Urban Scenography

A different approach to art in public space

MA Thesis Art History: Modern and Contemporary Art

University of Amsterdam

Marthe Koetsier

10667113

Supervisor: Jeroen Boomgaard

Second reader: Eva Fotiadi

June 30 2014

Table of Contents

Introduction.................................................................................................................3

Chapter 1 – Notions of the city........................................................................................7

1.1 The metropolis and mental life (Simmel).....................................................................7

1.2 The city through the eyes of the flâneur (Baudelaire and Benjamin)................................9

1.3 Walking in the city (De Certeau)..............................................................................10

Chapter 2 – Urban scenography as a concept in public art.................................................12

2.1 What is scenography?

How scenography brings its notion of space to contemporary art........................................12

2.1.1 The concept of space in exhibition making..............................................................14

2.2 Urban scenography as artistic concept in public space.................................................15

2.2.1 The city as performance space or scripted narrative.................................................15

2.2.2 Urban scenography as practical tool: creating awakening situations...........................17

2.2.3 Activist disruptions and rituals..............................................................................19

2.2.4 The urban intervention of public art.......................................................................21

2.3 Engagement with the city........................................................................................24

2.3.1 The shared experience: a physical and emotional experience....................................27

2.3.2 Engagement: creating consensus or agonistic pluralism?

Notions of solidarity in the shared experience..................................................................31

2.4 Urban scenography and the representation of the invisible...........................................34

2.4.1 Notions of illusion and the imaginable in urban scenography......................................34

2.4.2 Urban scenography and desire..............................................................................37

Chapter 3 – Constant Nieuwenhuys: New Babylon............................................................39

3.1 The concept and design of New Babylon....................................................................40

3.2 New Babylon as a model of a physical and emotional “other” space..............................46

3.3 Critique on New Babylon.........................................................................................48

Conclusion..................................................................................................................49

Bibliography................................................................................................................53

Images......................................................................................................................61

2

Introduction

When we look at today’s discussions about art, we are confronted with many different

perspectives on what art is and what place it takes or should take in our society. A lot of art

houses in conventional exhibition spaces like museums and galleries, which are often seen as

autonomous institutions that are not particularly known for their accessibility for a public who

does not make part of the “art crowd.” Recently this issue is becoming a more important item

on the agenda of Dutch museums, which are trying to attract a bigger and more diverse

audience.

Taking an interest in art in public space, I am curious about how art abides within the public

space of the contemporary city. How does it relate to the spatial environment of urban sites?

In his book Art, Space and the City (2000) Malcom Miles addresses this subject. He notes that

the term “public art” generally describes works created in or for sites of open public access. Art

has been moving out of the conventional art spaces into the public domain since the 1960’s,

and works range from monumental, sculptural objects and community murals to light

installations and performance art.1 Miles writes that public art claims to reflect on urban spaces

and to contribute to a re-envisioning and regenerating of the city. This first claim is plausible

when we look for example at the fact that public art acts in the public realm, and therefore

necessarily extends to issues like the diversity of urban cultures, the functions of public space,

the structures of power, and the relations between environment builders and urban

inhabitants.2

Nevertheless, Miles points out that the issue of public art regenerating the city remains

speculative. This is because values of contemporary art are seen independently from those of

the city. A lot of public art could be said to still live in its own bubble, still being influenced by

Modernism that imposes art to be an autonomous, aesthetic realm which acts as an alternative

to everyday life.3 The city, on the contrary, is generally said to involve user-centered strategies

for urban planning and design. When art and the city are discussed in relation to each other,

Miles argues that claims on the effectiveness of the contribution of public art on urban

sustainability and social benefits remain vague and undemonstrated, and perhaps they are

undemonstratable.4 Here I wonder what exactly is this urban development or regeneration we

seem to be looking for. How is it defined, and what does it tell us about how public art is and

can be positioned in relation to public space?

Firstly, public space is a concept that is very hard to define. In his book The Production of

Space (1974) Henri Lefebvre argues that space is a complex social construction that is formed

by an interaction between social and spatial relations. According to the writer, a space is

formed by means of the human body that perceives lives and produces.5 In other words, space

1 Miles, Malcom. Art, Space & the City. Public Art and Urban Futures. London: Routledge, 1997, p.5. 2 Idem, p. 1. 3 Idem, pp. 12-14.4 Idem, p.2. Miles refers to Selwood 1995 (study of social impact of art programs in British cities by Comedia).5 Lefebvre, Henri. The Production of Space. Trans. Donald Nicholson-Smith. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1991 [1974], pp.

13, 14, 162, and Lukasz Stanek. Henri Lefebvre on Space: Architecture, Urban Research, and the Production of Theory. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2011, p. ix.

3

constitutes of the way humans relate to it and therefore – to my understanding – does not

really seem to exist without them. Adam Kolodziej takes a comparable point of view, but refers

to urban space more specifically. He argues that the complex spatial construction of the city is

the apex of human civilization. 6 This means that not only human life and culture are the

constructors of cities, but cities also reflect the ways our civilization exists and works. On the

one hand the development of public space responds to the emotional complexity of human

behavior, on the other hand the city's spirit, also called genius loci, affects the way individuals

and communities coexist and interact in urban life. So according to Kolodziej, the city strongly

reflects the state of our society.7

Being aware of the interconnection between humans and urban environment, I am interested

in how public art interacts in between the two. I then find it important to first explore which

perceptions of contemporary urban space public art deals with. Miles and Kolodziej both argue

that public art takes place within a context of urban environment that in some respects we

believe to be subjected to decay, caused by economic and social changes made in the

seventies and eighties. Cities are considered to be rational and “practical.” Deriving from the

concept of the city as a machine, according to Kolodziej one can notice a disappearance of the

city's spirit.8

As I understand it this means that we have lost a kind of phenomenological connection with

the city, which is a connection that is based on structures of experience and consciousness. To

clarify, the opposite connection would be to see the city as a construction objects, separately

reacting upon each other. According to the writers the latter would be the ruling perspective on

the contemporary city. Up until today urban progress has been associated with urban and

economic expansion through rational planning. Perhaps under the influence of the

Enlightenment, we have compartmentalized our lives by creating cities of order and rules,

distanced from our own wastes.9 This would characterize urban inhabitants as rational, aloof

beings, driven by a capitalist economy and losing sight with their individual desires.

But Miles argues the Modernist aspirations of urban progress through economic and rational

expansion have been replaced by a post-modern cynicism, which recognizes that these

perspectives might no longer be viable in relation to the concept of public space.10 Kolodziej

argues there is a strong need for recognition of the city as a “dramatic character.” According to

the writer the city is not to be perceived as a machine, but as a living organism.11 This z shows

a moving away from approaching the city as a set of static objects constructed by commerce,

order and rationality, and a moving towards a perception based on a more intensified

emotional and physical experience and consciousness of the city – which Kolodziej claims to be

the aim of urban scenography.

In this thesis I want to explore the way public art could play a role in approaching urban public

6 Kolodziej, Adam. ‘Urban Scenography.’ 2008. http://commongroundpublishing.com. Consulted February 23 2014 <http://h08.cgpublisher.com/proposals/78/index_html>.

7 Ibidem. 8 Ibidem. 9 Miles 1997, p. 17.10 Ibidem. 11 Kolodziej <http://h08.cgpublisher.com/proposals/78/index_html> February 2014.

4

space through a different perspective, seeing that its current one has a rather negative

connotation. Public art in itself is believed to have the potential to address our perception and

experience of urban environment. I want to propose a research on urban scenography, which

is an approach to public art that specifically relates to the dramatic construction of space and

thereby claims to provide a different perspective on urban spatial environment.

Deriving from theater practice, scenography is an artistic perspective on the visual,

experiential and spatial composition of performance.12 This means the discipline deals with the

way space is constructed and experienced. This might begin to make clear how scenography

could also be valuable in researching the way public art can play a role in taking a different

perspective on public space. Joslin McKinney claims in The Cambridge Introduction to

Scenography (2009) scenography is not simply concerned with creating and presenting images

to an audience, but regards the audience reception and engagement on both a physical and

emotional level. She writes that it is a sensory as well as intellectual experience, an emotional

as well as a rational one.13 This shows that scenography might be a useful approach in

analyzing how public art could play a different role in the experience of public space.

Thea Brejzek confirms this thought. Being an approach to the composition and experience of

space, Brejzek argues that scenography claims to operate far beyond the conventional theater

environment. Besides extending its own historical notion as decorative backdrop to a text

based drama, scenography moves toward the curatorial practice of art and other artistic spatial

practices.14 Proposing to be an approach to staging spaces in theater, exhibition, installation

and architecture, Brejzek argues scenography is a particularly suitable practice in all areas of

spatial design and curating that contain elements of mise-en-scène, narrativity,

transformativity and perceived reality, which includes art in public space.15

Jekaterina Lavrinec wrote several articles on the idea that the concept of urban scenography

could be used as an analytical and practical tool in revitalizing urban space through public art.

She explains how an urban scenographic approach to public artworks reveals interconnections

between space and everyday scenarios of citizens in the city, and how this awakens the urban

inhabitant’s consciousness of his environment. It therefore has the potential to initiate an

emotional link between the citizen and the city's space. This link revitalizes public spaces,

eventually reanimating and nourishing the city’s spirit.16

Taking on this claim of urban scenography to be an approach to public art that has the poten-

tial to regenerate the city, I want to explore in this thesis what notions of urban scenography

exist in making and curating art in urban environments, and how exactly the use of urban

12 Howard, Pamela. What is Scenography? London: Routledge, 2002, p. 130.13 McKinney, Joslin. The Cambridge Introduction to Scenography. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. p. 4.14 Brejzek, Thea, ed. Expanding Scenography. On the Authoring of Space. Publication for the Scenography Expanding

1-3 Symposia, conducted in Riga, Belgrade and Évora, 2010, organized by the Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space. Prague: The Arts and Theater Institute, 2011, p. 8.

15 Ibidem. Thea Brejzek, Wolfgang Greisenegger, Lawrence Wallen, eds. Space & Desire. Scenographic Strategies in Theatre, Art and Media. Zurich: Zurich University of the Arts, 2011, p.4.

16 Lavrinec, Jekaterina. ‘Urban Scenography: Emotional and Bodily Experience’. In: Limes: Borderland Studies, Vol. 6,No. 1 (2013): pp. 21-31, p. 21.Kolodziej <http://h08.cgpublisher.com/proposals/78/index_html> February 23 2014.

5

scenography in public art could be of value within our current Western perception of public

space. My main question is therefore: How could the approach of urban scenography in public

art offer a different perspective on the contemporary city?

To answer this question, I first want to sketch out some of the notions of urban public space

that relate to the subject of public art and urban scenography. This is important because it will

shed some more light on the space that scenographic analysis addresses as well as on the con-

temporary city's critiques. Thus it might clarify the need for scenographic analysis in public art.

I will describe three different well-known perceptions of urban space according to the readings

of sociologist Georg Simmel, art critic and poet Charles Baudelaire, and philosophers Walter

Benjamin and Michel de Certeau. Although their theories originate from the nineteenth and

twentieth century, they write about a construction and perception of the city based on com-

merce, order and rationalism, which still appear to be the core of contemporary cities. Fur-

thermore, the first three writers found themselves living in times when big European cities

turned into capitalist driven places. This might have given them a specifically clear view on

how urban environment and urban inhabitants changed into what we know them to be today.

I will then expound on scenography itself, by researching how it can be seen as a concept in

contemporary art and how it is used in curating our most “public” exhibition space, the city.

In a case study of Constant Nieuwenhuys' re-envisioning urban art project New Babylon will

explore notions of scenography within this work specifically. Ultimately I wonder about the

effect of urban scenography's approach to public art in shaping spaces of experience and

engagement in urban environment. Do these experiences intervene with everyday life by

awakening our consciousness of our surroundings? Or do scenographic strategies break with

everyday life through the representation of the invisible and imaginable, creating an illusionary

environment?

6

Chapter 1. N otions of the city

1.1 The metropolis and mental life

Researching the position of urban scenography in public art, I think it is inevitable to take note

of the sociology based approach to our idea of the city and how it affects us. To set a clear

outline to the context of urban scenography we ought to look at our perception and critiques

concerning public space in contemporary cities, in order to explore in which ways public art is

and could be positioned in it. Sociologist Georg Simmel's (1858-1918) essay ‘The Metropolis

and Mental Life’ (1903)17 offers an interesting framework because it focuses on the human

perception of the city: the relation between the individual and “the outside.” Being one of

Simmel’s most influential and timeless essays, it describes the construction and influence of

the city on the mental state of its inhabitants, thereby giving some insight in the way urban

environment is processed by humans. As urban scenography claims to reveal the

interconnections between space and everyday scenarios that take place in the city, Simmel's

observations can give some insight in what these scenarios might entail and how we behave in

them. This could pinpoint our position in the contemporary city and thus make more sense of

the specific approach urban scenography takes within our perception of urban environment.

In addition, Simmel understands the metropolis as a concept beyond its physical boundaries.

According to the sociologist the city constitutes of the totality of effects which temporally and

spatially transcend from it. He not only perceives the city as the location of modernity, but as a

way of recognizing urban environment as an experience,18 a point of view urban scenography

also claims to take.

According to Simmel, the deepest problems of urban life derive from the attempt of the

individual to maintain his independence and individuality against the weight of the sovereign

powers of society, historical heritage and the external culture and technique of life.19 This

means the psychological foundation of the urban inhabitant is formed by a continuous meeting

between both internal and external impulses. The mind is continually stimulated by former and

present impressions. While lasting and regular impressions of low contrast – for example those

of small town or rural life – take less energy to process, Simmel explains that the striking and

ever changing images produced by the city are unexpected and more violent impulses. The

tempo and multiplicity of images that appear to the urban inhabitant as he walks the streets

form the foundation of his mental life.20

Simmel then argues that being exposed to these thousands of visual modifications, the

metropolitan character creates a protective organ to protect his inner life against the

disruptions of external life that threaten it. Instead of reacting emotionally he primarily reacts

17 Simmel, Georg Simmel. ‘The Metropolis and Mental Life.’ In: Gary Bridge, Sophie Watson, eds. The Blackwell City Reader. Oxford and Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2002 [1903]: pp. 11-19.

18 Borden, Ian. ‘Space Beyond. Spatiality and the City in the Writings of Georg Simmel.’ In: The Journal of Architecture (revised version), Vol. 2 (Winter 1997): pp.313-35, Abstract p. i. Retrieved from <http://www.academia.edu/4247287/Space_Beyond_Space_and_the_City_in_the_Writings_of_Georg_Simmel> May 26 2014, and Simmel 2002 [1903], p. 17.

19 Simmel 2002 [1903], p. 11.20 Idem, pp. 11-12.

7

rationally, which to some extent numbs his sensitivity and removes him somewhat from his

personality as a way of protecting it from the domination of the city. This mental predominance

causes the mental life of the metropolitan character to appear essentially intellectualistic.21

Furthermore Simmel argues that the metropolis has always been intertwined with the money-

economy, as it is the place where commercial activity takes place. What the domination of

intellect and capitalism have in common is a purely matter-of-fact attitude to the treatment of

both people and things. Characterized by calculability, impersonality, rationality and

maintaining intellectual relationships, life in the city is very closely connected with its

capitalistic and intellectualistic personality.22

How does this attitude and behavior of the urban inhabitant interfere with his perception and

experience of the city? A couple of years later Simmel would write that “the interpersonal

relationships of people in big cities are characterized by a markedly emphasis on the use of the

eyes.”23 In ‘The Metropolis of Mental Life’ he already starts to describe how the metropolitan

mentality influences the perception of urban surroundings. The emphasis on the eyes would

not mean a clearer view on urban environment, but instead a more superficial observation of

passers-by and urban sites. Simmel argues a blasé outlook of the metropolitan type is the first

consequence of the rapidly shifting and contrasting impressions. The essence of this attitude is

an indifference toward distinctions between objects. Not in the sense that they are not

perceived – which would be mental dullness – but rather that the meaning and value of

distinctions between things, and therewith the things themselves, are experienced as

meaningless.24 Ironically this reserved and indifferent attitude of the urban dweller toward his

fellow citizens are the most visible in dense crowds. According to Simmel, precisely the

physical closeness through a lack of space in the city makes intellectual distance clearly

visible.25

Having described some of the relations between urban inhabitants and their everyday

surroundings according to Simmel’s writings, we can note that these interconnections do not

necessarily have a positive connotation. As urban scenography aims to undermine the rational

and superficial perception of the city, we can begin to see that it is here where this specific

approach to public art could be useful in taking on a more conscious perception of the city. One

of the first notions of a less passive urban dweller comes forward in the representation of the

flâneur, an imaginary character who wanders around in the upcoming capitalist city and

actively observes his surroundings.

21 Simmel 2002 [1903], p. 11. 22 Idem, pp. 12-13.23 Ganz, James A. Impressionist Paris: City of Light. [tent.cat.]. San Francisco: Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco,

2010, p. 19. Ganz refers to Georg Simmel, Mélanges de philosophie rélativiste: Contribution à la culture philosophique. Trans. Alix Guillain. Paris, 2012, pp. 26-27.

24 “Seated in an economy of commerce, money can be said to have taken away quantitative distinctions and has become a denominator of value.” In: Simmel 2002 [1903], p. 14.

25 Simmel 2002 [1903], p. 16.

8

1.2 The city through the eyes of the flâneur

The flâneur is a literary figure from 19th century France, who represents the newly experienced

anonymity in the rising capitalist city. He was described by Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867)

and Walter Benjamin (1892-1940)26 and embodies the new kind of freedom that was

experienced in the modern cities of tis age. The crowd being his natural surrounding, the

flâneur is a casual wanderer who anonymously observes the street life of the city. As a way of

experiencing the city he perceives his surroundings with a certain detachment or diffused gaze,

treating urban scenes as spectacles.27 However, his perception is a little more nuanced than

Simmel's blasé outlook. The flâneur is able to encounter the city differently through this non-

focus. There is more space for his imagination, as Benjamin argues that the division between

reality and illusion fades in the flamboyant visualities of the modern city.28 Furthermore,

although lead by attractions, the flâneur combines his curiosity toward everyday scenes with

his physical experience in perceiving the city.29 This means he approaches his surroundings

with a certain level of emotional and physical consciousness.

As urban scenography aims to create a more emotional and physical conscious perception of

the city, I want to propose connecting the concept of urban scenography to the practice of

flânerie, considering the concept as a possible influence on urban scenography. Because as

Lavrinec describes in her article ‘From a 'Blind Walker' to an 'Urban Curator': Initiating

“Emotionally Moving Situations” in Public Spaces’ (2011), flânerie is exactly the method for

establishing a sensitive approach to the everyday city. This is because experiencing the city like

the flâneur requires an intensive reflection on the existing routines and structures that appear

to him in the public space of the city. The flâneur crosses different everyday paths of people

who are working or enjoying leisure time, choses his own paths through them and thereby

invents new routes for himself.30

Thus the flâneur is more active in experiencing his urban surroundings than just passively

strolling. He is sensitive to his physical experience of the city, constructing the different

routines, vistas, sounds, smells and tastes together to his own understanding of his

surroundings. His perception of the city also includes memories, dreams and emotions, as well

as his ability to describe the impressions and atmospheres as how he relates to them. This

means his self-awareness is raised, and he is somewhat pushed to take a position toward his

own individuality amidst the urban spectacle of the nineteenth century. This is how he explores

his own perception of the city.31

26 Baudelaire, Charles. ‘The Painter of Modern Life.’ In: Charles Baudelaire. Charles Baudelaire. Selected Writings on Art and Literature. Trans. P.E. Charvet. London: Penguin, 1972 [1863]: pp. 390-435.Walter Benjamin. ‘Paris: The Capital of the Nineteenth Century.’ Trans. New Left Review. In: Perspecta, Vol. 12 (1969) [1935, 1939]: pp. 165-172.

27 Ibidem. 28 Benjamin, Walter. The Arcades Project. Trans. Howard Eiland and Kevin McLaughlin. London and Cambridge, MA:

Belknap Press, 1999 [1927-1940], p. 21.29 Lavrinec, Jekaterina. ‘From a “Blind Walker” to an “Urban Curator”: Initiating “Emotionally Moving Situations” in

Public Spaces.’ In: Limes: Cultural Regionalistics, Vol. 4, No. 1 (2011a): 54-63, p. 55.30 Ibidem. 31 Ibidem.

