Art for places competition 2009 for the liverpool canal purposes
Emplacement
Liverpool, England
Partner in charge
Alexis Cogul
Project Type
Competition
Program
Ephimeral construction
Plot surface
Various places
Build Surface
To define
Project date
April 2009
Client
Liverpool Biennial comission
Construction Budget
300.000 €
The aim of the project is to improve the quality of an almost abandoned landscape. Abandoned expresses the lack of connection (physical, perceptive, cultural..) of the site in spite of its extreme proximity to the communities. The project tries to be an installation, a ductile landscape able of being transformed in a spontaneous way.
We want to add elements, epicenters, able to change a site’s identity. We do not want to absorb the landscape into the proposal. We, on the contrary, want the proposal to act as the same landscape modified. The same landscape deformed and thus perceivable through lights and sound that normally don’t belong to those areas. The sum of the elements participate to the project: water from the canal, the sound of cars and trains, ambient sounds… For these reasons the project introduces 4 main qualities in the sites proposed by the brief:
1. CARPET, INFLATABLE TOPOGRAPHY An inflatable topography. The artifact tries to define a new topography along the canal. A topography that includes a new forest of urban elements. A corner full of corners… It is possible that at first sight the attitude towards the canal could be the one of defend ourselves. This new topography offers that kind of protection, comfort, heimat. It makes possible to live in those spaces, to locate and store things. To convert sites in familiar and meeting places.
2. SPHERE / WATER GROUND Another element is the location of the sphere (globe?) along the canal and the sorroundings. It is not by casuality. Staying upon the water, reflecting water, including it in the program hosted by the artifact. Water is an element and not a border in the project. For this reason, the location of the globe is the first act in “founding” this installation in the different sites.
3. DETOUR SOUNDSCAPES It is important to notice that places not only correspond to physical proporties, tangible properties. They also have ambient qualities, sound, smell… A system of speakers distributed in the sites will question the place’s identity through the reproduction of sounds that not belong to the site, far away from the city.
4. BLUR. REFLECTIVE SURFACES. The sphere/globe is a floating landmark blurring its surroundings depending to different light conditions, acting as a screen for projections, alighting by night.It is an artifact able to provoke sequences of facts/events/situations. We propose a psycho-place. Able of transform and being transformed, adaptable to different situations and requirements. A place that consider the program (uses) as activities comprehended in a wider community. We are not interested in speaking just of an objectual value, we are on the contrary interested in all the other values. Light, color, elements as ground or water, habitat…
