Demolition Sites: Sites of Reconstruction (Glasgow Architecture Fringe 2023)
Projected at the Musty Shed Exhibition alongside various video work by different artists.
Using a collection of online CCTV footage of construction sites from around the world, the viewer is invited to observe and enquire into spaces of demolition and (de)(re)-construction.
Projected onto three screens, a collection of various video works from artists responding to the themes of urban space and architecture were shown. The video sequence is intended as a video installation that fills in the gaps of other video works. This sequence does not act as a single projection of a single video work amongst the others, but rather reappears sporadically between them, as a sort of backdrop. In this online web format, it is a linear sequence, but in the video installation format, it is cut up into pieces. Placed as background footage to replace the black screens that cut up each video work shown, these videos occupy a space akin to the position that demolition/construction sites take within urban architecture. The extraction of buildings and land from their functional position within the sequence of a city, for instance, cuts up space and creates blank zones, such as those created by construction sites separating two otherwise functional and determined spaces. Construction sites become the backdrop of other buildings, not yet accessible yet ephemerally part of the landscape. It is a non-space, or a space in the process of revealing itself and in the process of determination. It is usually uninhabited other than by the construction workers and their machinery. Buildings themselves take on different appearances, in a state of metamorphosis, from bone to body. This state of architectural birthing or annihilation is a grey area in the sense that such concepts of birthing or annihilation become synonym of eachother, rather than opposites. Within the process of deconstruction, there is also always the possibility for reconstruction. Using the witnessing eye of the viewer behind the security camera, one is invited to observe and witness this in-between space where things are in a state of becoming or disappearing. In some cases, the camera is remotely accessed and the artist has played with changing camera directions, or changing the speed and direction of the video.
Using a collection of online CCTV footage of construction sites from around the world, the viewer is invited to observe and enquire into spaces of demolition and (de)(re)-construction.
Projected onto three screens, a collection of various video works from artists responding to the themes of urban space and architecture were shown. The video sequence is intended as a video installation that fills in the gaps of other video works. This sequence does not act as a single projection of a single video work amongst the others, but rather reappears sporadically between them, as a sort of backdrop. In this online web format, it is a linear sequence, but in the video installation format, it is cut up into pieces. Placed as background footage to replace the black screens that cut up each video work shown, these videos occupy a space akin to the position that demolition/construction sites take within urban architecture. The extraction of buildings and land from their functional position within the sequence of a city, for instance, cuts up space and creates blank zones, such as those created by construction sites separating two otherwise functional and determined spaces. Construction sites become the backdrop of other buildings, not yet accessible yet ephemerally part of the landscape. It is a non-space, or a space in the process of revealing itself and in the process of determination. It is usually uninhabited other than by the construction workers and their machinery. Buildings themselves take on different appearances, in a state of metamorphosis, from bone to body. This state of architectural birthing or annihilation is a grey area in the sense that such concepts of birthing or annihilation become synonym of eachother, rather than opposites. Within the process of deconstruction, there is also always the possibility for reconstruction. Using the witnessing eye of the viewer behind the security camera, one is invited to observe and witness this in-between space where things are in a state of becoming or disappearing. In some cases, the camera is remotely accessed and the artist has played with changing camera directions, or changing the speed and direction of the video.