9

1.3 Walking in the City

Having discussed the concept of the flâneur, we are getting closer to a view on the city that

leaves more room for a reflexive emotional and physical experience of the city walker, like the

approach of urban scenography claims to do. Philosopher Michel de Certeau (1925-1986) also

recognizes a potential in the city walker to give new meaning to urban settings. He describes

his view in his book The practice of Everyday Life (1984), which I want to address here

because it seems to resemble the approach of urban scenography.

De Certeau argues that urban inhabitants should stop identifying with their surroundings and

model behaviors and should be critical toward existing scenarios in urban space, in order to

invent new ones. He critiques what he calls “blind walking,” a non-reflexive use of urban space

for which Miles and Simmel describe the outlines, to then bring forward the potential of a more

reflexive attitude toward city space that is also considered to be the foundation of urban

scenography.32

De Certeau poses a notion of the city as dynamic text, which is being written by citizens

through their everyday practices that he says to be necessarily spatial. However, he argues

that normally urban inhabitants perceive the city without really seeing it. As an elementary

form of experiencing the city, inhabitants walk through urban environments. But their bodies

follow the “urban text” they write without being able to read it themselves. As De Certeau

illustrates: “Their knowledge of [space] is as blind as that of lovers in each other’s arms.”33

In her article ‘From a “Blind Walker” to an “Urban Curator”: Initiating “Emotionally Moving

Situations” in Public Spaces” (2011) Jekaterina Lavrinec makes more sense of De Certeau's

line of thought by describing how for a wandering inhabitant the city emerges as spatial

configurations of obstacles and their absence, like street curbs, crowds, puddles or

construction sights. They influence the routes, rhythms and bodily experience of the walker,

proposing better or worse moving conditions. This practical knowledge about the city is

embedded in the spatial structures of the city, formed by power structures like politics or a

more concrete example: city planners.34 Lavrinec tries to illustrate here how urban inhabitants

automatically walk through the city, without realizing how their paths are affected by urban

structures and objects.

However, De Certeau does not think urban surroundings and the routines of everyday life have

a dominant effect on the city walker. Power structures might be oppressive, but ultimately they

are not able to completely control the spontaneous and creative energies of urban

inhabitants.35 De Certeau then wonders how a reflexive position toward the everyday urban

surrounding could be established. Recognizing everyday life as the site of power structures and

32 Lavrinec 2011a, p. 57.33 Certeau, Michel de. The Practice of Everyday Life. Trans. Steven Rendall. Berkeley, CA: University of California

Press, 2002 [1984], p. 93.34 Lavrinec 2011a, p. 55.

De Certeau 2002 [1984], pp. 98-99.35 Sommer, Moritz. ‘Is Everyday Life Best Understood as Site For Creative Agency or Structural Determination?

Assessing Certeau's reaction to Foucault.’ Essay MSc Political Sociology, London School of Economics and Political Science, January 18 2013. Retrieved from <http://www.academia.edu/3400838/Assessing_de_Certeaus_reaction_to_Foucault> April 17 2014, p.7.De Certeau 2002 [1984], pp. xiv-xv.

10

inequalities, he poses that actually the very “ordinary” practices of everyday life – like walking,

dwelling, cooking and talking – are the creative resistances of people.36 Individuals navigate

through life in their own way, through for example streets, newspapers and television, thereby

changing existing rules, structures and territories. De Certeau calls the use or consumption of

these everyday practices “tactics.” They provide obstacles to ruling hegemonies, and allow a

developing of individuality. Through them citizens invent their own ways of living everyday life,

referring to the original French title of De Certeau's book, L'invention du Quotidien: we create

our own everyday life. From this perspective, resistance to indifference toward urban

environment is everywhere.37

In chapter VII 'Walking in the City' De Certeau expounds on the practice of walking specifically.

As an opposition to the non-reflexive blind walking, he first poses the totalizing, elevated

perspective of the all-seeing eye, which grasps the urban “text” seen all at once. However, this

perspective also appears to be blind in the sense that what the urban inhabitant sees is only a

representation of urban life: this panoptic view is seen from on high as an abstract geometrical

spatial design.38 Instead, the urban walker's city down below has the potential to offer a more

reflexive perspective. The walking citizen makes spatial order exist, so like actors on stage,

pedestrians can make parts of the city disappear and exaggerate others. To the Certeau,

walking is a tactic through which pedestrians can survive and resist the strategy of the

environment which is planned by those in power.39 It is this reflexive walker, “choreographing”

his way through the city, who touches the essence of the conscious approach of urban

scenography to public space.

Through the perspectives of Simmel, Baudelaire, Benjamin and De Certeau I have tried to set

a framework for our understanding of the contemporary city: the site of public art and urban

scenography. The city appears to us as ever changing and contrasting images that cross the

eye, and we process them in different ways. Clearly all writers seem to suggest that the

controversies, spectacle, rationality, consumerism and routines of the modern city make us

respond indifferent to our surroundings and fellow citizens. Regarding this specific form of

urban decay, they speculate about a character that is able to re-envision urban environment.

This would be an inhabitant who is critical toward the structures and paths of everyday life,

thereby revitalizing both public space and his individual experience of the city.

Thinking about such a character, the approach of urban scenography in public art comes to the

fore. It is believed to address the urban inhabitant’s consciousness of his urban surroundings,

aiming to refocus his perspective and thereby revitalizing public space. Therefore I now want

to research what notions of urban scenography exist in making and curating public art and how

exactly it claims to change the perspective of urban inhabitants.

36 De Certeau 2002 [1984], p. xviii.37 Idem, pp. xiv, xix-xx, and Sommer 2012, p. 7.38 De Certeau 2002 [1984], pp. 91-98.

Lavrinec 2011a, pp. 54-55.39 Bryant-Bertail, Sarah. Space and Time in Epic Theater: The Brechtian Legacy. Rochester, NY: Camden House;

Boydell & Brewer Inc., 2000, p. 12.

11

Chapter 2. Urban scenography as a concept in public art

2.1 What is scenography? How sceno graphy takes its notion of space into the field of

contemporary art

In What is Scenography? (2002) Pamela Howard defines scenography – a practice originated in

theater – as the “seamless synthesis of space, text, research, art, actors, directors and

spectators that contributes to an original creation.”40 This definition describes scenography as

the visualization of a dramatic text or idea, translated in a scene or performance space. The

term derives from the Greek sceno-grafika which is generally understood as “the writing of the

stage space.” Scenography could be seen as the materialization of the imagination,41 which

indicates that scenography’s practice is about the construction of meaning in theater.42

According to Howard and Joslin McKinney, writer of The Cambridge Introduction to

Scenography (2009), scenography is not only a practice in which individual elements form the

composition or design of a performance. McKinney argues it could also be seen as an artistic

perspective on the visual, experiential and spatial composition of performance. 43 This means

scenography concerns the reception and engagement of the audience, constructing a physical

as well as emotional experience. In other words, it is about perceiving performance space not

only as a physical place but also as a concept that is more metaphorical, formed by both

experience and imagination of the spectator. Howard notes that this is why space is the first

and most important material – and challenge – in scenography. Space is translated and

adapted to be linked with an artistic concept or idea, to create a suggestive space, and to

create meaning.44

In Space and Desire. Scenographic Strategies in Theatre, Art and Media (2011) Thea Brejzek

introduces scenography as a study of space. Its practice has moved into other disciplines such

as contemporary art. According to Brejzek, this is caused by a major paradigmatic shift that

originated in the 1990's and changed the way theater practice relates towards authenticity,

liveness and mediatization45. This change derived from a rise of documentary practices, media

technologies and internet in the field of performance, which implement fragments of urban

existence into the theater space.46 Internationally, scenographers, performers and directors are

experimenting with urban intervention, digital performance and mixed media formats, which is

how they extend the conventional theater space into spaces of action, participation and

critique, Brejzek argues. The single illusionary spaces of the historical stage are replaced by

multidisciplinary spaces that have a more metaphorical and virtual character and contain

elements of seduction, but also of disillusionment and critique.47 This means that performance

spaces are constructed in a way that they do not only take the spectator into the realm of

40 Howard 2002, p. 130. 41 Howard quotes scenographer Jozef Ciller.42 Howard 2002, pp. 125, xiii-xv.43 McKinney 2009, p. 4.44 Howard 2002, p. 1.45 Refers to the increasing role of the media.46 Brejzek et al. 2011, p.5. 47 Ibidem.

12

fairytale-like illusion and imagination, but also create spaces that are constructed of both

realistic and imaginary elements through which they could provide critical perspectives.

I want to note here that Brejzek's “single illusionary space” opposed to the multi-layered space

is a way of perceiving performance practice rather black-and-white. However, we do have the

ability to place this development in history after the actionist performance art of the sixties and

seventies. Ever since then theater has been intertwining increasingly with the public spaces of

urban life which provide performance with some critical intent. This being said, the elements of

illusion and critique add to our understanding of staging spaces, and I believe it is here where

scenography's potential within the field of contemporary art comes to the surface. The practice

addresses the construction of space and has the ability to unravel it.

Thus as a concept in performance, scenography has changed and made itself adaptable to

other fields of spatial design. With an emphasis on the performative elements of space, 48

spatial design has moved toward “staged gestures of spatiality,” as Brejzek calls it. 49 It is an

approach in which spaces are conceptualized, constructed and realized to create meaning and

experience. This is why scenography can be used as a transdisciplinary design strategy within

as well as outside the conventional theater environment, like in art, architecture and public

space. Through this reading Brejzek describes the scenographer not as someone who

visualizes scripted narrative in a space, but rather as an author who constructs a space

through creating situations, interaction and communication.50

In Narrative Spaces: On the Art of Exhibiting (2012) Frank den Oudsten and Suzanne Mulder

argue that the moving of scenography out of theatrical practice coincides with developments in

the art world.51 They refer to the book The Experience Economy: Work is Theater & Every

Business a Stage (1999) in which B. Joseph Pine II and James H. Gilmore predicted an era in

which experience would become a commodity. In their view the consumer was going to want

more than a product, he would want experience.52 This also became apparent in the growing

interest of the art world in offering experiences. The theatrical exhibitions that were designed

in museums and elsewhere from the late 1990's onward have become generally associated

with this trend. Mulder notes that the stage-managed exhibitions by a new generation of

scenographers show an interesting development in this respect.53 54

48 Concerning the construction and expression of objects.49 Brejzek et al. 2011, p.4.50 Ibidem. 51 Kossmann, Herman, Suzanne Mulder, Frank den Oudsten, Narrative Spaces: On the art of Exhibiting, Rotterdam:

010 Publishers, 2012, p. 10.52 Pine, Joseph B., James H. Gilmore. The experience Economy. Work is Business and Every Theatre a Stage. Boston,

MA : Harvard Business Review Press, 2011 [1999]. 53 Kossmann et al. 2012, pp. 150, 155.54 Earlier on art exhibition has seen some interesting examples of these “narrative spaces” as well, mainly between

1920 and 1940. The avant-garde of this period, such as the surrealist movement, used the exhibition as a way to express their views on art itself. They wanted to express new insights and evoke new experiences. Artists tried to transform the traditional, neutral exhibition area into an environment that embodied their ideology. The surrealists traced back all art to the unconscious. As a reaction to the current dominance of rational thought, they posed the principle of free association, like is experienced in the consciousness of dreams. This specific view could be seen in their exhibition making. For example, Marcel Duchamp created exhibitions that looked like strange suggestive, dreamlike worlds (exhibition of 1938 of surrealist art in Paris). In: Kossmann et al. 2012, pp. 147-150.

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2.1.1 The concept of space in exhibition making

With this specific approach to space scenography has been translated into the practice of

contemporary art. Since a couple of decades space has been used as a material in curating

exhibitions. In her MA thesis Scenography as New Ideology in Contemporary Curating and the

Notion of Staging in Exhibitions (2013) Margaret Choi Kwan Lam writes that recently

scenography is developing itself as a phenomenon in the exhibition scene of the art world.

Scenography acts in the field of contemporary curating and is presumed to announce a radical

ideological shift in this practice. As Choi Kwan Lam explains it, it indicates an increasing

awareness of the notion of staging experiences in the way that the physical spaces for art are

more and more perceived as metaphorical stages – as has been argued above – including

different concepts like authorship, architectural embodiment, layered narrative, experience,

dramaturgy and expressions of new media.55

I think Carson Chan gives a clear image of what this staging of experience and expression

entails in curating today. In his article 'Measures of an Exhibition: Space, Not Art, Is the

Curator's Primary Material' he expounds on the notion of space as a material in exhibition

making. According to Chan space has become the independent curator’s autonomous object of

study by specifically illuminating the physical experience and expression of the exhibition

space. Chan here proposes the curator as an auteur, who has come to use space as his

primary material. In creating an exhibition experience the curator considers the exhibition

space’s scenography, socio-historical context, audience and infrastructure: the aesthetic and

intellectual scope of the space. The experience of the exhibition is formed individually within

each spectator as he moves about in the space,56 although his perception can be

choreographed by the curator in a way that best conveys both the exhibition’s and the artists’

intentions.57 Natalie Heinich and Michael Pollak appear to think accordingly. In their article

'From Museum Curator to Exhibition Auteur: Inventing a Singular Position' they point out how

the exhibition space turned into an artwork itself, due to the transformation of the role of the

curator.58 Noting this relevancy of scenography as a study of space in contemporary art, could

this notion of scenography also be found in curating art in public space, the sites of urban

environment?

55 Choi Kwan Lam, Margaret . ‘Scenography as New Ideology in Contemporary Curating and the Notion of Staging in Exhibitions.’ Dissertation MA Curating Contemporary Design, Kingston University London in partnership with the Design Museum, September 2013. Retrieved from <http://online.fliphtml5.com/wojf/ynmk/#p=1> March 2 2014, p. ii.

56 Chan, Carson. 'Measures of an Exhibition: Space, Not Art, Is the Curator’s Primary Material.’ In: Fillip, Vol. 13 (Spring 2011). Retrieved from <http://fillip.ca/content/measures-of-an-exhibition> January 8 2014. Chan refers toCharlotte Klonk. Spaces of Experience: Art Gallery Interiors from 1800 to 2000. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009.

57 Chan 2011. Also referred to by me in: Koetsier, Marthe. ‘Art & Space.’ Essay for seminar Thinking Modern and Contemporary Art by Eva Fotiadi, MA Art History, University of Amsterdam, January 21 2014, pp. 8-9.

58 Heinich, Natalie, Michael Pollak. 'From Museum Curator to Exhibition Auteur: Inventing a Singular Position.' In: Reesa Greenberg, Bruce Ferguson, Sandy Nairne, eds. Thinking about Exhibitions. London and New York: Routledge, 1996, p. 231.

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2.2 Urban scenography as artistic concept in public space

2.2.1 The city as performance space or scripted narrative

Projecting the concept of scenography on the mise-en-scène of the city, the concept of urban

scenography could be seen as an artistic perspective on the visual, experiential and spatial

composition of public space. In her article 'Urban Scenography: Emotional and Bodily

Experience' (2013) Jekaterina Lavrinec argues its approach could be used to deconstruct

existing power structures59 embedded in urban sights by revealing the interconnections

between urban life and public space.60 Considering this to be a viable argument, urban

scenography could be interpreted as a critique on Simmel's rather pessimistic outlook on the

urban inhabitant, who is supposedly controlled by a blasé outlook and rationality. Here urban

scenography addresses the potential of the urban inhabitant or spectator to perceive the city

through a different perspective.

Taking a closer look at Lavrinec's argumentation, she proposes a link between urban

scenography and the theories of De Certeau on the potential of the urban walker formulated in

The Practice of Everyday Life.61 Both awaken the citizen's consciousness to perceiving public

space not only as monumental surroundings of the city, but to the idea that urban sites

planned by panoptic powers actually construct and choreograph our everyday lives – although

we can put up resistance to it. Lavrinec argues that theoretically, urban scenography aims to

give an analysis of urban reality and proposes an experience of the city that is double layered:

it is a physical as well as emotional experience.62 The spatial configurations of the city produce

certain possibilities for the urban walker, who can therefore choose to be an active interpreter

of urban space. He can passively follow spatial instructions, or he can start developing

alternative scenarios or routes.63 The urban wanderer can thereby take a more conscious,

individual and critical stance toward the dynamic configurations of urban elements that form

one of the bases for his everyday life, and create new perspectives. Through this approach the

urban walker is able to see the city not as a practical phenomenon constructed by static

objects and structures, but is he able to construct it with his individual visualization and

imagination, thereby feeding the city's spirit – its genius loci.64

Now I want to consider that theoretically the approach of urban scenography could be

described as perceiving public space as a kind of performance space, which is not an

ungrounded idea if we look back at De Certeau's theories of public space. As seen in the

theatrical background of the term, scenography derives from a historical tradition of linking

imagery and text, vision and meaning. This graphic condition is based on the visual translation

59 In urban scenography to be understood as structures of politics, sociology, culture and gender, or a more concrete example: city planners and architects.

60 Lavrinec 2013, p. 21.61 Idem, pp. 21-22.62 Lavrinec refers to McKinney 2009, p. 4.63 Lavrinec 2013, p. 22.64 This last issue will be addressed separately later in this thesis.

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of text in space,65 and can be compared to De Certeau's understanding of the city as dynamic

text which is being written by citizens through their everyday practices. According to his

argumentation these everyday practices are embedded in urban spaces, but also have the

ability to change its shape. In moving around through the city, between work, home and

leisure, people organize and obstruct places every day. This means that they select and link

spaces, making sentences and itineraries out of them. This is how the constellation of urban

elements, which De Certeau calls “spatial syntax”, can be said to have a narrative structure.66

In her master Thesis City as Narrative in Introducing the New Midway: A Study in Urban

Scenography (2006) Nuria Montblanch also gives insight in the idea of the city as a

performance space. She describes how every city contains millions of conditions for different

kinds of narratives. Like in a theatrical performance, these stories are being told by different

characters that evolve through interactions, changing emotions, time and space.67 Lavrinec

writes accordingly that different movements encourage individual “choreographies” of the city

walkers.68 They are formed by the interplay between the human body and everyday settings of

urban environment.

According to my understanding this makes the city comparable to a performative space as

well: it is the overall expression of the construction of different realities of different individuals.

The physical dynamics of individual the urban walker, perceivable as choreography, are

performed in the space of the urban environment, perceivable as the staged narrative.69

Kolodziej's approach to urban scenography underlines this notion of urban space. He writes: “It

stems from the visualization of life’s script, told by our history, cultural context and, most

interestingly, from our emotional needs.”70

As analytical approach urban scenography is a particular field of expertise and way of thinking

that draws parallels with dramaturgy. But where the dramaturg is oversensitive to visual and

sensorial composition of space and structures it through its spatiality and temporality, I think

urban scenography takes a slightly different approach. The foundation of its method becomes

visible in De Certeau's argumentation, in which he describes a specific approach to spatial

environments. While in a city different narratives are continuously building, De Certeau notes

that normally the urban walker (the “blind walker”) does not pay any attention to everyday

urban environment, until he is mentally detached from his surroundings – even for a short

moment. So he proposes that the urban walker stops identifying with his surroundings, routine

65 Donger, Simon. ‘Gloom. Scenography as praxis of imperceptibility.’ Submission to PHD, The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, University of London, 2012. Retrieved from <http://crco.cssd.ac.uk/456/1/Gloom_Scenography_as_Praxis_of_Imperceptibility.pdf> May 4 2014.

66 De Certeau 2002 [1984], p. 115.Next to urban curating also other fields use this narrative analysis, for example architectural theory. The discipline attempts to see our physical trajectories through buildings as virtual narratives or dynamic paths of which visitors are asked to fulfill and to complete with their bodies and movements. In: Lavrinec 2013, p. 24: refers to Fredric Jameson 1990, p. 43.

