FIREWORKS WRITING
FRAGMENT
Monteur Action Forme, Exhibition October 14 - March 13 2022, Bruther
arc en rêve centre d'architecture; Bordeaux
in collaboration with Robin Gemperle
The greatest architecture of all is the fireworks1
The Freeport Geneva is predominantly a storage for art, besides diamonds and expensive wine, and the area is declared as ‚in transit‘ by international law. In fact, the art works have been stored there for decades, possibly moved from one room to another but have never left the building in order to avoid taxation. In quality and quantity, the Freeport Geneva resembles the collection of the Modern Museum of Art in New York.2 At the same time, only few people know what is being stored there exactly since the storage rooms are neither accessible to the public nor to authorities. It is a ‘luxury no man’s land’, ‘an offshore or extraterritorial museum’3 or as Stefan Heidenreich posits: ‘since no one is allowed to see the art, it is also free of audience & spectators, an anti-theatron; it is a place of un-seeing.’4
The Freeport as a ‘contemporary infrastructure space’ offers privilege for the ‘most powerful people in the world precisely because it orchestrates activities that can remain unstated but are nevertheless consequential. Some of the most radical changes to the globalizing world are being written, not in the language of law and diplomacy, but in these spatial, infrastructural technologies – often because market promotions or prevailing political ideologies lubricate their movement through the world. These stories foreground content to disguise or distract from what the organization is actually doing.’5
Like in a parallel world of the superrich and their lawyers, shuffling billions from one offshore island to another, in a constant state of flux to which the general public has no access to, but is nevertheless affected by it, it is uncertain what is happening behind the walls. How can we make this reality tangible and experience with all our senses the complexity of the space that is being created within the Freeport Geneva, ‘where time and space are smashed and rearranged into little pieces like in a freak particle accelerator’ that ‘result is the cage without borders called contemporary art today?’6 How can we render this ambiguous constellation of space visible that is being manifested by the invisible data fluxes surrounding us?
Starting with the reference of Bernard Tschumis Parc de la Vilette and Fireworks Writings we designed a scenography that resembles the essence of fireworks. It is meant to render the complexity of global capitalism that manifests itself in the existence of the Freeport. We designed a screenplay, a technique that was excelled by Sergei M. Eisenstein in his 1925 movie Battleship Potemkin in order to control every detail and cinematographic effect or in our case the scenography of the fragment. Similar to the fireworks, we intended to design without space defining elements that are known to architects such as wall, ceiling or column. The parameters we defined were smoke, humidity, sound and light since they are ephemeral in their nature. The parameter of human interaction is the key component for our fragment, and we tested the screenplay on plans and sections in different scales. With this tool, we were able to design a scenography that touched all the senses. The highly controlled juxtaposition of the light, sound and smoke as well as the silent moments in between allow the visitors to experience a sublime and perpetually ephemeral space.
As an update to the fragment in October 2020 where we still used cables that were connected to each element, we now use radio signals to activate the fragment for the exhibition. Five infrared motion detector sensors are located in different places around the exhibition space. Each sensor is connected to either a light, a speaker or the fog machine. The sensors detect the motion of the visitors and are connected to a transmitter radio signal module that sends a precise code to a receiver radio signal module that is connected with one element of the fragment and which activates the electric circuit.
1 Bernhard Tschumi, Fireworks at Parc de la Villette, Paris, 1992: “Good architecture must be conceived, erected, and burned in vain. The greatest architecture of all is the fireworks: it perfectly shows the gratuitous consumption of pleasure.”
