto

L’atelier s’est proposé de faire exploser les idées

reçues en matière de Développement Durable.

L’objectif est de prouver que construire durable-

ment est non seulement facile, pas spécialement

plus cher, et que si les avantages sont titanesques

d’un point de vue économique, il s’agit surtout de

faire preuve d’une attitude responsable de la partde chacun des acteurs de la construction -maîtres

d’ouvrage y compris.

Un atelier pour enfants de 5 à 12 ans a été orga-

nisé; cet atelier a réuni des enfants de participants

et des enfants de quartier pour proposer sous

forme de dessins et de maquettes, leurs visions

de l’habitat.

(1) responsables: Léo Va Broek/ncola heeleer

Extrait du programme de conférences des 19 et 20 mai2006.

perre Bloel a présenté une sélection internationale deprojets de logements de qualité.

ncola Berar a exposé la situation du logement publicà Bruxelles.Ces interventions ont été suivies de la projection du docu-mentaire ‘ho tore 2’ réalisé par les ateliers.

RECYCLART / pROJECT iBAi / SITE Brussels - Recyclart / TIMING since 2005

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66 67

Depuis le début de l’année 2005, un groupe de

réflexion sur l’architecture et l’urbanisme se réunit

à Recyclart. Au sein de ce groupe a mûri l’idée de

lancer une nouvelle plate-forme culturelle: l’Ins-

titut Bruxellois d’Architecture / Brussels Architec-

tuur Instituut. L’ibai est conçu comme un lieu de

rencontre au-delà des frontières communautaires,

un lieu où il est question d’architecture dans sa

dimension culturelle, où des idées émergentes

peuvent être encouragées. Les individus qui seretrouvent aujourd’hui dans l’ibai sont souvent

proches de collectifs, de groupes et d’associations

très actifs ces dix dernières années -notamment

autour de l’Hotel Central, de Bruxelles 2000 et plus

récemment du Maprac et de la plate-forme Flagey.

Pour l’année 2006, Recyclart a demandé à Ywan

Strauven (ISACF La Cambre) et François Thiry

(Polaris) de jouer le rôle de commissaires.

La première activité publique de l’ibai et le fil

rouge de l’année 2006 était un cycle de confé-

rences. Chaque troisième jeudi du mois en effet,

la parole était donnée à une personnalité ou à un

groupe Bruxellois, chargé d’inviter à son tour un

conférencier international. Sous le titre générique

«Reclaim!», les participants se sont réapproprié les

thématiques urbaines les plus actuelles (logement,

l’aéroport, quartier de gare, etc.) sous un angle

à la fois architectural, critique et culturel. L’ob-

jectif était de confronter, pour le plaisir, certains

problèmes apparemment insolubles de la Capitale

avec les réponses enthousiasmantes que d’autres

villes ont développé pour répondre à leurs propres

problématiques achitecturales et urbaines.

En 2007, l’ibai a exploré la question de la re-pré-

sentation . L’idée était de re-présenter ce qui

est inscrit, décrit, agencé afin de proposer denouvelles versions, de voir ou de percevoir ce qui

n’est jamais ou peu montré... ou non dit.

CITY MINE() / RECYCLART / CoNSTANT / SpECuLooS / pRoJECT TowARdS

/ SITE Brussels / TIMING since 2006 / PARTNERSHIP Nathalie Mertens / Nedjma Hadj / Kathleen Mertens / Rival / Tiziano Lavoratornovi/ Benoît Deuxant & Harrisson / Agence / Jérôme Giller / Laia Sadurni (Rotor) / Stéphanie Regnier (Syndicat d’initiatives) / Architectureschools and schools of Arts (Brussels, Sheffield)

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Synsis

Il y a deux ans déjà, Recyclart, City Mine(d), l’asbl

Constant et les graphistes de Speculoos ont lancé

le projet TOWARDS, dont le but est d’explorer des

questions ayant trait à la perception et la repré-

sentation subjectives du territoire bruxellois. A la

genèse du projet, 8 artistes de pratiques et généra-

tions différentes ont été conviés -chacun selon ses

affinités pour le choix du sujet et avec une formali-

sation personnelle de ses données- à élaborer unecartographie subjective d’interventions urbaines

de Bruxelles. Ce travail a ensuite donné lieu à

une exposition qui, à son tour, a fait l’objet d’une

première publication…

Depuis, l’eau a coulé sous les ponts et d’autres

événements traitant des préoccupations similaires

ont eu lieu. Au fil des semaines, des mois, des

années, un nouveau visage de Bruxelles voit le jour

et une nouvelle mémoire prend forme: celle des

luttes urbaines, des interventions non-officielles,

du positivisme des associations, de la richesse

des acteurs bruxellois… Celui d’un regard neuf,

loin des clichés touristiques et des négociations

communautaires.