67 Montblanch, Nuria. ‘Introducing the New Midway: A Study in Urban Scenography.’ Abstract from MA Thesis Architecture, Dalhousie University, Canada, 2006. Retrieved from <http://www.nuriamontblanch.com/Urban-Scenography> March 24 2014.

68 Lavrinec 2013, p. 22.69 Idem, p. 25.70 Kolodziej <http://h08.cgpublisher.com/proposals/78/index_html> February 23 2014.

16

scenarios and behaviors in order to rethink the composition of space.71 This is how he is able to

take a more reflexive position toward existing urban scenarios and invent new ones. It is a

certain technique of defamiliarization to establish an active reinterpretation of everyday

choreography, a task which Lavrinec ascribes to the urban scenographer, or “urban curator”, as

she calls him.72

2.2.2 Urban scenography as practical tool – Creating awakening situations

As theoretical approach the aims of urban scenography are evident. But how is this

detachment from everyday scenarios and imposed structures, like described by De Certeau,

actually brought into practice within urban scenography's approach to public art?

In ‘From Blind Walker to Urban Curator’ Lavrinec points out that the concept of detachment is

quite close to the ideas of the Situationist International, an international organization of social

revolutionaries that was active from 1957 to its dissolution in 1972. The Situationists aimed to

establish a creative distance from their everyday urban surroundings.73 De Certeau's notion of

the scripted narrative embedded in urban sites by power structures can be compared to the

Situationist's central theory of “the spectacle”, developed by Guy Debord in his book The

Society of the Spectacle (1967).74 The term refers to the superficial existence of the modern

city, that introduced itself in the twenties with its commerce, mass media, fetishism of

commodities and alienation. In these cities of spectacles – which were strongly criticized by the

Situationists – commerce and commodities rule urban inhabitants and turn them into

consumers. The Situationists rebelled against being passive subjects of the spectacle. One of

their techniques to establish distance between them and their everyday urban surroundings

was “drifting” (dérive).75

As Lavrinec describes, drifting as a research practice is based on the recognition of the

interconnection between urban settings and the physical as well as emotional experience of the

citizen, and a need for a critical perspective on this relation.76 Debord describes that “in a

dérive one or more persons during a certain period drop their relations, work and leisure

activities, and all their other usual motives for movement and action, and let themselves be

drawn by the attractions of the terrain and encounters they find there.”77 Through this

technique they attempt to resist routine scenarios established by urban planning. Debord

emphasized that drifting is different from an everyday stroll, as it involves playful behavior and

awareness of psycho-geographical effects.” 78 Lavrinec notes that in some respects drifting

71 De Certeau 2002 [1984], pp. xiv, xix-xx.Montblanch 2006.

72 Lavrinec 2011a, p. 57.73 Plant, Sadie. The Most Radical Gesture: The Situationist International in a Postmodern Age. New York: Routledge,

1992.74 Debord, Guy. The Society of the Spectacle. Trans. Black & Red. Detroit: Black & Red, 1970 [1967]. 75 Debord, Guy. ‘Theory of the Dérive.’ In: Ken Knabb, ed. Situationist International Anthology. Berkeley, CA: Bureau

of Public Secrets, 2006 [1956]. Retrieved from <http://www.cddc.vt.edu/sionline/si/theory.html> April 29 2014.76 Lavrinec 2013, p. 22.77 Debord 2006 [1956]. 78 The effects of the geographical environment, consciously organized or not, on the emotions and behavior of

individuals. Guy Debord. ‘Introduction to a Critique of Urban Geography.’ In: Ken Knabb, ed. Situationist International Anthology. Berkeley: Bureau of Public Secrets, 2006 [1955]. Retrieved from <http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/urbgeog.htm> April 29 2014. Lavrinec 2011a, p. 56. Refers to Debord [1956].

17

reminds of Benjamin's flânerie. But where the Situationists drifted in groups to come to more

objective perspectives through cross-checking, Benjamin argues that solitude is the most

important condition of flânerie because it results in more personal views.79

The Situationists ultimate aim was to create provocative and disturbing urban settings, which

would then encourage citizens to invent their own scenarios, different from those proposed by

“the spectacle” or the power structures of the modern city. Lavrinec points out that the drift in

itself is not a self-sufficient act, but rather the preparation for a resistance of everyday life. It

intends to create awareness of the territory where further radical changes were thought to

take place.80

So drifting actually appears to be a technique of an initial exploration of the structures of urban

settings. The Situationists also developed the concept of “détournement”, which was a more

active method to create a reflexive attitude toward everyday surroundings and scenarios – and

which also moves closer to the essence of urban scenography's practice in public art. Debord

and artist Gil J. Wolman developed this concept, which can be seen as a rethinking of urban

scenarios through deconstructing urban structures initiated by disturbing perspectives and

situations. Artistic productions were a main playing field of these détournements, as its

expression could bring new decompositions to light.81 Debord and Wolman wrote in 1956 that if

détournements were extended to public space, these had the potential to reconstruct whole

neighborhoods or even entire cities. They argued: “Life can never be too disorienting:

détournement on this level would really spice it up.”82 In terms of the physical sites of public

space, the idea that existing architectural forms could be “détrourned” turned into the

Situationist concept of “unitary architecture”, which critiqued the controls of non-

transformative architecture and city planning. Instead it proposed a permanent transformation

and reconstruction of the city in temporal and spatial terms.83

In The Situationist City (1999) Simon Sadler points out that the Situationists ultimately wanted

to create unpredictable and deconstructing situations within the sphere of artistic practices. He

explains that these situations would clearly be some sort of performances with such a strong

presence in public space that they would move people to new sorts of behavior based on

interaction and play.84 Sadie Plant adds in her book The Most Radical Gesture: The Situationist

International in a Postmodern Age (1992) that the situations the organization aimed for were

moments that were meant to reawaken urban inhabitants by motivating them to get in touch

79 Lavrinec 2011a, p. 56. Refers to Walter Benjamin, The Arcades Project. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 1999, p. 805.

80 Lavrinec 2011a, pp. 56-57.81 Situationist International. ‘Détournement as Negation and Prelude.’ Trans. Ken Knabb. In: Internationale

Situationniste, Vol. 3 (1959). Retrieved from <http://library.nothingness.org/articles/SI/en/display/315> May 4 2014.

82 Debord, Guy, Gil J. Wolman. 'A User’s Guide to Détournement.’ Trans. Ken Knabb. In: Situationist International Anthology. Berkeley, CA: Bureau of Public Secrets, 2006 [1956]. Retrieved from <http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/detourn.htm> May 4 2014.

83 Chardronnet, Ewen. The History of Unitary Urbanism and Psychogeography at the Turn of the Sixties. Examples and Comments of Contemporary Psychogeography. Lecture notes conference, Riga Art & Communication Festival, May 2003. Retrieved from <http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/ewen-chardronnet-the-history-of-unitary-urbanism-and-psychogeography-at-the-turn-of-the-sixties> May 4 2014.

84 Lavrinec 2011a, p. 58. Refers to Simon Sadler. The Situationist City. Cambridge, MA and London: MIT Press, 1998,p. 105.

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with their authentic desires. They were to experience a feeling of liberation and adventure.85

Anything that could disturb the ordered world capitalism and labor – from poetry and political

theory to free play – would help to defeat the elements of order and “spectacle” in modern

cities.86

The upheavals of 1968 in France are seen as constructed situations that were intertwined with

the ideologies of the Situationists. Although it is difficult to point out to what extent the

Situationists had influence on these actions, the movement can be said to have moved people

to initiate these situations or to have had a direct impact on the happening of the events. The

vocabulary, tactics and aims of the upheavals fully expressed the ideas of the Situationists.87

The events were mainly acted out by students in the streets of Paris (images 1 and 2). The

actions brought elements of play, festivity, spontaneity, carelessness and imagination into the

realm of human behavior in public space. Participants tried to create situations in which life

was considered an exciting game. This was one of their main tactics to mock and provoke

capitalist structures. Although the students desperately tried to distinguish themselves from

the working population, all the other roles and rules of the capitalist city were rejected. The

slogans “Never work!” clearly showed a rejection of the dominating life of labor and commerce.

According to Plant the upheavals were something that the Situationists and their predecessors

had dreamed about for years.88

Lavrinec argues that for the Situationists urban art interventions provided a good method of

creating physically and emotionally moving situations. By disturbing their everyday paths and

behaviors, the Situationists could create a reflexive distance from their routines and create

space for new perspectives on the construction of their lives, shaped by the cities they live in.89

But although a series of happenings and events occurred, both Lavrinec and Plant note that

the Situationists did not convincingly succeed in realizing their plans of creating disruptive

situations or defeating the urban everyday life as it then occurred. However, they believed their

involvement with the upheavals of 1968 helped a revolution on its way.90 Leaving this up for

debate, can we recognize these kinds of disruptions within the practice of urban scenography

in the contemporary field of art in public space?

2.2.3 Activist disruptions and rituals

Turning to the contemporary city, Lavrinec poses the concept of “urban curator” in her

exploration of recent notions of urban scenography in public space. With this term she refers to

the urban inhabitant who has the potential to take a different perspective on everyday life and

is able to create disruptions or new “choreographies” in these routines. According to the writer,

the approach of urban scenography can be used as a tool in creating these urban

85 Plant, Sadie. The Most Radical Gesture: The Situationist International in a Postmodern Age. New York: Routledge, 1992, pp. 10, 101.

86 Idem, p. p.5.87 Idem, p. 94.

Although there were also a lot of violent protests and riots during the 1968 upheavals in Paris.88 Idem, p. 70.89 Lavrinec 2011a, p. 58.90 Plant 1992, p. 5.

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interventions.

Lavrinec describes the urban curator as “a reflexive activist, who is conscious about urban

structures and problems and reacts to them by initiating actions in public space that are

addressed to both urban communities and authorities.”91 The urban activist studies the city as

dynamic configuration of everyday life through performing creative and participatory activities

in the city. These are comparable to the initiated “situations” of the Situationists.92

Today a great number of interventions, actions, flash mobs, freezes and urban games are

organized by urban activists. The New York based collective “Improv Everywhere” aims to

produce certain emotional experiences by surprising casual passers-by. In Surprise Torch Run

(2014) a performer acting as an injured athlete asked people on the street to carry a burning

torch around the block (image 3). Once they turned the corner they were surprised by TV

crews and a huge crowd of people cheering.93 Besides creating a surprisingly scene of chaos

and joy in urban environment, the collective caused the urban walker to change the routine of

his walks through the city. Initiator of the worldwide campaign Free Hugs Juan Mann addressed

today's social disconnectivity and lack of physical contact through his actions of giving away

hugs to passers-by on the street.94 According to Lavrinec campaigns, performances and actions

like these enquire unusual “choreographies” of participants and temporarily cause alternate

scenarios, emotions and behaviors in public space.95

The alternative situations created by urban activists use the temporal character of public places

like railway stations and parks, but as a rule do not become a ritual of these particular places.

However they often spread across the world where they are repeated in similar public places.

But being active re-interpretations of routine scenarios and spacial structures of urban places,

Lavrinec notes that these “urban rituals” can also function as the subject of activist actions.

Urban rituals are repetitive symbolic actions that are connected to a certain urban element and

provide the possibility of shared bodily and emotional experience in different public spaces.96

An urban ritual that according to Lavrinec initially started as a spontaneous urban intervention

concerns the so-called love padlocks. Couples engrave their names in padlocks and lock them

to fences and railings in public spaces, after which they throw away the keys. This ritual can be

seen as a symbolic action that connects romantic feelings to a certain place. Being a ritual that

is easy to understand, it expanded to cities all over the world. Now it takes only one padlock

on a fence to have it be filled with thousands of them only a few weeks later (image 4).97

In terms of creating a regenerating situation in accordance with the aim of urban scenography,

this urban intervention connects human emotions and a collective experience to a specific

place in the city. But observing the urban interventions of the activist mobs and rituals

91 Lavrinec 2011a, p. 57.92 Ibidem. 93 Todd, Charlie. ‘Surprise Torch Run.’ www.improveverywhere.com. Consulted April 30 2014

<http://www.improveverywhere.com/>. 94 Mann, Juan. ‘Free Hugs.’ www.freehugscampaign.org. Consulted April 30 2014

<http://www.freehugscampaign.org/>. 95 Lavrinec 2011a, p. 59.96 Ibidem. 97 Lavrinec 2011a, p. 60.

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described by Lavrinec, we must note that these interventions are not very disruptive or critical

toward urban structures and powers. They are mainly based on the elements of spectacle,

surprise and community, which cause emotions of joy instead of a critical rethinking of public

space.

2.2.4 The urban intervention of public art

Recently different writers have explored the expanding notion of space as a material in

curating public art, as I researched in a short essay on art and space for the seminar Thinking

Modern and Contemporary Art.98 It appears the approach of urban scenography is ultimately

based on a proposal of disrupting daily urban routines and structures through interventions of

art in public space. Looking at public art through the perspective of urban scenography, it has

the potential to change the everyday patterns of the city through addressing, composing or

disrupting public space.

In her essay 'Public Art as Situation: Towards an Aesthetic of the Wrong Place in Contemporary

Art Practice and Commissioning' (2008) Claire Doherty describes art as a space that frames

our perception. According to her, space in art practice is not a kind of locality, but an

intellectual or experiential space. Therefore public art can better be understood as an

experience that frames and disrupts our perception.99 In this sense art is not bound to the

physicality of its location, contains the notion of art being a space in which thoughts are being

changed and newly created.100 Doherty posits public art as a shift in the perception of place:

“The experience of art is not one in my opinion that necessarily restores a sense of belonging

or offers up a moment of resolution, but if truly place-responsive, situation-specific and

contemporary that work of art will shatter the fictions of a stable sense of place, will intervene

in the status quo and literally shift the ground between your feet.”101 This description argues

that public art has the potential to disrupt intellectual frames, which helps us understand the

critical perception of space within the practice of urban scenography.

Doherty brings forward a couple of works that disrupt the perception of place. She describes

Francis Alÿs' When Faith Moves Mountains (2002), an action in which five hundred volunteers

formed a line along a sand dune just outside Lima and used shovels to “move” the sand dune

ten centimeters from its original position (images 5 and 6).102 This work directs attention on

the poor living circumstances of the inhabitants of Lima's outskirts.103 Another work Doherty

mentions is Javier Tellez's One Flew Over the Void (2005), an event in the US-Mexican border

98 Koetsier, Marthe. ‘Art & Space.’ Essay for seminar Thinking Modern and Contemporary Art by Eva Fotiadi, MA Art History, University of Amsterdam, January 21 2014.

99 Doherty, Claire. 'Public Art as Situation: Towards an Aesthetic of the Wrong Place in Contemporary Art Practice and Commissioning.’ In: Jan Debbaut. Out of the Studio! Art and Public Space. Hasselt: Z33, 2008. Retrieved from <http://thinkingpractices.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/doherty-publicartassituation.pdf> March 2 2014, pp. 3, 11.

100 Doherty 2008, p. 6. Refers to Tim Cresswell, G. Verstraete, eds. Mobilizing Place, Placing Mobility. The Politicsof Representation in a Globalized World. 2002, Amsterdam and New York, NY: Radopi, pp. 25-26.

101 Doherty 2008, p. 11.102 Guggenheim. ‘Francis Alÿs in collaboration with Cuauhtémoc Medina and Rafael Ortega.’ www.guggenheim.org.

Consulted May 2 2014 <http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/collections/collection-online/artwork/11412>, andDoherty 2008, p. 9.

103 Although the work is executed in the desert just outside Lima. Heartney, Eleanor. Art & Today. London and New York: Phaidon Press Limited, 2008, p. 399.

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town Las Playas. With the firing of a human cannonball people were flown over the fence that

marked to two countries' boundaries (image 7). In this spectacle citizens were physically

crossing the literal and metaphorical line of the country from which they were excluded.104

Thinking of other art interventions that constitute itself as disruptions of space, I would like to

bring forward the work of Tomas Saraceno. In my view his works operate within the approach

of urban scenography because they can be seen as a form of reinterpretation of spatial

structures that shape the physical and emotional experience of public space. Saraceno's Cloud

Cities are quite literally an example of the construction of space, reflecting on today's public

space and proposing a new perspective on everyday life with utopian aspirations. Inspired by

soap bubbles and spider webs,105 they are enormous inflatable installations that propose a

different choreography to urban inhabitants by opening up a way to a vertical use of public

space (images 8-10).

However Saraceno's works are not only scientific test models for aviation and future living

environments. The floating installations, in the future possibly to be presented in public spaces

outside of museums, are quite literally a reconstruction of space in which a stable sense of

place is shattered. People are invited to move around on the elevated structures in which they

not only discover a new, unusual kind of public space but are also able to create a different

perspective on future public space as well as on the world beneath them. With an over-seeing

eye they can watch the urban inhabitants down below, moving in the crowds that they

normally take part of as well.

Saraceno does not just pose the idea of floating urban environments to provoke. He believes

that in the future habitats will be able to fly, and he made a lot more works that test this

vision. For Portscapes 2, an art project set up to reflect on the creation of new land in the

harbor of Rotterdam, Saraceno made in collaboration with the Aerospace Engineering Faculty

of TU Delft Saraceno a six meter high flying construction that alluded to future city planning

and modes of existence. Solar Bell (2012) was a kind of kite that functioned as a model for

floating living environments, aspiring human victory over gravity (image 11).106

The work fits within the aims and methods in urban scenography's approach to public art,

because the installation constitutes a disruptive space in public space in the sense that it is the

cultivation of what we think is not possible: it crosses the traditional boundaries of space.107

Solar Bell redirects the spectator's thoughts to an elevated use of public space while at the

same time refocusing his conscious on “the world below”, where he can imagine himself to be a

tiny being admits of different flocks of people and different paths of everyday life. From this

perspective Solar Bell could be said to vitalize a public space that has not yet been used, and

104 Frieze Magazine. ‘Javier Tellez.’ www.frieze.com. Consulted May 2 2014 <http://www.frieze.com/issue/article/javier_tellez/>, and Doherty 2008, p. 8.

105 Trend Tablet by Lidewij Edelkoort. ‘Tomas Saraceno.’ www.trendtablet.com. Consulted May 24 2014 <http://www.trendtablet.com/10319-tomas-saraceno>.

106 Stichting Kunst en Openbare Ruimte. ‘Portscapes 2. Tomas Saraceno.’ www.skor.nl. Consulted May 24 2014 <http://www.skor.nl/nl/zoeken/item/portscapes-2-tomas-saraceno>.

107 Portscapes 2. A Series of Art Projects Aliongside the Construction of Maasvlakte 2. ‘Project: Tomas Saraceno, Solar Bell.’ www.portscapes2.nl. Consulted May 24 2014<http://portscapes2.nl/eng/project-tomas-saraceno-solar-bell>.

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to reveal the interconnection between existing and future spatial structures and everyday life.

To the extent that the work is creating an illusion of space, Solar Bell proposes a disruptive

thought in the contemporary city by insinuating a physical and metaphorical detachment from

everyday life. This is how the work could be said to shift the urban inhabitant's everyday

perspective and to be critical toward our use of public space.

More difficult is to point out in which respect Solar Bell addresses the city's genius loci – as it

proposes an idea that addresses a practical use of urban space. However, the work in itself

does show a moving away from notions of urban decay and alienation as it vitalizes unused

space, and creates a sense of engagement and commonality in speculating about a future that

is unknown but affects us all. Moreover, with this work Saraceno investigates in expanding

ways how we inhabit and experience our environment,108 which in my view positions the city

not as a machine or set of static objects but more like a constantly changing organism we have

to adapt to. This is also reflected in the fact that Saraceno perceives the space for the

exhibition of his work as biosphere, an area on the planet where life occurs.109 Altogether Solar

Bell may contribute in addressing and regenerating the contemporary city's spirit.

108 MET Museum. ‘Tomas Saraceno on the Roof.’ www.metmuseum.org. Consulted May 24 2014 <http://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2012/tomas-saraceno>.

109 Stichting Kunst en Openbare Ruimte. ‘Portscapes 2. Tomas Saraceno.’ www.skor.nl. Consulted May 24 2014 <http://www.skor.nl/nl/zoeken/item/portscapes-2-tomas-saraceno>.