2 Gompertz, W., ‘Geneva Free Port. The greatest art collection no-one can see.’
3 Easterling, K., ‘Extrastatecraft. The power of infrastructure space.’
4 Heidenreich, S., ‘Freeportism as Style and Ideology. Post-Internet and Speculative Realism, Part I.’
5 Easterling, K., ‘Extrastatecraft. The power of infrastructure space.’
6 Steyerl, H., ‘Duty-Free Art.’
arc en rêve centre d'architecture; Bordeaux
in collaboration with Robin Gemperle
The greatest architecture of all is the fireworks1
The Freeport Geneva is predominantly a storage for art, besides diamonds and expensive wine, and the area is declared as ‚in transit‘ by international law. In fact, the art works have been stored there for decades, possibly moved from one room to another but have never left the building in order to avoid taxation. In quality and quantity, the Freeport Geneva resembles the collection of the Modern Museum of Art in New York.2 At the same time, only few people know what is being stored there exactly since the storage rooms are neither accessible to the public nor to authorities. It is a ‘luxury no man’s land’, ‘an offshore or extraterritorial museum’3 or as Stefan Heidenreich posits: ‘since no one is allowed to see the art, it is also free of audience & spectators, an anti-theatron; it is a place of un-seeing.’4
The Freeport as a ‘contemporary infrastructure space’ offers privilege for the ‘most powerful people in the world precisely because it orchestrates activities that can remain unstated but are nevertheless consequential. Some of the most radical changes to the globalizing world are being written, not in the language of law and diplomacy, but in these spatial, infrastructural technologies – often because market promotions or prevailing political ideologies lubricate their movement through the world. These stories foreground content to disguise or distract from what the organization is actually doing.’5
Like in a parallel world of the superrich and their lawyers, shuffling billions from one offshore island to another, in a constant state of flux to which the general public has no access to, but is nevertheless affected by it, it is uncertain what is happening behind the walls. How can we make this reality tangible and experience with all our senses the complexity of the space that is being created within the Freeport Geneva, ‘where time and space are smashed and rearranged into little pieces like in a freak particle accelerator’ that ‘result is the cage without borders called contemporary art today?’6 How can we render this ambiguous constellation of space visible that is being manifested by the invisible data fluxes surrounding us?
Starting with the reference of Bernard Tschumis Parc de la Vilette and Fireworks Writings we designed a scenography that resembles the essence of fireworks. It is meant to render the complexity of global capitalism that manifests itself in the existence of the Freeport. We designed a screenplay, a technique that was excelled by Sergei M. Eisenstein in his 1925 movie Battleship Potemkin in order to control every detail and cinematographic effect or in our case the scenography of the fragment. Similar to the fireworks, we intended to design without space defining elements that are known to architects such as wall, ceiling or column. The parameters we defined were smoke, humidity, sound and light since they are ephemeral in their nature. The parameter of human interaction is the key component for our fragment, and we tested the screenplay on plans and sections in different scales. With this tool, we were able to design a scenography that touched all the senses. The highly controlled juxtaposition of the light, sound and smoke as well as the silent moments in between allow the visitors to experience a sublime and perpetually ephemeral space.
As an update to the fragment in October 2020 where we still used cables that were connected to each element, we now use radio signals to activate the fragment for the exhibition. Five infrared motion detector sensors are located in different places around the exhibition space. Each sensor is connected to either a light, a speaker or the fog machine. The sensors detect the motion of the visitors and are connected to a transmitter radio signal module that sends a precise code to a receiver radio signal module that is connected with one element of the fragment and which activates the electric circuit.
1 Bernhard Tschumi, Fireworks at Parc de la Villette, Paris, 1992: “Good architecture must be conceived, erected, and burned in vain. The greatest architecture of all is the fireworks: it perfectly shows the gratuitous consumption of pleasure.”
2 Gompertz, W., ‘Geneva Free Port. The greatest art collection no-one can see.’
3 Easterling, K., ‘Extrastatecraft. The power of infrastructure space.’
4 Heidenreich, S., ‘Freeportism as Style and Ideology. Post-Internet and Speculative Realism, Part I.’
5 Easterling, K., ‘Extrastatecraft. The power of infrastructure space.’
6 Steyerl, H., ‘Duty-Free Art.’