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Projected Futures
Aarhus School of Architecture 12/2012
In the documentary ‘Manufactured Landscapes’, Jennifer Baichwall accompanies photographer Edward Burtynsky’s trail to the breaking yards of Chittagong in Bangladesh, cemeteries of once colossal container ships. The film is a window into the flotsam and jetsam that are lost to the changing winds of capitalist progress; and the slow spectacle of dismantling these large vessels a question on the next frame in this sequence. Setting the atmospheres of contemporary ruins against the speed of urban production,challenges us to wonder about our future landscapes. What would happen to our buildings of past and present if we were to dismantle them in fragments or as a whole? Where would these be rediscovered and be occupied?
This exhibition looks at futures as they are projected in film and investigates the spaces and sequences that are described in these productions. Four rooms showcase spatial interventions, installations and devices that challenge and question our notion of tomorrowland.
1_Surveys of the Unmade
This piece is a critique on the level of production in today’s industry, changing our natural landscape due to usage and removal of immense volumes of natural resources; replaced by obsolete scraps and components. This cycle of production causing densely accumulated waste piles suggests a scenery of tomorrow. We propose a metropolis erupting from the landscape, comprised of technological components designed to go out of date. The fragments of wreckage becoming more decomposed and dense, creating a mechanical cityscape.
2_Playtime
This machine iterates a contradictory relationship between the modernist principles of transparency and idea of the free plan, and explores the alienation that may be experienced in these constructed environments. The device, although seemingly gentle and engaging in its repetitive cycles, restricts the ability to engage with the actual fragments.
3_Truman Show
This project is a vessel to critique our acceptance of fabricated realities. In the investigation of the interrelationship between the constructed reality of Truman’s world and the actual reality behind we start to explore the tensions created by our acceptance of social and pervasive media networks we live in today.
4_Future Memories
The cinematic follies are reinterpretations of fleeting moments depicted in rooms and spatial realities set within Andrej Tarkovsky’s ‘Mirror’. Layers of realities appear and disappear through a physical collage of surreal memories and desires. Movement through these layers provides a commentary on our fragile nature within physical constraints.
5_The Limbo of Presence
This piece explores our attempts to consciously take control of the present, the will to flee from a situation, trying to manipulate
and craft a future reality. This casts into doubt what is real and what is not, and shapes a world where the person is moving between space and time, and the where the mind is lured into different realities. This creates a space where the real meets the material world, and the subconscious is opened up to dreams.
6_Haze
This installation questions man’s right for freedom and the never-ending search for liberation of the mind and body. Stepping into a three-dimensional relationship with the piece, one is lured into a space within a space, subsequently loosing all sense and recognition of space and time. Once one becomes conscious of being oppressed by authority, the search for liberty begins.
7_Encountering the End of the World
This piece revolves around the theme of time; and how time can be altered and distorted. What connects us to a moment in time, and how do we perceive and navigate through the sounds, lights and atmospheres surrounding us? Does time have a beginning and an ending, or is it endless? Endless cycles of past, present and future.
The machine is floating in time and space. It operates in cycles, melting metal and solidifying it. Its various operational elements are interrelated but separate, and only connect by the rotational movement of the centre arm. The chopper is the first stop, the point in which you go from being in control, into a chain reaction of unknown consequences. To begin your short dive into timelessness, pull the wire of the chopper and turn the wheel…
Project Credits
Curators: Paolo Zaide, Andrew Friend, Thomas Lee
Project Team: Students from the Aarhus School of Architecture