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2.3 Engagement with the city

I now want to further explore the difficult matters of “engagement” and “experience” in the

approach of urban scenography to art in public space. We have seen that urban scenography

encourages an analysis of urban elements and aims for resistance to set structures and

scenarios through creating and curating public art interventions brought into space by urban

inhabitants. According to urban scenography, this is what we may understand as engagement

with the city. This engagement is intertwined and stimulated by an intensified experience, of

which Maiju Loukola gives a clarifying definition in her lecture 'Scenography Lived:

Intermediality and Haptic Visuality – On the Intimacy of Distance' at the Expanding

Scenography symposium. According to her the experience in urban scenography is to be

understood as a sensible perception that transcends eyesight and the division between body

and mind, and constitutes a “perception with the whole body:”110 it is an emotional as well as

physical experience.

Going back to the aim of urban scenography to revitalize public space and to create a more

vibrant connection between the urban dweller and his surroundings, how can urban

environment be curated through the use of urban scenography in a way that it intensifies

urban experience and emotion, and generates the city's genius loci? Like seen in Solar Bell, as

practical approach urban scenography helps to make content experiential and interpretive

within a physical environment. It writes spaces in the sense that it draws, composes, frames

and stages public space.111

According to several writers urban scenography can also be used to regenerate urban

environment in the way that it appears to play a critical role in stimulating public life, meaning

engagement between citizens. Marc Augé addresses this subject in his book Non-Places:

Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity (1995). Referring to the concept of

alienation in public space, he notes that the contemporary “non-places”, places in which

individuals are connected in a uniform or formal manner like streets and supermarkets,

apparently are to be social, but they are not.112 This suggests that the feeling of impersonality

and alienation in public spaces comes forth from a detachment among citizens themselves.

According to Lavrinec this makes sense when we acknowledge it is not a coincidence that

creative actions in public space, such as flash mobs or performances, are as a rule initiated in

places that can be marked as non-places.113

Not everyone agrees this social distance in public space should be tackled. Zygmunt Bauman

for example holds a rather pessimistic view toward comparable movements of some form of

110 Loukola, Maiju. ‘Scenography Lived: Intermediality and Haptic Visuality - On the Intimacy of Distance.’ Abstract oflecture for symposium Scenography Expanding 1: On Spectatorship, February 25-27 2010, New Riga Theatre, Latvia. Retrieved from <http://www.theatre.lv/new/files/RIGASPEAKERS_Abstracts.pdf> May 26 2014.

111 German-Architects. ‘International Scenography Biennial.’ www.german-architects.com. Consulted April 30 2014 <http://www.german-architects.com/en/agendas/details/4541>. Theatre Studies Utrecht University. ‘Thinking Scenography.’ www.theatrestudies.nl. Consulted May 1 2014 <http://www.theatrestudies.nl/staff_merx_projects.html>.

112 Augé, Marc. Non-Places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity. New York: Verso, 1995, p. 94.113 Lavrinec, Jekaterina. ‘Revitalization of Public Space: From “Non-places” to Creative Playgrounds.’ In: Santalka:

Filosofija, Komunikacija, Vol. 19, No. 2 (2011b), p. 71. Retrieved from <http://www.cpc.vgtu.lt/index.php/cpc/article/view/coactivity.2011.16/pdf> March 2 2014.

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communal interest, which in his eyes are self-defeating and ultimately only create anxiety

toward strangers.114 He argues: “The main feature of the ‘public, but not civic’ places […] is the

redundancy of interaction. If physical proximity – sharing a place – cannot be completely

avoided, it can be perhaps stripped of the challenge of ‘togetherness’ it contains, with its

standing invitation to meaningful encounter, dialogue or interaction. If meeting strangers

cannot be averted, one can at least try to avoid the dealings”.115 However, urban scenography

does appear to aim to revitalize public space through a physical and emotional engagement

with urban environment as well as among urban inhabitants themselves. Theorists' views on

how exactly this engagement is constituted, differs.

In her introduction of Space and Desire (2011) Thea Brejzek argues that the concept of

engagement in public art is imperative because in her view the city propagates disengagement

rather than it shows interest in citizens' desire to transgress the normative patterns of

everyday life. Interventions like mobs do address engagement by constructing a space that

enhances social networks, but Brejzek notes that in the end they still miss the element of

critical intent, like mentioned before in this thesis.116

Brejzek then expounds on the fact that the engagement with a scene – or the engagement

with urban constructions – has increasingly been addressed in the field of scenography and

public space. In her introduction of a line of symposiums called Scenography Expanding 1-3

(2010)117 she points out a recent focus on the use of scenography as curatorial tool in the

activation of public space. Participants of the symposium discussed different ideas on how to

approach the concept of engagement in scenography: individually or collectively.

Political and public arts theorist Randy Martin for example talked about what he calls the model

of “social kinaesthetics”, which is a model of moving bodies in space. The model helps to

understand the ever changing interconnections between the artist and a global financial

system controlling his body's performance in contemporary Western society. The practice of

scenography and its engagement with urban surroundings allows a rethinking of the individual

and the societal as the single body is able to move accordingly and away from its everyday

paths.118 This approach touches the potential of the individual urban inhabitant or artist to

connect his consciousness of urban scenarios and choreographies to a personal engagement

with public space.

Brejzek mentions how curator Katharina Schlieben and architecture theorist Christian Teckert

maintain a slightly different perspective on the way the public does or should engage with the

city. At the symposium they argued that within their curatorial practice of scenography they

perceive urban inhabitants as a heterogeneous organism in relation to the power structures

that make up urban space. Schlieben and Teckert talk about “the publics,” rather than “the

public” with respect to its interaction with the city. According to the writers, the construction of

114 Bauman, Zygmunt. Liquid Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2000, p. 106.115 Idem, p. 105. 116 Brejzek et al. 2012, pp. 7-8.117 Symposiums conducted in Riga, Belgrade and Évora, 2010, organized by the Prague Quadrennial of Performance

Design and Space.118 Berjzek 2011a, p. 11.

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spaces that create disattachment, provocation and transformation, is embedded in and derive

from collective processes of urban activism and intervention.119 We could say this notion of

urban scenography takes on the idea of the power of engagement through collectives of

citizens, which I will address in the next section.

Brejzek concludes that participating theorists and artists of the Scenography Expanding

symposiums evidently agree on the potential of scenography to create critical narratives and

thereby proposing alternative modes of reality. The participants credit artists, curators and

spectators equally in the creation of such spaces. However Brejzek does not see the process of

curating scenography as a transformative power that provides a “cure” for alienated public

space.120 She might refer here to the concept of gentrification, which is understood as the

upgrading of a neighborhood or district on a social, cultural and economic level. Initiated by

investments of homeowners, real estate development, local government or community artists

and activists, the area changes into a community of wealthier residents and businesses,

increasing property value and lower crime rates. This usually constitutes the transformation of

a working class or vacant area of a central part of the city into a middle class residential area

with fruitful commercial businesses. Examples of such neighborhoods are the Jordaan in

Amsterdam and Williamsburg in New York. The downside to this development is that poorer

residents are driven out due to a rise in taxes and property value.121

Today artists and urban activists are considered to play an essential role in the gentrification of

urban areas. They often seem to be among the first residents to settle in poor communities,

appear to have the vision and ability to rehabilitate abandoned spaces, or set up community

art projects, which put into motion the process of gentrification.122 Ironically, in later stages of

this process the artists who initiated the transformation in the first place are pushed out by

attracted wealthier residents.123

Considering if urban scenography should be seen or used as a method of gentrification, it looks

like Brejzek does not understand the approach to be part of this process. It is rather “an

infection of ideas,” she argues, “that opens ways to unpredictable outcomes, multi-authored

propositions and previously untested speculations.”124 In my view gentrification is the

regeneration of urban environment through an economical perspective, which is exactly the

opposite of what urban scenography aims to do. We need to keep in mind the specific claim of

urban scenography to approach the city through a perspective that has little room for the

economical, rational and commercial aspects of public space while revitalizing alienated sites.

Urban scenography is better understood as a reanimation of space through perspectives that

are not colored by capitalism, but rather address an emotional engagement with urban

surroundings and among urban inhabitants.

119 Berjzek 2011a, p. 11. 120 Ibidem.121 Lees, Loretta, Tom Slater, Elvin K. Wyly. Gentrification. New York: Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group, 2008.122 Ley, David. ‘Gentrification and the politics of the new middle class.’ In: Environment and Planning D: Society and

Space, Vol. 12 (1994): 53–74. Retrieved from <http://www.environment-and-planning.com/epd/fulltext/d12/d120053.pdf> June 15 2014.

123 Loyd, Richard. Neo-Bohemia. Art and Commerce in the Postindustrial City. New York: Routledge, 2006.124 See note 119.

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2.3.1 The shared experience: a physical and emotional experience

Different theorists who reflect on urban scenography explore the concept of shared experience

in spatial composition, which claims to initiate emotional link between citizens and their

surroundings as well as among citizens themselves. Pamela Howard points out that besides

many its crowded public spaces, cities are full of abandoned spaces.125 In these sites she sees

the potential for performative interventions that encourage spontaneous public gatherings.

Howard says the connection between space and participants, both spectators and performers,

provides a fertile research subject for scenographers who are always looking for ways to

metaphorically and physically animate space.126 It is here where the task of urban scenography

as curatorial tool lies.

According to the writer, these crucial events of performative interventions cultivate a shared

history and bring the aspiration of the public in sight. Within the idea of the city becoming a

theater space, the surrounding buildings act as the scenery or background for projections.

Their architecture contains collective memories, associations and desires of the public, which

make them a vital part of the city's dramatic space and experience, and a potential element in

engaging with the audience: the passers-by.127

Howard here generally speaks about performance interventions in public environments, but I

think we can also link public artworks to her theories as they themselves can often be

described as performative and engaging interventions in public space. An illustrative example

of such interventions in public space are Krzysztof Wodiczko's projections onto facades of

urban buildings. In the eighties he became known for these large-scale public works, which

question authorial structures and politics and often include images challenging the concepts of

power and war. His photographic projections illuminate existing structures, turning the street

into a stage. Through the juxtaposition of images and architecture (often corporate and

government buildings) he addresses the city's dramatic space and hidden values embodied in

these structures.128 Thereby he touches the subjects of collective use and shared experience of

public space.

For example, with his Homeless Projection (1986-1987) (image 12) on the Soldiers and Sailors

Civil War Memorial in Boston Wodiczko entered into discussion with urban citizens and vagrants

about the homeless population of cities he visited or lived in, like New York. The caused

interaction with the public attests of a direct engagement with urban inhabitants. Homeless

Projection addresses a shared urban history as well as urban aspirations. It confronts the

public with a group of people that is excluded from our society, although they are physically

part of it. Facing this alienated group in a dramatic or artistic way, the urban dweller's

conscious is redirected to a generally unknown engagement with this group and to an over-

thinking of ways in which public space is collectively used. From urban scenography's

perspective Homeless Projection thereby addresses a rethinking of both the engagement and

125 Howard 2002, p. 9.126 Idem, p. 10.127 Howard 2002, p. 9.128 Heartney 2008, pp. 381-382.

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experience of citizens among each other, as well as a re-evaluation of the city's structures and

politics of public space.

In 'Shaping Spaces of Shared Experience: Creative Practices and Temporal Communities'

(2013)129 Lavrinec and Oksana Zaporozhets address the specific concept of shared experience

within urban spaces. They argue that creative practices increase the diversity of scenarios

attached to a certain urban place, and thereby increase the intensity of urban emotions. Urban

inhabitants are involved in creative interventions that address their routines and

choreographies, but also enhance the significance of physical contact, synchronized movement

or simultaneous emotions through a confrontation with interpretations of perspectives of other

fellow citizens. These disruptions re-invent space while initiating interaction or cooperation

between citizens. Thus the places where public art acts become what the writers call spaces of

shared experience, and touch the Situationist's “emotionally moving situations”.130

These particularly interactive disruptions remind of movements like Happenings and Fluxus of

the sixties. Not holding on as heavy to revolutionary ambitions as the Situationists did, they

emphasized ephemeral actions and playful interaction into everyday life scenarios. Father of

the Happenings Alan Kaprow initiated improvisational performances and events in which the

audience's participation was a key element. Kaprow provided the place, objects and sometimes

some general guidelines for action; the rest was up to the audience. Fluxus, a movement

whose leaders included Nam June Paik, encouraged a similar free-form that asked for

participation of the audience.131

Now focusing on today's urban environment and notions of shared experience, these might be

less about attacking the autonomy of art through participation and more about reconnecting

urban inhabitants to each other. There still appears to be a similar need for some form of

interaction in public spaces that as a quest is picked up by public art. Globalization and virtual

media have caused a democratizing of accessibility of contemporary art, but simultaneously

caused a renewed craving for a collective physical experience of art. There has been a rebirth

of the tactile, Gabi Schillig pointed out in her lecture 'The Liberation of Space and Body' at the

symposium Expanding Scenography 1: On Spectatorship.132 Through this perspective public art

may in itself take on the idea of shared experience, in the sense that it is physically and

experientially accessible in the collective public sphere of for example streets and squares,

instead of in the autonomous institutions of museums and galleries.

However, I want to argue that today's notion of a shared experience is not only about physical

interaction with the artwork and other spectators. Even more so it addresses a social or

emotional interaction. I think this perspective might be better understood through the account

of Sadie Plant in The Most Radical Gesture. Plant explains according to the Situationists'

129 Lavrinec, Jekatarina, Oksana Zaporozhets. 'Shaping Spaces of Shared Experience: Creative Practices and Temporal Communities.' In: Oleg Pachenkov, ed. Urban Public Space: Facing the Challenges of Mobility and Aesthetization. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang GmbH, 2013: pp. 132-143.

130 Lavrinec and Zaporozhets 2013, pp. 132, 134.131 Heartney 2008, p. 392.132 Schilling, Gabi. ‘The Liberation of Space and Body.’ Abstract lecture for symposium Scenography Expanding 1: On

Spectatorship, February 25- 27, 2010, New Riga Theatre, Latvia. Retrieved from <http://www.theatre.lv/new/files/RIGASPEAKERS_Abstracts.pdf> May 26 2014.

28

critiques – which I here propose to project on today's public space – that while material

poverty disappeared with the upcoming of the capitalist society, life is still made miserable by

the alienated social relations that extend to all corners of life. Leisure and luxuries do not

provide different relations or experiences, because they are gained from capitalism itself and

can only be consumed. According to my understanding of Plant they provide us with choices

and commodities that are produced by the system itself, which in their turn reproduce the

alienated relations of production.133 While this is a quite pessimistic view of today's society, it

appears that this perspective is to some extent still valid in the contemporary city. We have

seen that there exists a need for perceiving the city as experience instead of object or

commodity. Through the approach of urban scenography an emotional shared experience

precisely addresses and rethinks contemporary social relations characterized by impersonality

and social distance.

The lack of emotional interaction in public space also becomes clear when we look at the

planning of contemporary cities. In an interview on The City Repair Project Mark Lakeman

describes how public spaces are mainly designed for transportation and commuting. Our lives

are coordinated by “the grid”, a street plan used by city planning that was to organize Western

expansion and occurred in all its cities. As familiar as urban dwellers are with these grids, they

are a very literal example of how our lives are structured by one way routes that take us from

one destination to another, with little room for confrontation, interaction, experience or

communication – evidently causing social isolation.134 This phenomenon of alienation

embedded in city planning is a clear example that shows the missing of an emotional

interaction between citizens, rather than a physical one.

Yet in an effort to adapt the concept of both the physical ánd emotional shared experience to

the intervention of public art, I would like to bring forward some examples of public works that

inhabit this kind of shared experience in which interactions become the artwork – as is striven

for by urban scenography. A very illustrative example is Daan Roosegaarde's Marbles (2012),

an interactive work created specifically for the C. van Eesterenplein in Almere Buiten (image 13

and 14). With regard to a renovation of the square, the artist was asked to create a work that

would stimulate this public space into a place of communication and interaction among local

inhabitants. It had to function as a meeting place, which would revitalize this public space as

well as give sense of a shared experience.

Marbles consists of six glowing smooth stone-like forms that were placed in the center of the

square. Specifically at night it becomes clear what they do: when touched they change color

and make sounds. They not only react to human interaction but also to each other, which is

how their response multiplies very quickly. The work invites locals or passers-by to play with

them or watch other people touch the stones, and thereby opens up possibilities of

communication or interaction with others. Marbles' characteristics show the work is both a

133 Plant 1992, pp. 2-3.134 Lakeman, Mark, Saskia Dresler. ‘The City Repair Project: Transform Space into Place.’ Video interview.

www.article.wn.com. Consulted May 26 2014 <http://article.wn.com/view/2014/03/31/Internationally_recognized_artist_Ann_Hamilton_selected_for_/>.

29

physical and emotional shared experience. It responds to motion and appeals to the senses of

vision, hearing and touching, as well as it moves local inhabitants to interact, thereby

regenerating the desolate square into a place of social relations.135

A work with a similar aim to initiate interaction, this time in a place that is known to be the

apex of capitalism and alienated relations, are the Meeting Bowls (2011) created by the

Spanish artist collective “mmmm...” in Times Square. The Meeting Bowls are semi-spherical

capsules that were designed to stimulate interaction between passers-by by inviting them to

temporarily step out of the usual paths of the square and have them be seated faced to one

another (image 15). Because the bowls are round and only able to accommodate a maximum

of eight people, these social spaces are more intimate than typical public benches, and

confront people with their fellow urban pedestrians. Communication is almost unavoidable.136

Situated in one of the most crowded and commerce driven places, the Meeting Bowls create

places of communication, interaction or even intimacy among urban citizens. They encourage

not only to face fellow urban walkers, but also to start a dialogue with a stranger.137 In this

sense the work positions itself as a physical as well as emotional shared experience. Ultimately

it critiques the alienated and socially distant way in which urban walkers behave in public space

in everyday life.

Now there are also types of public works that initiate a form of shared experience or

engagement in the creation of a public artwork itself. A good example of this kind of

reinterpretation of interactivity in public space is The Gates (1979-2005), initiated by artist

couple Christo and Jeanne-Claude in New York's Central Park (image 16). This large-scale

installation of hundreds of gates hung with orange fabric created a new sense of space, in the

way that it was able to change the dynamic of a historically important landmark through a

simple reinterpretation of the basic activity of walking through a park. With its high-visibility,

monumental and whimsical quality it created a communal sense of wonder that is said to have

bonded strollers for months.138 The work constituted a new path to follow in a public space that

is characterized by a more free form of urban walking compared to streets and sidewalks

through which urban inhabitants commute.

Equally important in the argumentation of this example is the process through which the The

Gates came into being for the mass audience of the city that is known for its alienation and

detachment. In a lot of their work Christo and Jeanne-Claude engage large numbers of

participants in the realization of their work, so that their authorship partially disappears and

the creation of their artwork is transformed into a collective experience. For this specific

project they did so as well. They worked together with local authorities, raised money within

the local communities, galvanized the press and enlisted an army of volunteers to help build

the installation. Given the complex negotiations of carrying out this project in this particular

135 Museum de Paviljoens Almere. ‘Daan Roosegaarde, Marbles (2012).’ www.depaviljoens.nl. Consulted May 26 2014<http://www.depaviljoens.nl/page/54002/nl>.

136 mmmm.... ‘Meeting Bowls. In Times Square from August 16 to October 12, 2011. New York (USA).’ www.mmmm.tv. Consulted May 26 2014 <http://www.mmmm.tv/enmeetingbowls.html>.

137 Ibidem. 138 Hanly, Jack. ‘Public Art and the Shared Experience of Beauty.’ February 5 2012. www.bardcityblog.wordpress.com.

Consulted May 25 2014 <http://bardcityblog.wordpress.com/page/14/>.

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public space, it took twenty-five years to be realized from initial concept to the opening.

Through this undertaking the duo temporarily transformed urban environment in the sense

that they created a common ground of participation, interaction and engagement among

citizens themselves.139

As we have seen, spaces of shared experience provide a new layer of reinterpretation to public

space, one that apparently is being missed in contemporary understandings of public space as

a general space of collective use.140 It is not just a ground for interaction or cooperation, but it

concerns an emotional bond, connection or engagement among fellow urban inhabitants.