De la création d’un blog à la collecte de nouvelles

cartes, de l’animation de workshops à l’organisa-

tion de pratiques in situ, le projet a été nourri peu

à peu par les connaissances et les expérimenta-

tions de nombreux intervenants. Mais si la manne

de savoirs qui a résulté de ces contributions est

abondante, elle demeure néanmoins à l’état brut

et mérite d’être clarifiée, synthétisée, revisitée voire

complétée.

Cnten

De manière générale, les actions, considérations

et interrogations qui ont accompagné le projet ont

été menées en poursuivant deux objectifs différentsmais néanmoins concomitants: d’une part la réali-

sation d’un atlas reprenant les différentes cartes

récoltées (officielles ou non, réelles, imaginaires,

subjectives, artistiques, géographiques, urbanis-

tiques, amateurs, professionnelles, régionales, de

quartier, etc.) et, d’autre part, la création d’un logi-

ciel libre permettant de consulter ces cartes, de les

mettre en parallèle, de jouer avec les paramètres

qui les définissent, de les compléter, les éditer ou les

utiliser dans le cadre de projets personnels.

Cncrètement, cela vet ire:

• Une ligne du temps et un bref compte-rendu

des étapes réalisées. (L’objectif est de donner un

aperçu synthétique de la démarche globale, de

rendre compte des sujets abordés par les différents

intervenants et de tenter de mettre en lumière les

principaux questionnements qui en ont résulté.)

• Une première ébauche (non exhaustive) de

l’atlas. (En se basant sur les cartes collectées, le

but est de proposer une classification pertinentemais suffisamment flexible pour accueillir des

contributions cartographiques ultérieures.)

• Un preview du logiciel. (Il s’agit de mettre à

plat les spécifications propres à l’interface et de

dévoiler le fonctionnement d’un premier prototype

en cours d’élaboration.)

• Des idées pour la suite des événements…

Synsis

Two years ago, Recyclart, City Mine(d), the

non-profit association Constant and the graphic

designers of Speculoos launched the TOWARDS

project, in order to explore questions concerning

the subjective perception and representation of

the territory of Brussels. At the beginning of the

project, 8 artists from various disciplines and gene-

rations were invited- each, according to their own

affinities, each with a personal formalisation of their

own data- to work out a subjective cartography of

urban interventions in Brussels. Their work was the

subject of an exhibition and, afterwards, of the first

TOWARDS publication.

Since then, plenty of water has run under the bridge

and many other events treating similar concerns

have since taken place. With the passing of weeks,

months and years, a new face of Br ussels has cometo see the light of day and a new memory is starting

to take shape: one of urban fights, of non-official

developments, of the positivism of associations, of

the richness of the actors within Brussels... a new

vision, far from tourist stereotypes and community

negotiations.

From the creation of a Web-log to the collection of

new maps, from the animation of workshops to the

organisation of in situ practices, the project was

nourished little by little by the knowledge and expe-

riments of many participants. But if the knowledge

that resulted from these contributions is abundant,

it remains, nevertheless, in a somewhat cr ude state

and deserves to be clarified, synthesised, revisited

and even supplemented.

Cntents

In a general way, the actions, considerations and

interrogations that accompanied the project were

carried out by following two different, but neverthe-

less concomitant, objectives: on the one hand therealisation of an atlas that compiles the collected

maps (official or not, real, imaginary, subjective,

artistic, geographical, urbanistic, amateur, profes-

sional, regional, neighbourhood, etc.) and, on the

other hand, the creation of a free software that

allows people to consult these maps, to play with

the parameters that define them, to complete them,

edit them or use them for their own projects.

S, e rse:

• A timeline and a brief report of the past stages

of the project. (The objective is to give a synthetic

idea of the global approach and to show the various

topics dealt with by the different participants)

• An atlas preview. (The aim is to propose a perti-

nent but sufficiently flexible classification of the

collected maps so as to allow later cartographic

contributions.)

• A software preview. (The objective is to show theinterface specifications and to reveal the workings

of an ongoing prototype.)

• Some ideas for later events …

.tars.be

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