[spectre] The Rise of Performance Architecture : TodaysArt Brussels 2909-0110

[ewen at no-log.org]

The Rise of Performance Architecture
Camp-conference on Art/Urban Strategies

Grisar Park, Brussels, Todays Art festival, 22/09/11-01/10/11


“Accepting architecture as cultural production, its performative dimension
must also contribute to a critical role, that is, to architecture’s
capacity to produce commentary regarding the ongoing transformations of
culture and society.
In this sense, the notion of architectural performance implied here feeds
directly upon the tradition of performance art.”

Pedro Gadanho, “Architecture as performance”, revista Dédalo N°2, Porto, 2007

“The main achievement of contemporary city planning is to have made people
blind to the possibility of what we call unitary urbanism, namely a living
critique of this manipulation of cities and their inhabitants, a critique
fueled by all the tensions of everyday life. A living critique means
setting up bases for an experimental life where people can come together
to create their own lives on terrains equipped to their ends.”

Raoul Vaneigem, Attila Kotanyi, “Basic program of the Bureau of Unitary
Urbanism”, revue Internationale Situationniste N°6, Paris, 1961


In the last decade, ephemeral architecture practices of numerous
architects and artists collectives have been developing as a critical
answer to the results of growing mobility in the recent neo-liberal
context, using various performative tactics for “activation” of the local
potentialities for social change. The most interesting ephemeral
architecture projects are fast-statement critical practices, collective
actions towards the creation of temporary places for encounters in an
ever-changing urban environment.
But, because these actions have to be strongly connected to longer-term
local actions, they have to be transitory phases that call for a social
transformation, for a next step. And in that sense, this is very
performative. And this is where the performative action becomes a radical
social gesture that goes far beyond the production of an aesthetic object.
These 3 days of conferences and performances will give the opportunity to
architects, urban theorists, performance artists, philosophers and
activists to root the origins of contemporary performance architecture and
to extend its potentialities regarding future art/urban strategies.
But the conference will also be an activation step for MyCityLab Brussels,
an ephemeral performance that call for longer-term actions in the Brussels
MIDI neighbourhood, this key platform of mobility in Europe. For that
reason a one-week workshop will bring architects, artists, urban
theorists, performers and volunteers to activate this camp-conference. For
complete information and workshop schedules please visit TodaysArt.be or
MyCityLab.eu


Conference 29 september 1st october

Conference speakers:
29 September:
Raum Labor [ DE ], Tor Lindstrand – Economy [ SE ], Umschichten [ DE ]
30 September:
Matteo Pasquinelli [ IT ], Bureau d’études [ FR ], Andrés Jaque [ ES ],
Jozef Wouters [ BE ], Edurne Rubio [ ES/BE ]
01 October:
Anna Rispoli [ IT/BE ], HeHe [ FR ], Julien Beller – Exyzt/6b [ FR ], Naïm
Ait-Sidhoum – Zoom Architecture/Pied La Biche [ FR ], Cécile Martin [ CA
], Jochen Dehn [ DE/FR ], Loreto Martinez Troncoso [ ES/FR ]


Workshop 22-30 September

With: Raum Labor [ DE ], Jochen Dehn [ DE/FR ], Loreto Martinez Troncoso [
ES/FR ], OST Collective [ BE ], Edurne Rubio [ ES/BE ], Cécile Martin [ CA
], Ewen Chardronnet [ FR ]

Curated by Ewen Chardronnet