Acknowledging that it remains difficult to put a finger on the essence of the shared experience

and how it relates to the revitalization of urban space, I want to add that this connection may

most clearly be understood as a sensitive or conscious way of perceiving the city that in its

turn reflects this vivacity towards urban inhabitants. As argued earlier by Kolodziej, the

development of urban space is strongly intertwined with the emotional state of society, and

each responds to one another.141 In my understanding the shared experience described by

urban scenography contains exactly the quality of addressing or recognizing the city's spirit

that is being missed in today's urban public space. The physical and emotional shared

experience could be seen as a moving away from the concept of alienation within the

contemporary city.

2.3.2 Engagement: creating consensus or agonistic pluralism? Notions of solidarity in the

shared experience

Addressing the question of how urban scenography, or the shared experience specifically,

revitalises urban space, there are different perspectives on the notion of solidarity in this

matter. In my view Lavrinec for example maintains a slightly more optimistic or unsubtle view

on urban scenography's power to revitalize public space than other theorists of urban

scenography. In ‘Urban Scenography: Emotional and Bodily Experience’ Lavrinec states that

the concept of urban scenography appears to be a tool for revitalization of underused public

spaces in the sense that it occurs through intensified engagement and experience within the

urban inhabitant. He is both physically and emotionally linked with the city's space.142 This

might be the case as we have seen this being argued convincingly by different authors;

however Lavrinec's argumentation and examples might not be as strong. To me they indicate

that not every shared experience possesses the power to critically regenerate public space.

In her article 'Urban Scenography: Emotional and Bodily experience' (2013) Lavrinec writes

that urban interventions have the ability to reanimate underused public spaces characterized

by alienation – for example sidewalks – by rearranging the construction of spatial elements

through the creation of new scenarios on micro-level that initiate socializing. These micro-level

139 Hanly <http://bardcityblog.wordpress.com/page/14/> February 2012. Heartney 2008, p. 407.

140 Lavrinec and Zaporozhets 2013, p.134.141 Kolodziej <http://h08.cgpublisher.com/proposals/78/index_html> February 23 2014.142 Idem.

Lavrinec 2013, p.21.

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interventions are introduced by urban activists and public artists as well as citizens and consist

of – for example – leaving, losing and sharing items in public spaces. According to Lavrinec,

the interactions with these objects awaken the alertness of the passer-by in a playful and

sociable way. Through it citizens become active scenographers of their own everyday

surroundings.143

Here I would like to note that urban interventions are not and need not to be necessarily as

joyful and communicative to revitalize public space as Lavrinec appears to argue. Urban art

interventions are often critical and political and therefore address sensitive subjects, that

inevitably cause dissension – or at the least discussion. In these cases they can still – or even

more expressively – create a sense of engagement, like seen in Wodiczko's Homeless

Projection.

This notion of urban scenography reminds of the described power of De Certeau's urban walker

to put up critical resistance against existing structures and paths created by space experts like

city planners and architects. Only when the urban inhabitant is receptive to this kind of

engagement with public space and fellow citizens, his eyes are opened to other perspectives

and paths of everyday life.144

Political theorist Chantal Mouffe takes on a similar perspective toward the notion of solidarity in

public art. In her article 'Which Public Space for Critical Art Spaces?' (2005)145 she sheds some

light on her view of how public art should play a role in taking a critical stance toward everyday

life. Mouffe first explains how she perceives public art “not as art in the public space, but as an

art form that institutes a public space, a space of common action among people.”146 She then

poses the debate on what kind of public space should be tried to be established through artistic

practice: a space of deliberation and consensus or a space of agonistic confrontation.147 In my

view her argumentation for an agonistic confrontation in public art aligns with the critical

interventions of public art that are pursued by the approach of urban scenography.

A certain idea about the structure of society forms the basis of Mouffe's perception. She poses

that society is not to be seen as a logical reflection of forces like production, history or

development of the spirit, but as countless temporary orders formed by eventual practices.

Because in every formation of an order a repression and exclusion of other possibilities takes

place, these orders are all political. She calls the practices through which a certain order is

established “hegemonic practices.” Every hegemonic order can be challenged in their existence

by counter-hegemonic practices.148

Now according to Mouffe public space is exactly the battleground where different hegemonic

practices are confronted with each other, although she does not see these battles coming to

143 Lavrinec 2013, p. 29.144 Lavrinec 2013, p. 30.145 Mouffe, Chantal. ‘Which Public Space for Critical Artistic Practices.’ Presentation Institute of Choreography and

Dance (Firkin Crane), Cork Caucus, Cork, Ireland, 2005: pp. 149-171. Retrieved from <http://readingpublicimage.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/chantal_mouffe_cork_caucus.pdf> May 12 2014.

146 Idem, p. 152.147 Ibidem. 148 Idem, pp. 156-157.

32

any form of final consensus.149 Following this train of thought, artistic practices can be seen as

(counter-)hegemonic practices in public space. They can play a role in the constitution,

maintenance or disruption of existing symbolic orders and structures, which is why they have a

political character.150 Forms of critical art in public space can contribute to the questioning of a

dominant hegemony or structure, a position which is in agreement with the one urban

scenography takes.

However according to Mouffe the real issue is how artistic practices aim to do this. She

explains: “Clearly those who advocate the creation of agonistic public spaces, where the

objective is to unveil all that is repressed by the dominant consensus, are going to envisage

the relation between artistic practices and their public in a very different way than those whose

objective is the creation of consensus, even if this consensus is seen as a critical one.”151 The

writer favors an agonistic approach, in which critical art makes visible what the dominant

consensus tends to ignore. This demonstrates that Mouffe would possibly be skeptical toward

art forms that construct shared emotions or experiences in the way Lavrinec and Zaporozhets

described them. She argues that public art constitutes a social space that exists of different

perspectives, and not a space of consensus. Consensus – even though critical – imposes a

particular perspective, instead of confronting existing hegemonies and opening up a debate.

However, Mouffe does not think critical art should only address the refused and the

unrepresentable. She argues that in contemporary practices there is too much focus on “the

sublime,” here to be understood as the intractable, which causes negligence in taking note of

proposals of new modes of existence and the construction of new forms of collective

identities.152 In other words, while this approach in contemporary art claims to be very radical,

the emphasis on dis-identification takes away attention from re-identification and thereby fails

to follow the nature of the hegemonic struggle, according to Mouffe. It assumes that

challenging the dominant structures automatically brings forth a previously repressed

hegemonic structure that immediately positions itself as one of the new dominant structures.

Mouffe concludes that artistic practices can only contribute to interventions of urban life

constituted in democracy, when multiple forms of interventions take place in different kinds of

public spaces.153

Ultimately it appears Mouffe argues in favor of critical inventions of public art like the way they

exist within the approach of urban scenography. However she might be skeptical toward the

level of disattachment that urban scenography proposes to resist set structures of public space

and invent new paths of everyday life. She appears to think this kind of re-envisioning would

take the urban inhabitant too much into the realm of illusion, instead of letting him focus on

redefining existing public spaces. In the next section I would like to further explore notions of

illusion in the approach of urban scenography.

149 Mouffe 2005, p. 158.150 Idem, pp. 160-162.151 Idem, p. p. 162.152 Idem, p. 167.153 Idem, p. 162.

33

2.4 Urban scenography and the representation of the invisible

2.4.1 Notions of illusion and the imaginable in urban scenography

I now want to take a step back to give a moment of thought to the overarching concept behind

urban scenography's approach to public art in shaping spaces of critical experience and

engagement in urban environment. Do these interventions of art claim to rethink public space

in the sense that they awaken our conscious toward our urban surroundings as a kind of

disillusionment, like we have seen for example in the work of Alÿs, Tellez or artists collective

“mmmm...”? These critical interventions are to be seen as disruptive objects or situations that

focus our attention specifically to the configurations of existing urban elements that form our

everyday lives, thereby inviting us to develop an individual and possibly critical perspective

toward it. Or, considering a different angle, do critical interventions of public art rethink or

revitalize urban space in the sense that they aim to break with everyday life through

expressing a representation of the invisible or the imaginable, creating an illusionary space?

Looking at the public artworks mentioned in this thesis it is difficult to ascribe them to one or

the other kind of intervention. Taking Solar Bell for example, the installation makes us

conscious of contemporary use of public space as it invites us to imagine moving around in

these floating environments looking down at the city, while at the same time representing an

illusion of a utopian public place.

While Mouffe is a bit skeptical toward the emphasis on the “sublime” in contemporary art in

general, different writers appear to believe specifically in the potential of urban scenography to

create an illusionary space in public art, a dream-like sphere in which the imagination is

triggered. We know this illusionary space to be a specific characteristic of art. In his article 'The

Art of Scenography' (1928) Corrado Ricci explains: “Everyone sees reality with his own eyes

and his own brain. This has always happened and will continue to happen forever because

every artist expresses an unreal truth, that is, he enacts his feelings. Giuseppe Verdi154 was

quite right when he said that the mission of the artist is to 'invent the truth'”.155

This being said, imaginary space seems to have received new emphasis in the approach of

scenography. As we have seen in the first chapter on this thesis the flâneur was one of the first

characters in which an opening to the imaginable and the illusion comes to the fore, although

more in the sense that for him the division between reality and illusion fades.

Recalling the theories of De Certeau, his point of view actually appoints a conscious activation

of the illusion as he poses the need for imagination to disturb or rethink everyday life. De

Certeau argues that a reflexive and resistive “practice” of everyday life, like walking, is able to

trigger the individual imagination again. He believes the spatial practice of walking can be

compared to a dreamed place. They are both to be seen as a kind of ordering of the conscious

and the unconscious. What walking and dreaming have in common is that their development is

organized as a relation between the place from which it proceeds (an origin) and the nowhere

154 One of the biggest composers in Italian opera (1813-1901). 155 Ricci, Corrado. ‘The Art of Scenography.’ In: The Art Bulletin, Vol. 10, No. 3 (March 1928): pp. 231-257, p. 255.

Retrieved from <http://www.jstor.org/stable/3050731> March 15 2014.

34

it produces (a way of going by). De Certeau clarifies: “To walk is to lack a place. It is the

indefinite process of being absent and in search of a proper.”156 Thus according to the writer

moving about the city is like a chain of displacements and illusions, that together form a place

that is not physical but only a name, “the City.”157

According to Plant, today's notions of the imaginable were already prefigured in the ideas of

the Situationists. They expressed their antipathy to the society of commerce and labor through

an openness to the surreal, for example through surrealist writing like poetry. The organization

strived for a revolution through a freely constructed game in which a collective transformation

of reality took place. It believed it could challenge dominating structures and alienation with a

euphoric state brought about by a passion for the here and now, an immediacy of experience,

and a free and experimental play. Through this free play that is to be understood as playing

childhood games of make-believe, new patterns and identities could emerge. It was the

Situationists' utopian dream.158

Looking at today's notions of dreams and the imaginable, Plant uses a quote from Raoul

Vaneigem to point out that they are difficult to conceive in these modern times: “Just as it

makes utopias possible, so modern technological expertise also does away with the purely fairy

tale nature of dreams.”159 However, this is the place where urban scenography claims to be of

value. It proposes a perspective on life that both constitutes and creates room for the

imagination.

Maiju Loukola reminds us in her lecture 'Scenography Lived: Intermediality and Haptic Visuality

– On the Intimacy of Distance' (2010) that the essence of theater is founded on the showing of

what is not present, and thus today’s scenographic practices (deriving from theater practice)

invite us to sensible perceptions of that what is not perceivable with the eye. Loukola poses

scenography as a notion of “haptic visuality,” which could be described as a mode of illusionary

perception in aesthetic experience. She explains how the construction of space in a

performance calls for a renegotiation of the ontological and perceptual qualities of space, like

Doherty also described in the context of public art earlier in this chapter. She means that these

spaces of haptic visuality are not reducible to optic vision, but concern a sensible visuality and

a production of imaginary space. As I understand it haptic visuality exposes the immateriality

of materiality. Loukola argues that this is how these illusionary spaces hold themselves in all

aesthetic experience, providing charged images that can be historical as well as timeless.160

Dealing with the re-envisioning of urban space, I think urban scenography as approach to

public art also possesses this core of perceiving the invisible and imaginable. As we have seen

that urban scenography aims to draw away from the contemporary city characterized by

rationality and static objects, I think Loukola's theory could also be applied to this specific

approach of art in public space. It is not difficult to recognize that the imaginative and

156 De Certeau 2002 [1984], p. 103.157 Ibidem. 158 Plant 1992, pp. 6, 71, 2. 159 Plant 1992, p. 71. Refers to Raoul Vaneigem, The Revolution of Everyday Life, Left Bank Books and Rebel Press,

1983, p. 189. 160 Loukola 2010.

35

illusionary take an important place in urban scenography as it claims to let urban inhabitants

critically rethink public space through temporarily distancing themselves from their everyday

life, thereby revitalizing the contemporary city's experience and spirit – an imaginary or

metaphorical characteristic.

The recent use of scenography in exhibition making may clarify the position of the invisible and

imaginable in contemporary art a bit more. In Narrative Spaces. On the Art of Exhibiting

(2012) Herman Kossmann argues that the more uniform, realistic and literal the presentation

of narrative structure in an exhibition is, the less room remains for individual imagination. A

greater abstraction in the impact of an exhibition is to leave a greater potential for individual

reflection and interpretation. It tends to generate new insights for the audience that originate

from their emotional inner life, instead of their rationality. According to Kossmann, this

understanding of the use of space is also applicable to other fields,161 like I here argue urban

scenography to be one of them.

Kossmann notes this emphasis on imagination does not require the reality of the place to be

completely detached from everyday life, but it does demand a fair amount of deviation, for

example initiated through the creation of an immersive space. The key of immersing a

spectator is, according to the writer, creating immersion with critical distance. It is a type of

captivation to which the spectator partially submits, without losing his own identity. This

narrativity in space allows room for individual imagination, and is to be pursued by exhibition

makers162 – as well as by urban curators, I would add in respect of this thesis. This kind of

immersion reminds of the engagement and experience with urban space that urban

scenography vouches for. It aims to temporarily distance urban inhabitants from everyday lives

through a critical rethinking of the paths and scenarios of their own lives.

In her thesis 'Introducing the New Midway: A Study in Urban Scenography' Montblanch

mentions the importance of this intensified connection between the urban inhabitant and his

surroundings in the context of performances in public space, in my view also applicable to

some public art projects. Montblanch argues that when an artistic event is able to take over a

site, experientially it causes a consuming situation: it absorbs the spectator in such a way that

he is taken out of the sphere of everyday life and brought into the realm of illusion.

It is in these moments that we detach ourselves from the rational and ordered city and

animate the cityscape according to our own imagination and desires.163 It is a way of perceiving

the city as offered by the approach of urban scenography.164

161 Kossmann et al. 2012, p 112. 162 Kossmann et al. 2012, p. 86. 163 Montblanch 2006. 164 The contemporary need for this immersion into a illusionary environment could for example be recognized in the

round the world popularity of light festivals that create immersive spaces through illuminating urban environments,like nighttime arts festival Nuit Blanche.

36

2.4.2 Urban scenography and desire

In the above described notions of illusion and the imaginable in urban scenography, this

specific approach of art in public space clearly seems to address an expression of that what is

not visible. It invites the urban walker to pull himself out of the everyday life and into the

realm of illusion and dream, through which he can re-envision everyday life, urban

surroundings and its existing structures. In this sense urban scenography creates dialogue

between space and that what is absent.165 I wonder if it is possible to describe in more detail

what constitutes the absent or imaginable in urban scenography.

To recall Kolodziej's understanding of urban scenography, he argued that “it stems from the

visualization of life’s script, told by our history, cultural context and, most interestingly, from

our emotional needs.”166 From this point of view a rethinking of space can help us find our

aspirations and new perspectives on public space and everyday life.167

In 'Space and Desire. Scenographic Strategies in Theater, Art and Media' (2011) Brejzek

expounds further on this matter. She relates the scenographic approach to space to the

concept of desire, which according to her holds an important part in scenography.168 Brejzek

first explains how the concept of desire has different meanings in different disciplines and

contexts, which I think is clarifying in respect to her understanding of the place of the concept

of desire in the practice of urban scenography. Etymologically, desire points us to the stars,

space, and to unobtainable places. In philosophical studies however, while playing a central

role, desire generally has a negative association. This is because that what is desired can never

be fulfilled. Contemporary art practices often challenge the notion of desire as a kind of

escapism, focusing on the transgressive potential of desire.169

Now “looking to locate the other, the elsewhere, the manqué (the missing) and the infinite in

artists’ spatial organization [...],” Brejzek argues, “it is scenography in its contemporary

reading that can provide specific, if transdisciplinary methods and strategies in the

conceptualizations and constructions of staged spaces of desire.”170 According to my

understanding, scenography is here to be seen as a practice that locates and helps

comprehend the missing or desired other. It is a way of giving shape to the illusionary or the

imaginable space. Desire is the process of imagining the elsewhere, the missing and the

(sometimes) unobtainable itself, being a place of transgression in the sense that sensible

elements of an artwork are a proposition to be completed by the spectator’s desire.171

Desire therefore constitutes the gap between an expressive artistic form and an imaginary

space – to be filled in by the individual spectator – but also constitutes the elsewhere itself.

165 Prague Quadrennial. ‘The Prague Quadrennial has confirmed its status as the most prestigious of world scenography events: Interest in participation is very high.’ www.pq.cz. Consulted April 29 2014 <http://www.pq.cz/res/data/355/037480.pdf>.

166 Kolodziej <http://h08.cgpublisher.com/proposals/78/index_html> February 23.167 Praugue Quadriennial <http://www.pq.cz/res/data/355/037480.pdf> April 29 2014.168 Brejzek et al. 2011, p. 5. 169 Brejzek refers to Dollimore, Jonathan. Sexual Dissidence. Augustine to Wilde, Freud to Foucault. Oxford: Oxford

University Press, 1991.170 Brejzek et al. 2011, p.4.171 See note 165.

Brejzek et al. 2011, p.5.

37

Brejzek adds a summarizing note that all spatial articulation of desire articulates the potential

of desire itself. It is incomplete and perhaps unattainable: it is an orientation toward the open

and infinite.172

To further explain the articulation of desire, Brejzek describes that contemporary scenography

uses technologies like simulation, interactivity and immersion to create artistic expression and

user-participation that constitute the imaginary in the spatial practice of art. We have seen this

for example in the works of Daan Roosegaarde and Tomas Saraceno. Through the manipulation

of landscape scenography can produce an unsettling effect and aim for the construction of

desire.173 According to Brejzek, this might help explain the growing attraction for visual artists

to engage with scenographic visualization of space and time. Scenography’s approach to

perceiving reality adds a transcendent layer to the physical or static characteristics of an

object. This performative quality only comes to live in dialogue with the spectator's motivation

to explore or play with this layer of illusion or imagination, focusing on an alternate reality.174

Projecting the concept of desire on public art in urban environment, notions of the absent, the

imaginable and desire precisely regard the potential of art in public space to awaken the inner

world and imagination of the urban walker, who in his turn uses his illusive strength to

imaginatively and critically re-envision urban structures and scenarios through which he is able

to get in touch with the city’s missing spirit. To my understanding, the stimulation of the urban

inhabitant's imagination through critical urban interventions of public art has the potential to

visualize the missing or the desired in public space.

Interestingly, notions of desire, the missing and the unobtainable in context of the

contemporary city immediately remind of utopian ideas. Existing structures dissolve and we

envision a new, “better” urban world of prosperity and technological advancement, often

empowered by an extension of the virtual world. However this idea constitutes practical

aspirations of the city, which is not the kind of desire urban scenography addresses.

While it proofs to be very difficult to say what exactly constitutes the absent or the other in the

Western contemporary city, my research has shown that the approach of urban scenography in

public art takes a specific perspective on this matter, one that does not constitute the familiar

image of a technologically and productively advanced city formed by developing science and

human rationality. Within the perspective of urban scenography, the missing or the desired in

public space hold a craving for a reconnection with the city through an emotional as well as

physical engagement with urban surroundings and fellow citizens.

172 Brejzek et al. 2011, p. 8. 173 Idem, pp. 4, 9. 174 Idem, p. 5.

38

Chapter 3. Constant Nieuwenhuys: New Babylon

Now to explore the notions of urban scenography within one specific work of art, I would like

to study Constant Nieuwenhuys’ visionary urban art project New Babylon (1957-1974). Being

aware of the fact that this extraordinary body of illustrations and models does not constitute a

physical intervention in public space, I have chosen to research this work because it specifically

represents the urban scenographic concept of a disrupting urban environment while at the

same time addressing a physical as well as emotional experience of the contemporary city’s

landscape – relating to the genius loci of urban environment.

Positioned in the upheavals of the sixties, New Babylon is a utopia that addresses a

revitalization of urban public space that still remains relevant today, looking at recent

discussions that are being aimed at the dissociation against a practical and ordered planning

model, and the therewith intertwined everyday life of the capitalist city.175 This is why New

Babylon is a relevant work specifically in the approach of urban scenography to public art. I

find the work very clearly exemplifies all of the discussed notions of urban scenography in this

thesis – whereas I have found that a lot of public works represent either one or a few of the

characteristics or visions that are ascribed to the approach of urban scenography.

This might have to do with the fact that urban scenography is presumed to take a specific

approach to public space that differs from a mainly practical and economical understanding of

the city that prevails today. If it would actually be possible to realize the re-envisioning

environment of New Babylon, where a revitalization of urban space and a physical and

emotional engagement with public space would take place, this would in itself presume a

change of society’s systems and perspectives. Therefore the realization of a disruptive

environment as all-encompassing as New Babylon has not actually been possible, neither back

in the sixties nor in the contemporary city.176 If it would be possible to realize, it would

immediately lose its disruptive and critical power.

This forms the utopian power and the social-critical strength of New Babylon as an artwork. It

is not a conceivable project – which Constant also became aware of – but a place of

overthinking, of re-envisioning the concept of the city and its public space. As Mark Wigley

explains in his book Constant’s New Babylon. The Hyper-Architecture of Desire (1998):

“[These spaces] cannot be used as a prescription without being transformed into a new official

order that will itself need to be subverted. By definition, the future cannot be pictured. New

Babylon is not an image of the future but an image of what the future may require.”177

I therefore find the artwork of New Babylon will illustrate most clearly the different visions

urban scenography holds toward the contemporary city. It is a good example of a work that

constitutes and initiates thinking about ways to create disattachment from everyday life to

critically re-envision urban space. As we will see it created an urban inhabitant free from the

obligations of capitalism, wandering around this newly conceived space. It is a kind of

175 Bergen, Marina van den. ‘New Babylon: The Hyper-Architecture of Desire.’ December 1998. www.classic.archined.nl. Consulted June 2 2014.

176 Later on Constant also became aware of this.177 Wigley, Mark. Constant’s New Babylon. The Hyper-Architecture of Desire. Rotterdam: 010 Publishers, 1998, p. 13.

39

character that urban scenography seems to be looking for, and whose individuality and

behavior still remains appealing to our imagination today.178

Being aware of the fact that New Babylon constitutes an immense quantity of exhibitions,

models, collages and drawings, as well as concepts, ideas, contexts, related discourses,

critiques, theories and influences – which makes the work in itself worthy to be the subject of

a thesis – I will not try to give an overview of the work to its full extent but to give some sense

of the project’s concept and design in relation to the different notions of urban scenography I

have described in previous chapters.

3.1 The concept and design of New Babylon

Constant Nieuwenhuys (1920-2005) was an artist who together with Karel Appel and Corneille,

among others, represented the Dutch department of Cobra. However in 1956 he decided to

turn his back on the art of painting to devote himself to the immense architectonic utopian

project he later named New Babylon. This postwar decade was marked by great societal

changes. Welfare increased continuously and the industry automatized a lot of its processes. A

bloom of car and air traffic caused people to be able to travel faster, further and more easily to

different places. A new relation between work and leisure left people with the greater

possibilities for personal development. 179

In terms of architecture, in the fifties and sixties a movement developed that turned away

from the popular modernist principle of architecture and town planning, characterized by

functionality (images 17 and 18). Architects, town planners and artists were part of this

movement and held an outspoken political opinion, which generally contained a rejection of the

consumption society. Being one of these artists, it is not surprising that Constant temporarily

joined the social-critical organization Situationst International, of which I have described its

context, ideologies, actions and “situations” earlier in this thesis. 180

This context moved Constant to start thinking about the meaning and appearance of urban

environment, which were for him inevitably connected to the human body and mind, or to be

seen as extension of the human body and psyche. His vision of a utopian urban environment

deals with his prognosis of a completely automatized city is which human labor has become

obsolete. This would give humans the possibility to wholly devote themselves to the

development of their creativity. 181 Constant commented in the early 1960's: "The question [is],

how the people would live in a society without hunger, without exploitation, and also without

labor. In a society in which every person without exception would be able to fully develop their

creativity. This important and intriguing question calls forward the image of a material

environment that substantially differs from everything that we can, from everything that ever

was established in the area of architecture and town-planning."182 Thus in constructing New

178 Bergen, van den <http://www.classic.archined.nl/news/9812/Babylon_e.html> June 2 2014.179 Gemeente Museum Den Haag. ‘New Babylon.’ www.gemeentemuseum.nl. Consulted at June 2 2014

<http://www.gemeentemuseum.nl/topstukken/themas/new-babylon>. 180 See note 178.

Wigley 1998, p. 14. 181 See note 178. 182 Bergen, van den <http://www.classic.archined.nl/news/9812/Babylon_e.html> June 4 2014.

40

Babylon Constant had the means to simultaneously realize his own ideas, as well as the

Situationists’ architectural ambitions, like unitary architecture.183

In his book The Situationist City (1998) Simon Sadler points out that referring to the legendary

old Babylon as phenomenon of the modern city, it was a metaphor for the architectural and the

cultural in New Babylon. In terms of architecture, modern cities have been fascinated with the

elevation, engineering, and spectacle that the old Babylon was known for. Culturally, the

building of Babylon represents the power of collective effort in the construction of a city. In

New Babylon Constant used these elements to revive the concept of Babylon, turning it into a

utopian idea of a modern city that is technological, universal and playful.184

Constant conceptualized New Babylon as an urban environment where the Homo Ludens, the

playing human being, would live. This character would be able to individually define the

dynamic and ever changing appearance of his living environment without rules or restrictions.

He does not have to work: in this new society inhabitants would lead a nomadic existence and

could, in agreement with their desires, develop as creative beings.185 Because inhabitants are

provided with the space and freedom to express themselves creatively in everyday life, the

necessity of art would disappear. The autonomous disciplines of fine arts like painting,

sculpture, dance and theater would be absorbed in the game of creating life itself.186 New

Babylon could be seen as a Gesamtkunstwerk: created by the collective desires and activities

of its occupants one could say it proposes society as an artwork itself.187

We can see how in the concept of New Babylon several notions of urban scenography come

forward. Both are based on a belief in the interconnection between humans and their urban

environment in the sense that they are formed by one another and contain a kind of reflection

of each other. Constant takes this concept to the extreme by envisioning an urban

environment that can physically be constructed and changed according to the inhabitants’

every minute desires. New Babylon wants to move away from the contemporary city’s – and

thereby human’s – rationality, order and commerce and move toward a public space that is

characterized by free play,188 imagination and physical as well as emotional experience. This is

precisely the core of the approach of urban scenography. The work’s concept resembles the

scenographic aim to create new and disrupting paths and patterns of everyday life, led by the

urban dweller’s imagination and desire, providing him with a different perspective on urban

environment. A difference here is that the approach of urban scenography focuses on

interventions of art in public space in trying to do so, while New Babylon constitutes an urban

environment that in itself can be seen as a work of art, consisting of disruptive structures

created by its inhabitants.

183 “Unitary architecture” explained on p. 18. 184 Simon Sadler, The Situationist City, Cambridge MA and London: MIT Press, 1998, p. 122. 185 See note 182. 186 Gemeente Museum Den Haag. ‘New Babylon.’ www.gemeentemuseum.nl. Consulted at June 2 2014

<http://www.gemeentemuseum.nl/topstukken/themas/new-babylon>. 187 Buiten in Beeld. ‘New Babylon.’ www.buiteninbeeld.nl. Consulted June 9 2014

<www.buitenbeeldinbeeld.nl/stedelijk/constant.htm>. 188 As seen in the Situationists’ movement of the sixties. Not necessarily a contemporary intervention of urban

scenography but it does represent the same rejection of rationality and a commerce driven society.

41

Through drawings, models, films, lithographs, etchings, paintings and manifests Constant gave

form to his ideas about this modern and progressive urban environment during a period of

over twenty years. New Babylon represents a “vertical” living environment in urban space.189 It

would be a dynamic network of spaces and structures built on fifteen to twenty meter high col-

umns on top of the existing cities, to be extended throughout the Netherlands and eventually,

throughout Europe. This network would consist of suspended platforms and different sectors

with multiple levels, through which urban inhabitants could move around freely by foot and

with the use of elevators and stairs. The sectors would be independent from a construction

point of view, but after a period of time they would gradually grow towards each other, forming

a network on top of the existing cities (images 19 and 20).190

Being like a floating city New Babylon would leave room for the historical centers of the “old”

cities. The ground surface was mainly meant for ground transportation, automated production,

agriculture, historical monuments, nature and other elements for which would be no place

within the sectors. The roof would provide space for pedestrians, green promenades and

airstrips for air traffic.191 Supporting the network’s systems with a space frame, as Sadler de-

scribes it, “New Babylon provides a clean sheet for three-dimensional urban planning and

growth. The sectors would represent a sort of extension of the earth’s surface, a new skin that

covers the earth and multiplies its living space” (image 21).192

Like aimed for in the approach of urban scenography, these structures show an over-thinking

of the everyday paths of urban dwellers in modern cities. They provide a panoptic view on the

existing city, as citizens are imagined to be moving around on elevated platforms. It would

quite literally take them out of routine scenarios and surroundings, providing a futuristic and

potentially critical view on urban space. For example, some corridors within New Babylon

would even have lenses instead of windows to increase the panoptical qualities of the view

over other sectors or, in old cities, across streets and waterways. 193 This elevated view on

everyday routines and scenarios remind of the theories of De Certeau and the Situationists,

who believed in the potential of the urban walker to reflect on and rethink his everyday paths

throughout the city, for example through a dérive or détournement in Situationist theory. The

world of New Babylon is to be understood as a critique on the capitalist city. It could be seen

as one immense détournement in itself, moving the urban walker away from labor, rational

structures and orders that are found in city life and planning, into the realm of imagination. It

would even turn life into an ecstatic experience, according to Sadler.194

Constant believed that through the multileveled structures, that could physically be

constructed and rearranged by the New Babylonians themselves, urban walkers would be

189 Gemeente Museum Den Haag. ‘New Babylon.’ www.gemeentemuseum.nl. Consulted at June 2 2014 <http://www.gemeentemuseum.nl/topstukken/themas/new-babylon>.

190 Bergen, van den <http://www.classic.archined.nl/news/9812/Babylon_e.html> June 4 2014.191 Ibidem.

Gemeente Museum Den Haag. ‘New Babylon.’ www.gemeentemuseum.nl. Consulted at June 2 2014 <http://www.gemeentemuseum.nl/topstukken/themas/new-babylon>.

192 Sadler 1998, pp. 129-130. 193 Idem, p. 143. Refers to Hein van Haaren. Constant: Monografie. Amsterdam: Meulenhof, 1967 , pp 12-13. 194 Idem, p. 151.

42

elevated into a space of free play, illusion, creativity and instinct. So the network of New

Babylon would consist of an endless interior space – artificially lit and air conditioned – of

movable floors, walls, partitions, ramps, ladders, bridges and staircases (images 22 and 23).

The New Babylonians would have the ability to adjust the qualities of each space: like light,

acoustics, color, ventilation, texture, temperature and moisture.195 To ensure variability and

infinite possibilities, Constant pled for neutral structures, regulation in measurements and

standardization of production.196 Anticipating on the flexibility of habitats in New Babylon,

Constant envisioned the system of mobile construction elements within the fixed framework to

be made out of lightweight products that were coming out of materials science. For example,

the Yellow Sector would have titanium floors and nylon pavements and partitions (image

24).197

According to Constant, in this constructed environment the New Babylonian could live like a

Homo Ludens, free from a world of rationality, order and labor.198 The artist explained in 1948:

“Every definition of form restricts the suggestion it projects. The more perfectly defined in

form, the less active is the onlooker.”199 In other words, the less static an environment is, the

more the urban walker can develop his own perspectives and paths through it, thereby

exploring his own creativity imagination and individuality. This reminds of Kossmann's theories

that argue that abstraction leaves a greater potential for individual reflection and

interpretation. We can recognize here one of the methods of urban scenography to revitalize

public space: to create a situation in which human beings are engaged in a dynamic relation

with their surroundings using their imagination and ability to take critical distance. Posing itself

as an organic space, New Babylon constitutes a sphere in which its inhabitants can open

themselves to an active engagement with their surroundings through a playful interaction with

it. This does not mean that free play is thé way to increase engagement with public space, but

it is rather to be seen as a representation of the refusal of our society dominated by rationality.

In addition, New Babylon appears to possess a level of tactility and sensory stimulation,

bringing to the surface the need for physical experience in public spaces described in the

approach of urban scenography to public art.200 Being physically and experientially accessible,

one could say New Babylon is a city constructed by engagement and physical and emotional

experience.

Now according to Hein van Haaren the dynamic labyrinths would provide for endless

constructed situations: life here would be a never ending chain of encounters between mind,

body, space and architecture. 201 Through this perspective the passages are not something to

be traveled through: there is no goal. Life in New Babylon can better be understood as infinite

disrupting situations set against an ever changing decor. And because no place would ever be

195 Wigley 1998, p. 10. 196 Bergen, van den <http://www.classic.archined.nl/news/9812/Babylon_e.html> June 4 2014.197 Sadler 1998, p. 132.198 Wigley 1998, pp. 5, 9, 28. 199 Sadler 1998, p. 141. Refers to Constant. ‘Reflex Manifesto.’ Trans. Leonard Bright and Willemijn Stokvis. In:

Cobra 1988 [1948], pp 29-31. 200 See p. 28. 201 Sadler 1998, p. 141. Refers to Van Haaren 1967, pp. 12-13.

43

the same and inhabitants will not recognize certain spaces, the modern day static concepts of

habit, automatism and routine will disappear.202 New Babylon would constitute a dynamic life of

permanent creation and therefore cannot cause repetitive behavior. Everything and everyone

moves, which would bind New Babylonians to an adventurous nomadic existence. 203

Here we can see how the work of New Babylon represents one of the core visions of urban

scenography on its intervention in public space. It attacks the idea of a comprehensive and

rational city, using the Situationists’ concepts of unitary architecture, free play and creating

situations. New Babylon frees the urban inhabitant from everyday scenarios, although it does

so in a very extreme way. It aims to trigger the imagination of the urban inhabitant to re-

imagine and rethink public space in an overwhelming fashion, in itself being an immersive,

disruptive environment that proposes a completely different society and use of public space. As

Sadler explains: “Daily life does not occur in New Babylon, it is New Babylon. There is no

distinction between design and desire, architecture and psychology, space and social life.”204

Sadler critiques that this immersive, never ending, maybe even sublime orientation of New

Babylon comes at a practical and ideological price. He says a continual dérive or détournement

is dangerous in the sense that without defenses the individual is threatened with dissociation

and will relapse into what is called “ordinary life”. Constant also realized this while working on

his project, but found a solution.

The artist believed that, above all, living space needs to respond to the individual needs and

desires of its inhabitants. Until then Western cities had been building housing projects

according to Modernist concepts, a mass production of identical units. They were driven by

economic and functional rationalism, neglected individuality and favored uniformity.205 New

Babylon would require different living environments looking at the lifestyle of constant

movement and disorientation.206 This is why Constant dispersed hotels and campsites in the

different sectors of his design. Wigley noted these were to replace the traditional living space,

the family home, the representation of a static social order and a fixed sense of orientation.207

The hotels and campsites were only to be places for rest, so that the inhabitants could take a

break from the endless play and absorption in order to maintain this kind of nomadic life

(image 25 and 26).208

Furthermore, the nomadic and creative lifestyle of the New Babylonians would demand an

independence from material cares as much as possible, which is why there would mainly be

collective provisions available. The different sectors would house some of the multiple functions

that the traditional city accommodates individually. These collective provisions would form

about seventy or eighty percent of the living space in a sector. Thereby the private and

202 Buiten in Beeld. ‘New Babylon.’ www.buiteninbeeld.nl. Consulted June 9 2014 <www.buitenbeeldinbeeld.nl/stedelijk/constant.htm>.

203 Wigley 1998, p. 164. 204 Sadler 1998, p. 151. 205 Nichols, Julie. ‘Nomadic Urbanities: Constant’s New Babylon on the Contemporary City.’ In: Graduate Journal of

Asian-Pacific Studies, Vol. 4, No. 2 (2004), pp. 29-52. Retrieved from <file:///C:/Users/simulat/Downloads/Nomadic%20Urbanities,%20JN-2004.pdf> June 7 2014.

206 See note 202. 207 Wigley 1998, p. 13.208 Sadler 1998, p. 145.

44

individual in New Babylon are reduced to a minimum.209 Designing these structures within the

existing landscape or cityscape, Constant sought to show the contradictions between mega

structure New Babylon and the existing cities with their separation of function in buildings and

districts.210 Not completely taking over urban public space, New Babylon thus appears to align

to some extent with the urban scenographic concept of creating a disruptive environment or

scenario in public space.

Moreover, according to Wigley especially mobility and disorientation would increase social

interaction in New Babylon exponentially. He argues that heterogeneous desires are drawn

toward each other and generate new spaces. Individual desires would merge into one dynamic

space. This can be explained through the reasoning that every transformation of the space, no

matter how small or seemingly insignificant, is to be understood as a direct intervention in

social life that sets off a chain reaction of responses of other Babylonians.211 This collective use

of space tends to reduce passivity. Through the activities of New Babylonians, the static space

would become dynamic.212 Thus the culture of New Babylon does not derive from isolated

activities or exceptional situations, but from the collective activity of the whole population. This

is how the dynamic labyrinth is turned into an immense social space, Wigley argues (image 27

and 28). 213

Placing New Babylon within the approach of urban scenography, it is a living environment that

represents the city as a living organism – one of the essential aims of the concept – and in

which the city’s genius loci is palpable. Being an organic environment, New Babylon becomes

an artwork through the interactions and collective ways of living of its inhabitants. Because

although the environments of New Babylon are constructed by the individual needs and desires

of its inhabitants, the utopian city holds an emphasis on the collective in public space. This

perspective aligns to some extend with the approach of urban scenography that aims to move

away from modern day alienation. Urban scenography sees the potential in the urban

inhabitant to individually re-imagine and rethink public space – but also to engage with his

urban environment and revitalize it through interaction with his fellow citizens. This is why we

could compare the collective construction of New Babylon to the shared experience.

Inhabitants are emotionally and physically reconnected with each other. They respond to each

other’s constructions and needs or desires, and share the same provisions. But the utopian

network can also be said to function as a shared experience in the sense that it is physically

and experientially accessible to every inhabitant. Everyone has an equal potential and

opportunity to fill in their own life and paths through the structures.

209 Buiten in Beeld. ‘New Babylon.’ www.buiteninbeeld.nl. Consulted June 9 2014 <www.buitenbeeldinbeeld.nl/stedelijk/constant.htm>.

210 Sadler 1998, pp. 127, 128. 211 Wigley 1998, p. 14. 212 Idem, p. 165. 213 Ibidem.

45

3.2 New Babylon as a model of a physical and emotional “other” space

Altogether the above mentioned characteristics made New Babylon to be a city of infinite

dimensions, aiming to create an infinite pleasurable and even sublime experience. Sadler notes

that to enter into the New Babylon labyrinth was to submit to what Constant called its

“principle of orientation”. Constant explained: “New Babylon is one immeasurable labyrinth.

Every space is temporary, nothing is recognizable, everything is discovery, everything changes,

and nothing can serve as a landmark. Thus psychologically a space is created which is many

times larger than the actual space.”214 In this note we can also recognize urban scenography’s

approach to space in art or public environment: it rather sees it as a metaphorical space than

as an actual space, opening the dweller’s eye to invisible dimensions.215 Sadler noted: “He

rethinks the status of the ground and heads off into space,”216 possibly referencing to the

elevation of the structure as well as to the utopian character and aesthetics of the work.

Constant was clearly influenced by the exploration of outer space in the fifties and sixties as

well as the constructivist movement. Next to nylon and titanium that anticipate on future

technologies, the constructed spaces of New Babylon consist of transparent planes, glass,

Plexiglas, plastic, aluminum, iron wire, wood, and metal elements of different shapes and

sizes. They remind of industrial constructivist works. The huge webs of metal touching the

ground on a few points were clearly inspired by the metal space-frames developed by

architects Konrad Wachsmann and Robert le Ricolais in the early 1950’s. 217 Thus Constant used

both artistic and architectural techniques and aesthetics in his work, which looking at his

models and illustrations can be said to have given the work – together with the utopian idea of

elevated public space – a futuristic appearance (images 29-32). Constant commented in 1959:

“The space voyages that are being announced could influence this development [of New

Babylon], since the basis that will be established on other planets will immediately pose the

problem of sheltered cities, and will perhaps provide the pattern for our study of a future

urbanism.”218

The architecture of New Babylon above all contains very strong qualitative elements, reminding

of the physical and emotional experiences in urban scenography. The structures constitute a

dynamic labyrinth that stimulates a physical and emotional experience of the spaces by

triggering the senses as well as the instinct, imagination and creativity of the inhabitants. For

example, there are “deaf rooms” that are lined with insulating materials to impose a complete

and rare silence in public space, and “screaming rooms” decorated with bright colors and

overwhelming sounds, which would stimulate senses of vision and hearing.219 Cinematographic

plays, water games, erotic sports and dances emphasize the human body as being instrument

214 Sadler 1998, p. 143. Refers to Van Haaren 1967, pp. 12-13. 215 Wigley 1998, p. 30. 216 Sadler 1998, p. 49.217 Ibidem. 218 Wigley 1998, p. 51. Refers to Constant. ‘Another City for Another Life.’ In: Andreotti, Libero, Xavier Costa,

eds. Theory of the Dérive and Other Situationist Writings on the City. Barcelona: Museu D'art Contemporani de Barcelona, 1996 [1958], p. 94.

219 Sadler 1998, pp. 146-147.

46

of pleasure instead of labor.220 Although being an environment mostly excluded from nature,

New Babylon would entail some sensations of nature. Wigley explains that every now and then

the structure would open to the sky or the ground beneath.221 However most of the sensations

of nature were produced by the artificial landscape of the interior itself. New Babylonians would

cross cool and dark spaces, hot, wet and occasionally windy spaces, where they could

technologically adjust these elements according to their own desires.222 Thus they could enjoy

an intensification and disruption of nature’s cycles.223 Through all these intensified sensations

the inhabitants of New Babylon would on the one hand become more aware of their physicality,

but on the other hand move into a sphere of illusion and wonder as well. To live would be to

experience in every human way possible. Sadler argues accordingly. He says that the New

Babylonians would be opened up to their own powers and creativity. In the labyrinth there is

no distraction of rationality or destination, like so clearly represented by the grid in modern

cities and critiqued by urban scenography. Thus there can only be focus on the experience of

the here and now.

However Sadler notes it is not clear when a space is encountered. For the first time in history

the spatial boundaries of living environment would dissolve.224 This architecture was meant to

let New Babylonians float in an indefinable space that was open to their unpredictable desires.

The transparency and movability of the structures are put in service of mystery, Sadler

comments. It is an imagining of a society in which everybody is free to create his own life, to

give it shape according to their deepest aspirations.225

This idea of urban inhabitants wandering around in an indeterminate atmosphere of utopia led

by imagination and desire is precisely what we have seen constitutes the other, the missing or

the elsewhere in the approach of urban scenography. The disorientation in the immersive and

illusive environment of New Babylon represents the open, the infinite and the sublime.226 It is a

dream-like sphere that opens the urban inhabitant to the invisible and the imaginable, and

therewith to insights in his emotional life. In their free movement and play throughout the

spatial structures of New Babylon, inhabitants are confronted with their desires that are

normally overruled by rationality. They “can be”, as it were, instead of living a life imposed by

society. This kind of life makes sense of the earlier excerption of De Certeau: “To walk is to

lack a place. It is the indefinite process of being absent and in search of a proper.”227

220 Sadler 1998, p. 151. Refers to Marcuse, Herbert. Eros and Civilisation. A Philosophical Inquiry into Freud. London:Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1956, p. 19.

221 Wigley 1998, p. 13.222 Sadler 1998, p. 145. Refers to Van Haaren 1967, pp. 12-13. 223 Idem, p. 145. 224 Idem, pp. 146-147. 225 Idem, pp. 50, 160. 226 Buiten in Beeld. ‘New Babylon.’ www.buiteninbeeld.nl. Consulted June 9 2014

<www.buitenbeeldinbeeld.nl/stedelijk/constant.htm>. 227 De Certeau 2002 [1984], p. 103.

47

3.3 Critique on New Babylon

Although having described some of its most important outlines, it appears to be quite difficult

to fully grasp the concept and design of New Babylon. According to Sadler, the envisioned

environment is so far removed from conventional ideas that it remains something of a mystery.

Also Constant’s way of presenting New Babylon does not help us to completely understand the

concept and design of it. As the project advanced the body of illustrations and models became

more and more expansive, rather than more detailed and comprehensive. Constant texts and

images do not entirely coincide which leaves us to fill in the blanks with our imagination. The

artist often explained the context of his work rather than the content. For example, we have no

idea about the mechanical working on the environment.228

So it is not surprising that New Babylon received some critique. One of the most important

remarks is that the environment of New Babylon, while claiming to provide a city where people

can live free according to their own desires and imagination, still exercises great power over its

inhabitants just like rational cities do.229 This critique was for example expressed by Guy

Debord, one of the founders of the Situationist International, who said that unitary urbanism is

to be understood as a critique of urbanism, not a doctrine of urbanism.230 The workings of the

structures of New Babylon had too much of a pressing influence on the way the inhabitants

would live their lives, besides the fact that the utopian city in itself imposes a very specific

form of urbanism.

Constant defended his work by arguing that he was attempting to give a visual form to unitary

architecture. He was neither aiming to create an artwork in the traditional sense, nor a town

planning project or architectonic model.231 According to the artist the work should better be

understood as nothing more than a projected framework for the construction of situations and

the decor for a life of creativity and leisure. 232 The art project might therefore not actually be a

utopia, for most utopias represent a future goal.233 It should rather be seen as a way of

thinking about the structures of everyday life.

Constant wanted New Babylon to be a creative game with an imaginary environment,234 which

might explain why his manifests and mockups remain so abstract. He designed New Babylon

as a provocation, rather than a city.235 As mentioned earlier the work was not to be realized,

but constitutes a critical, playful and highly imaginative way of re-envisioning the concept of

the city and its public space. This is what makes the project an artwork and an exemplary and

inspiring work within the field of urban scenography.

228 Sadler 1998, pp. 125, 135, 137-138. 229 Idem, p. 146. 230 Idem, p. 152. Refers to Guy Debord, Attila Kotányi, Jørgen Nash. ‘Critique de l’Urbanisme.’ In: Internationale

Situationniste, No. 6 (August 1961), p. 5. 231 Although it had an influence in the field of architecture, for example in the progressive architecture of the mid-

sixties. See Sadler 1998, p. 155.232 Sadler 1998, p. 122. 233 Miles 1997, p. 18.234 Sadler 1998, p. 123. Refers to Constant. ‘New Babylon.’ Trans. Ulrich Conrads. In: Constant. Amsterdam.

Bochum: Städtische Kunstgalerie, 1961 [1960]. 235 Wigley 1998, p. 71.

48

Conclusion

In researching our perception of public space in Western contemporary cities and the position

public art takes in it, I found one of its most important understandings to be the idea that

public space is constructed by the way urban inhabitants relate to it. Public space can be seen

as a structure that is being formed by human action, perception and behavior, but also reflects

the state of our society. Modern cities are considered to be based on economic expansion,

rational planning, order, practical grids, impersonal relations, and this characterizes urban

inhabitants as aloof, rational, alienated beings driven by commerce and distanced from their

individual desires.

A meaningful connection between urban inhabitants and their everyday surroundings seems to

be missing. Citizens move between their home, work and leisure time through the city without

really noticing their environment, blindly following the structures created by dominant powers

like politics, economy and culture, and created by architects and city planners. Simmel argued

this blasé attitude is caused by the violent impulses of the striking and never ending chain of

images that appear to the urban inhabitant as he walks the streets. He has to protect his inner

life from these disrupting impulses, a response that to some extent numbs his sensitivity and

contact with his emotions.

In my motivation to research what position public art takes in the interaction between urban

inhabitants and the public space of the contemporary city, I have found that urban

scenography is an approach to art in public space that can be of value in offering a different

perspective on the city. Public art claims to reflect on urban spaces and to contribute to a re-

envisioning and regenerating of the city, but often it is quite unclear how it does so and what

this regenerating actually means. Urban scenography appears to be an elucidating and

valuable approach in this matter. Exploring the different notions of urban scenography in the

field of public art, I have tried to conceptualize how this approach could be critical toward the

contemporary perception of public space and offer a meaningful perception instead.

As we have seen in the readings of Baudelaire, Benjamin and De Certeau, there have been

different speculations about a character that would experience the city with greater

consciousness and sensibility since the upcoming of the capitalist city. This character would

have sensitive, reflexive and imaginative abilities to create a critical distance between him and

his surroundings, through which he could raise more self-awareness of his daily routines and

personal desires – in opposition to those imposed by the structures of the city.

Since scenography is an artistic concept that analyses the visualization and construction of

space and its meaning, it lends itself as an approach to public space and interventions of art in

it. It considers space not to be an accumulation of static physical objects, but more like a

metaphorical space that is endlessly being formed by the physical and emotional experience

and imagination of the onlooker. This is exactly the kind of perspective that is missing in the

contemporary city, which is why the approach of urban scenography could offer a meaningful

perspective. It has the potential to physically and emotionally reconnect the urban inhabitant

49

with the city and thereby reanimate the city’s spirit, its genius loci, perceiving it as a kind of

living and ever changing organism instead of a practical place for societal and economic

expansion.

I have described different ways in which urban scenography is considered to do so.

Theoretically it approaches public space as a performance space, posing the “scripted

narrative” of the city (its dominant structures) in opposition of the different “choreographies”

(paths and perspectives) the urban inhabitants takes in expression of his everyday life. This is

how urban scenography reveals the interconnections between public space and its occupants,

and in my understanding perceives the city as performative space: it is the expression of a

construction that constitutes different realities of countless individuals.

Urban scenography proposes the urban inhabitant to take a critical distance from his everyday

surroundings and routines, in order to stimulate his reflexive consciousness, rethink and re-

imagine public space, and invent new perspectives and paths. The artistic actions of the

Situationists in the sixties are an example of how artists and other critics wanted to create

these detaching moments or experiences. With their “détournements” – artistic, unpredictable

and playful situations, actions and performances – they tried to disrupt and decompose the

routines and rules of everyday life to create new perspectives on the capitalist city and human

behavior in it.

Today, the activist interventions of for example flash mobs or urban games resemble disruptive

situations in public space. However they mainly draw on the elements of spectacle and joyful

and romantic emotions rather than stimulating a critical overthinking of public space.

Interventions of public art do appear to possess this critical power. According to Doherty they

disrupt intellectual frames and thereby intervene with the perception of space, aligning with

the aims of urban scenography. The utopian kite Solar Bell by Saraceno created a physical and

illusional disruptive space that proposed different, elevated paths in public space while at the

same time focusing the spectator’s consciousness on the everyday “world below” and a shared

unknown future of the city.

Besides critical distance to everyday life and routines, engagement with urban surroundings as

well as among urban inhabitants is an essential element in the approach of urban scenography.

According to Brejzek engagement has the ability to regenerate public space in the sense that it

encourages urban inhabitants to rethink the relation between the individual and the societal,

and emphasizes the physical and emotional experience of urban inhabitants. It initiates an

emotional reconnection between citizens and their surroundings, of which fellow citizens

naturally take part. This attitude moves away from urban space as a static set of objects and

structures, characterized by social distance and alienation.

However there appear to be different views on the way this engagement in established:

individually or collectively. While urban scenography emphasizes the individual potential of the

urban inhabitant to rethink the contemporary city, the shared experience takes an important

place in enabling him to do so. Engaging interventions of public art revitalize public space in

the sense that they reevaluate the collective use of public space, and cultivate shared history

50

and aspirations, for example seen in the urban projections of Wodiczko.

The shared experience takes on this reconnection with the city through stimulating a physical,

sensitive experience of public space, but in my understanding moreover addresses an

emotional experience or bond that has the potential to tackle today’s social distance and the

urban inhabitant’s practical and alienated relation to public space. Marbles by Roosegaarde

proved to be an example of a public work that stimulated the physical as well as emotional

experience, as the stone-like forms triggered human senses while creating a space for

communication and interaction among urban inhabitants. Although we have seen that the core

of the shared experience does not constitute interaction or consensus between urban

inhabitants per se, but is rather understood as an emotional connection between them, which

in its turn reflects on public space and reanimates it. Public artworks that initiate engagement

can stimulate the urban inhabitant’s consciousness of his surroundings and the perceptions of

fellow citizens, enabling him to create a different and critical view on public space.

Ultimately it appears that different writers and theorists believe the approach of urban

scenography to public art contains the potential to create an imaginary and illusionary space. It

brings forth a consciousness of “the reality” of urban surroundings and structures through a

break with everyday life constituted by the imaginative powers of the urban inhabitant. This

realm of illusion where he temporarily resides does not mean he is completely detached from

reality, but requires a fair amount of deviation or immersion. It requires artworks to create a

space of captivation to which the spectator partially submits without losing his identity and

individual imagination, so he keeps a critical distance through which he can rethink and re-

imagine public space.

Drawing closer to the ultimate core of urban scenography, I have argued that the imaginary,

“the other” or “the elsewhere” refer to the desired in the contemporary perception of public

space. The concept of scenography provides a way to locate, understand, visualize or construct

the desired or missing in space. This is how urban scenography creates a dialogue between

urban space and that was is absent. Desire in this context constitutes the transgression

between the sensible elements of a public artwork and the spectator’s imagination that is open

and infinite. It allows him to re-imagine public space and everyday life, revitalizing the city’s

spirit through perspectives that are not colored by rationality and capitalism. While it is very

difficult to grasp the essence of desire, within the approach of urban scenography the desired

or the missing in public space holds a craving for a reconnection with the city through an

emotional as well as physical engagement with urban surroundings and among urban

inhabitants.

Now it appears that artists, curators and spectators possess an equal potential to create

disrupting, engaging and imaginary spaces according to the approach of urban scenography. I

have tried to show the presence of its perspective in several public artworks. I do want to add

that I found it to be very difficult to find public artworks that express multiple or all of the core

notions of urban scenography. A lot of works contain a single element or did not convincingly

take a critical position in my view. This could have to do with the idea that urban scenography

51

constitutes a different approach to public space, that in itself would not exist if these notions

were generally known and expressed accordingly. Broadly speaking, if there was a dispersion

of urban artworks that actually would re-envision and regenerate urban space, this would in

itself upheave the perspective of urban scenography. But like Brejzek argued, urban

scenography does not constitute the “cure” of public space but should rather be understood as

an infection of ideas, new perspectives and untested speculations that embrace unpredictable

outcomes.236 This is why in my view the work of New Babylon by Constant Nieuwenhuys

proved to be such an apt example of a work that constitutes the approach of urban

scenography, precisely because it represents a non-realizable environment that only exists in

the sense that it is a place of overthinking, of re-envisioning the concept of the city and its

public space.

For these reasons the theoretical outlining of notions of urban scenography may have a more

conspicuous presence in this thesis than the case studies of public art that represent the

approach of urban scenography. I have put a lot of effort in describing the extending context

and different notions of urban scenography, while now there still remains a very exciting and

interesting awareness of this specific perspective and possibility to seek and look forward to art

in public space that to some extent resonates these perspectives. It shows how the approach

of urban scenography to public art can be of value in our Western perspective of urban space.

It offers a perspective that physically and emotionally reconnects us with our urban

surroundings, fellow citizens, imagination and desires – which reanimates, rather than

regenerates, the contemporary city.

236 Brejzek 2011, p. 11.

52

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Brejzek, Thea, Wolfgang Greisenegger and Lawrence Wallen, eds. Space & Desire. Scenographic Strategies in Theatre, Art and Medi. Zurich: Zurich University of the Arts, 2011.

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Chardronnet, Ewen. The History of Unitary Urbanism and Psychogeography at the Turn of the Sixties. Examples and Comments of Contemporary Psychogeography. Lecture notes conference, Riga Art & Communication Festival, May 2003. Retrieved from <http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/ewen-chardronnet-the-history-of-unitary-urbanism-and-psychogeography-at-the-turn-of-the-sixties> May 4 2014.

Choi Kwan Lam, Margaret . ‘Scenography as New Ideology in Contemporary Curating and the Notion of Staging in Exhibitions.’ Dissertation MA Curating Contemporary Design, Kingston University London in partnership with the Design Museum, September 2013. Retrieved from <http://online.fliphtml5.com/wojf/ynmk/#p=1> March 2 2014.

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Debord, Guy. ‘Theory of the Dérive.’ In: Ken Knabb, ed. Situationist International Anthology. Berkeley, CA: Bureau of Public Secrets, 2006 [1956]. Retrieved from <http://www.cddc.vt.edu/sionline/si/theory.html> April 29 2014.

Debord, Guy. The Society of the Spectacle. Trans. Black & Red. Detroit: Black & Red, 1970 [1967].

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Debord, Guy, Gil J. Wolman. 'A User’s Guide to Détournement.’ Trans. Ken Knabb. In: Situationist International Anthology. Berkeley, CA: Bureau of Public Secrets, 2006 [1956]. Retrieved from <http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/detourn.htm> May 4 2014.

Doherty, Claire. 'Public Art as Situation: Towards an Aesthetic of the Wrong Place in Contemporary Art Practice and Commissioning.’ In: Jan Debbaut. Out of the Studio! Art and Public Space. Hasselt: Z33, 2008. Retrieved from <http://thinkingpractices.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/doherty-publicartassituation.pdf> March 2 2014.

Donger, Simon. ‘Gloom. Scenography as praxis of imperceptibility.’ Submission to PHD, The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, University of London, 2012. Retrieved from <http://crco.cssd.ac.uk/456/1/Gloom_Scenography_as_Praxis_of_Imperceptibility.pdf> May 4 2014.

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Heartney, Eleanor. Art & Today. London and New York: Phaidon Press Limited, 2008.

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Heinich, Natalie, Michael Pollak. 'From Museum Curator to Exhibition Auteur: Inventing a Singular Position.' In: Reesa Greenberg, Bruce Ferguson, Sandy Nairne, eds. Thinking about Exhibitions. London and New York: Routledge, 1996.

Howard, Pamela. What is Scenography? London: Routledge, 2002.

Lavrinec, Jekaterina. ‘From a “Blind Walker” to an “Urban Curator”: Initiating “Emotionally Moving Situations” in Public Spaces.’ In: Limes: Cultural Regionalistics, Vol. 4, No. 1 (2011a): pp. 54-63.

Lavrinec, Jekaterina. ‘Revitalization of Public Space: From “Non-places” to Creative Playgrounds.’ In: Santalka: Filosofija, Komunikacija, Vol. 19, No. 2 (2011b). Retrieved from <http://www.cpc.vgtu.lt/index.php/cpc/article/view/coactivity.2011.16/pdf> March 2 2014.

Lavrinec, Jekaterina. ‘Urban Scenography: Emotional and Bodily Experience’. In: Limes: Borderland Studies, Vol. 6, No. 1 (2013): pp. 21-31.

Lavrinec, Jekatarina, Oksana Zaporozhets. 'Shaping Spaces of Shared Experience: Creative Practices and Temporal Communities.' In: Oleg Pachenkov, ed. Urban Public Space: Facing the Challenges of Mobility and Aesthetization. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang GmbH, 2013: pp. 132-143.

Lees, Loretta, Tom Slater, Elvin K. Wyly. Gentrification. New York: Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group, 2008.

Ley, David. ‘Gentrification and the politics of the new middle class.’ In: Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, Vol. 12 (1994): 53–74. Retrieved from <http://www.environment-and-planning.com/epd/fulltext/d12/d120053.pdf> June 15 2014.

Loyd, Richard. Neo-Bohemia. Art and Commerce in the Postindustrial City. New York: Routledge, 2006.

Koetsier, Marthe. ‘Art & Space.’ Essay for seminar Thinking Modern and Contemporary Art by Eva Fotiadi, MA Art History, University of Amsterdam, January 21 2014.

Kossmann, Herman, Suzanne Mulder, Frank den Oudsten. Narrative Spaces: On the art of Exhibiting. Rotterdam: 010 Publishers, 2012.

Kotányi, Attila, Vaneigem, Raoul. ‘Basic Program of the Bureau of Unitary Urbanism.’ In: Ken Knabb, ed. Situationist International Anthology. Berkeley: Bureau of Public Secrets, 2006. Found at http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/6.unitaryurb.htm May 26 2014.

Lefebvre, Henri. The Production of Space. Trans. Donald Nicholson-Smith. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1991 [1974].

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Loukola, Maiju. ‘Scenography Lived: Intermediality and Haptic Visuality - On the Intimacy of Distance.’ Abstract of lecture for symposium Scenography Expanding 1: On Spectatorship, February 25-27 2010, New Riga Theatre, Latvia. Retrieved from <http://www.theatre.lv/new/files/RIGASPEAKERS_Abstracts.pdf> May 26 2014.

McKinney, Joslin. The Cambridge Introduction to Scenography. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Miles, Malcom. Art, Space & the City. Public Art and Urban Futures. London: Routledge, 1997.

Montblanch, Nuria. ‘Introducing the New Midway: A Study in Urban Scenography.’ Abstract from MA Thesis Architecture, Dalhousie University, Canada, 2006. Retrieved from <http://www.nuriamontblanch.com/Urban-Scenography> March 24 2014.

Mouffe, Chantal. ‘Which Public Space for Critical Artistic Practices.’ Presentation Institute of Choreography and Dance (Firkin Crane), Cork Caucus, Cork, Ireland, 2005: pp. 149-171. Retrieved from <http://readingpublicimage.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/chantal_mouffe_cork_caucus.pdf> May 12 2014.

Nichols, Julie. ‘Nomadic Urbanities: Constant’s New Babylon on the Contemporary City.’ In: Graduate Journal of Asian-Pacific Studies, Vol. 4, No. 2 (2004), pp. 29-52. Retrieved from <file:///C:/Users/simulat/Downloads/Nomadic%20Urbanities,%20JN-2004.pdf> June 7 2014.

Pine, Joseph B., James H. Gilmore. The experience Economy. Work is Business and Every Theatre a Stage. Boston, MA : Harvard Business Review Press, 2011 [1999].

Plant, Sadie. The Most Radical Gesture: The Situationist International in a Postmodern Age. New York: Routledge, 1992.

Ricci, Corrado. ‘The Art of Scenography.’ In: The Art Bulletin, Vol. 10, No. 3 (March 1928): pp. 231-257. Retrieved from <http://www.jstor.org/stable/3050731> March 15 2014.

Sadler, Simon. The Situationist City. Cambridge, MA and London: MIT Press, 1998.

Schilling, Gabi. ‘The Liberation of Space and Body.’ Abstract lecture for symposium Scenography Expanding 1: On Spectatorship, February 25- 27, 2010, New Riga Theatre, Latvia. Retrieved from <http://www.theatre.lv/new/files/RIGASPEAKERS_Abstracts.pdf> May 26 2014.

Simmel, Georg Simmel. ‘The Metropolis and Mental Life.’ In: Gary Bridge, Sophie Watson, eds.The Blackwell City Reader. Oxford and Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2002 [1903]: pp. 11-19.

Situationist International. ‘Détournement as Negation and Prelude.’ Trans. Ken Knabb. In: Internationale Situationniste, Vol. 3 (1959). Retrieved from <http://library.nothingness.org/articles/SI/en/display/315> May 4 2014.

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Sommer, Moritz. ‘Is Everyday Life Best Understood as Site For Creative Agency or Structural Determination? Assessing Certeau's reaction to Foucault.’ Essay MSc Political Sociology, London School of Economics and Political Science, January 18 2013. Retrieved from <http://www.academia.edu/3400838/Assessing_de_Certeaus_reaction_to_Foucault> April 17 2014.

Stanek, Lukasz. Henri Lefebvre on Space: Architecture, Urban Research, and the Production ofTheory. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2011.

Wigley, Mark. Constant’s New Babylon. The Hyper-Architecture of Desire. Rotterdam: 010 Publishers, 1998.

Websites

Bergen, Marina van den. ‘New Babylon: The Hyper-Architecture of Desire.’ December 1998. www.classic.archined.nl. Consulted June 2 2014 <http://www.classic.archined.nl/news/9812/Babylon_e.html>.

Buiten in Beeld. ‘New Babylon.’ www.buiteninbeeld.nl. Consulted June 9 2014 <www.buitenbeeldinbeeld.nl/stedelijk/constant.htm>.

Frieze Magazine. ‘Javier Tellez.’ www.frieze.com. Consulted May 2 2014 <http://www.frieze.com/issue/article/javier_tellez/>.

Gemeente Museum Den Haag. ‘New Babylon.’ www.gemeentemuseum.nl. Consulted at June 2 2014 <http://www.gemeentemuseum.nl/topstukken/themas/new-babylon>.

German-Architects. ‘International Scenography Biennial.’ www.german-architects.com. Consulted April 30 2014 <http://www.german-architects.com/en/agendas/details/4541>.

Guggenheim. ‘Francis Alÿs in collaboration with Cuauhtémoc Medina and Rafael Ortega.’ www.guggenheim.org. Consulted May 2 2014 <http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/collections/collection-online/artwork/11412>.

Hanly, Jack. ‘Public Art and the Shared Experience of Beauty.’ February 5 2012. www.bardcityblog.wordpress.com. Consulted May 25 2014 <http://bardcityblog.wordpress.com/page/14/>.

Kolodziej, Adam. ‘Urban Scenography.’ 2008. http://commongroundpublishing.com. Consulted February 23 2014 <http://h08.cgpublisher.com/proposals/78/index_html>.

Lakeman, Mark, Saskia Dresler. ‘The City Repair Project: Transform Space into Place.’ Video. www.article.wn.com. Consulted May 26 2014 <http://article.wn.com/view/2014/03/31/Internationally_recognized_artist_Ann_Hamilton_selected_for_/>.

Mann, Juan. ‘Free Hugs.’ www.freehugscampaign.org. Consulted April 30 2014 <http://www.freehugscampaign.org/>.

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MET Museum. ‘Tomas Saraceno on the Roof.’ www.metmuseum.org. Consulted May 24 2014 <http://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2012/tomas-saraceno>.

mmmm.... ‘Meeting Bowls. In Times Square from August 16 to October 12, 2011. New York (USA).’ www.mmmm.tv. Consulted May 26 2014 <http://www.mmmm.tv/enmeetingbowls.html>.

Museum de Paviljoens Almere. ‘Daan Roosegaarde, Marbles (2012).’ www.depaviljoens.nl. Consulted May 26 2014 <http://www.depaviljoens.nl/page/54002/nl>.

Portscapes 2. A Series of Art Projects Aliongside the Construction of Maasvlakte 2. ‘Project: Tomas Saraceno, Solar Bell.’ www.portscapes2.nl. Consulted May 24 2014<http://portscapes2.nl/eng/project-tomas-saraceno-solar-bell>.

Prague Quadrennial. ‘The Prague Quadrennial has confirmed its status as the most prestigious of world scenography events: Interest in participation is very high.’ www.pq.cz. Consulted April29 2014 <http://www.pq.cz/res/data/355/037480.pdf>.

Stichting Kunst en Openbare Ruimte. ‘Portscapes 2. Tomas Saraceno.’ www.skor.nl. Consulted May 24 2014 <http://www.skor.nl/nl/zoeken/item/portscapes-2-tomas-saraceno>. Theatre Studies Utrecht University. ‘Thinking Scenography.’ www.theatrestudies.nl. Consulted May 1 2014 <http://www.theatrestudies.nl/staff_merx_projects.html>.

Todd, Charlie. ‘Surprise Torch Run.’ www.improveverywhere.com. Consulted April 30 2014 <http://www.improveverywhere.com/>.

Trend Tablet by Lidewij Edelkoort. ‘Tomas Saraceno.’ www.trendtablet.com. Consulted May 24 2014 <http://www.trendtablet.com/10319-tomas-saraceno>.

Images

Image front page: Constant, Yellow Sector, New Babylon, 1957-1974. Metal, iron, aluminium, copper, ink on Plexiglass, oil on wood, 21 x 82.5 x 77.5 cm<http://static.digischool.nl/ckv1/studiew/destad/constant/babylon.htm>.

Image 1. Situationist graffiti, Paris 1968Sous les pavés, la plage (Under the cobblestones, the beach) <http://fuckyeahexistentialism.tumblr.com/post/72139929462/situationist-international-graffiti-from-the-1968-paris>.

Image 2. Paris, student protests 1968. Photo: AFP<http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2009/mar/18/guy-debord-situationist-international>

Image 3. Improv Everwhere, Surprise Torch Run, New York, 2014. Photo: Improv Everywhere<http://mrcharlietodd.com/page/3>.

Image 4. Love padlocks, Le Pont des Arts, Paris<http://www.aol.com/article/2014/05/29/l/20895246/>.

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Image 5. Francis Alÿs, When Faith Moves Mountains, Lima 2002. Photo: Francis Alÿs<http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/exhibition/francis-alys/francis-alys-story-deception-room-guide/francis-alys-3>.

Image 6. Francis Alÿs, When Faith Moves Mountains, Lima 2002<http://yeahiloveart.blogspot.nl/2013/03/when-faith-moves-mountainsan-art-work.html>.

Image 7. Javier Tellez, One Flew Over the Void, Las Playas, Mexico, 2005. Photo: Alfredo de Stephano <http://www.onedaysculpture.org.nz/ODS_artistdetail.php?idartist=19>.

Image 8. Tomas Saraceno, Cloud Cities, Hamburger Bahnhof Berlin, 2011. Photo: Tomas Saraceno and David von Becker <http://www.trendtablet.com/10319-tomas-saraceno>.

Image 9. Tomas Saraceno, Cloud Cities, Harmburger Bahnhof Berlin, 2011. Photo: Tomas Saraceno and David von Becker <http://www.trendtablet.com/10319-tomas-saraceno>.

Image 10. Thomas Saraceno, On Space Time Foam, Hangar Bicocca di Milano, 2012-2013. Photo: Camilo Brau <http://www.tomassaraceno.com/Projects/Bicocca/Gallery/>.

Image 11. Tomas Saraceno, Solar Bell, Rotterdam 2012. Photo: Mirna van der Veen<http://www.designboom.com/art/tomas-saracenos-solar-bell-floating-sculpture-takes-flight/gallery/image/tomas-saraceno-solar-bell-designboom-28/>.

Image 12. Krzysztof Wodiczko, Homeless Projection, 1986–1987. Outdoor slide projection at the Soldiers and Sailors Civil War Memorial, Boston<http://167.206.67.164/resources/humanities/review/ArtHistory/Gardner.34.d/>.

Image 13. Daan Roosegaarde, Marbles, 2012. Photo: Studio Roosegaarde<http://www.depaviljoens.nl/page/54002/nl>.

Image 14. Daan Roosegaarde, Marbles, 2012. Photo: Studio Roosegaarde<http://www.depaviljoens.nl/page/54002/nl>.

Image 15. mmmm..., Meeting Bowls, 2011. Photo: Ka-Man Tse for the Times Square Alliance<http://www.timessquarenyc.org/times-square-arts/project-archives/mmmm-meeting-bowls/index.aspx#.U66rN_l_v4I>.

Image 16. Christo and Jean-Claude, The Gates, Central Park, New York, 2005. Photo: Wolfgang Volz <http://christojeanneclaude.net/projects/the-gates?images=completed#.U66sXfl_v4I>.

Image 17. Le Corbusier, Plan Voisin, Paris, 1922-1925. Image: Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris / F.L.C. <http://cached.newslookup.com/cached.php?ref_id=203&siteid=2170&id=2912158&t=1377351943>.

Image 18. Le Corbusier, Plan Voisin, Paris, 1922-1925. Image: Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris / F.L.C. <http://cached.newslookup.com/cached.php?ref_id=203&siteid=2170&id=2912158&t=1377351943>.

Image 19. Constant, map of New Babylon, 1963. In: The Activist Drawing: Retracing Situationist Architectures from Constant’s New Babylon to Beyond, edited by Catherine de Zegher and Mark Wigley, MIT Press, 2001<http://sigliopress.com/extrapolations-and-interpolations-maps-that-chart-the-unexpected/>.

Image 20. Constant, View of New Babylonian Sectors, 1971. Watercolor and pencil on photomontage, 135 x 223 cm. <http://notura.com/page/2/>.

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Image 21. Constant, Sector, New Babylon, 1970. Dry point etching, 5.5 x 12 cm.<http://prezi.com/unfpiu8vbejf/sheltering-the-underbelly-of-society/>.Image 22. Constant, New Babylon, 1963. Lithography, 40 x 38 cm, Gemeentemuseum Den Haag <http://www.gemeentemuseum.nl/collection/item/197>.

Image 23. Constant, Mobile Ladder Labyrinth, 1967. Pencil and watercolor on paper, 99 x 110 cm <https://www.behance.net/gallery/The-Aimless-Reader/2032857>.

Image 24. Constant, New Babylon. Combination of Sectors, 1971. Foto Victor E. Nieuwenhuys<http://www.artribune.com/2013/04/un-secolo-di-citta-nuove/12-164/>.

Image 25. Constant, design for Gipsy Camp, New Babylon, 1956-1958. Stainless steel, aluminum, Plexiglas, oil paint on wood, 21 x 130 cm. Gemeentemuseum Den Haag. Photo: Victor E. Nieuwenhuys <http://www.callthewitness.net/Testimonies/ExhibitionArchitecture>.

Image 26. Constant, design for Gipsy camp, New Babylon, 1956-1958. Stainless steel, aluminum, Plexiglas, oil paint on wood. Gemeentemuseum Den Haag. Photo: Victor Nieuwenhuys <http://www.yorku.ca/robb/hyper/pages/constantnom.htm>.

Image 27. Constant, New Babylon, 1957-1974 <http://ludicpyjamas.net/wp/?attachment_id=509>.

Image 28. Constant, New Babylon interior, 1960. Ink on paper, 32 x 46 cm, private collection<http://thefunambulist.net/2010/12/22/great-speculations-new-babylon-by-constant-drawings/>.

Image 29. Constant, Yellow Sector, New Babylon, 1957-1974. Metal, iron, aluminium, copper, ink on Plexiglass, oil on wood, 21 x 82.5 x 77.5 cm. Gemeentemuseum Den Haag. Photo: Jan Versnel <http://www.pinterest.com/pin/303711568592382772/>.

Image 30. Constant, Spatiovore (Space Eater), New Babylon, 1957-1974. Metal, ink on Plexiglass, paint on wood, 65 x 90 x 65, private collection. Photo: Vitcor E. Nieuwenhuys<http://heathkillen.tumblr.com/post/74048553689/initially-known-as-deriville-from-ville>.

Image 31. Constant, Sector Construction, New Babylon, 1957-1974. Metal, photo-montage, 280 x 160, destroyed. <http://allfordeadtime.wordpress.com/category/miscellany/>.

Image 32. Constant Nieuwenhuys, Yellow Sector, New Babylon, 1958. Wood, metal, Plexiglass,21 x 82.5 x 77.5. Gemeentemuseum Den Haag. Photo: Bram Wisman<http://citymovement.wordpress.com/2012/03/16/constant-nieuwenhuyss-new-babylon/>.

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Images

Image 1. Situationist graffiti, Paris 1968Sous les pavés, la plage (Under the cobblestones, the beach)

Image 2. Paris, student protests 1968

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Image 3. Improv Everywhere, Surprise Torch Run, 2014Random New Yorkers get Olympic Torch from injured athlete

Image 4. Love Padlocks, Le Pont des Arts, Paris

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Image 5. Francis Alÿs, When Faith Moves Mountains, Lima 2002

Image 6. Francis Alÿs, When Faith Moves Mountains, Lima 2002

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Image 7. Javier Tellez, One Flew Over the Void, Las Playas, Mexico, 2005

Image 8. Tomas Saraceno, Cloud Cities, Hamburger Bahnhof Berlin, 2011

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Image 9. Tomas Saraceno, Cloud Cities, Harmburger Bahnhof Berlin, 2011

Image 10. Thomas Saraceno, On Space Time Foam, Hangar Bicocca di Milano, 2012-2013

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Image 11. Tomas Saraceno, Solar Bell, Rotterdam 2012

Image 12. Krzysztof Wodiczko, Homeless Projection, 1986–1987Outdoor slide projection at the Soldiers and Sailors Civil War Memorial, Boston

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Image 13. Daan Roosegaarde, Marbles, 2012

Image 14. Daan Roosegaarde, Marbles, 2012

67

Image 15. mmmm..., Meeting Bowls, 2011

Image 16. Christo and Jean-Claude, The Gates, Central Park, New York, 2005

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Image 17. Le Corbusier, Plan Voisin, Paris, 1922-1925

Image 18. Le Corbusier, Plan Voisin, Paris, 1922-1925

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Image 19. Constant, map of New Babylon.Top, left: Holland, 1963. Top, right: Antwerpen, 1963. Bottom, left: Rotterdam, 1963. Bottom,

right: Paris, 1963-1964.

Image 20. Constant, View of New Babylonian Sectors, 1971. Watercolor and pencil on photo-montage, 135 x 223 cm.

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Image 21. Constant, Sector, New Babylon, 1970. Dry point etching, 5.5 x 12 cm.

Image 22. Constant, New Babylon, 1963. Lithography, 40 x 38 cm. Gemeentemuseum DenHaag

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Image 23. Constant, Mobile Ladder Labyrinth, 1967. Pencil and watercolor on paper, 99 x 110cm, Gemeentemuseum Den Haag

Image 24. Constant, New Babylon. Combination of Sectors, 1971

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Image 25. Constant, design for Gipsy Camp, New Babylon, 1956-1958. Stainless steel,aluminum, Plexiglas, oil paint on wood, 21 x 130 cm. Gemeentemuseum Den Haag

Image 26. Constant, design for Gipsy camp, New Babylon, 1956-1958. Stainless steel,aluminum, Plexiglas, oil paint on wood, 21 x 130 cm. Gemeentemuseum Den Haag.

Photo: Victor Nieuwenhuys

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Image 27. Constant, Babylon-Domazlice (Travel Sketch), New Babylon, 1965. Ink on paper, 30x 42 cm

Image 28. Constant, New Babylon interior, 1960. Ink on paper, 32 x 46 cm, private collection

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Image 29. Constant, Yellow Sector, New Babylon, 1957-1974. Metal, iron, aluminium, copper,ink on Plexiglass, oil on wood, 21 x 82.5 x 77.5 cm. Gemeentemuseum Den Haag

Image 30. Constant, Spatiovore (Space Eater), New Babylon, 1957-1974. Metal, ink onPlexiglass, paint on wood, 65 x 90 x 65, private collection

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Image 31. Constant, Sector Construction, New Babylon, 1957-1974. Metal, photo-montage,280 x 160, destroyed.

Image 32. Constant Nieuwenhuys, Yellow Sector, New Babylon, 1958. Wood, metal, Plexiglass,

21 x 82.5 x 77.5. Gemeentemuseum Den Haag

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