Exhibition Cittadellarte.Sharing Transformation  / Kunsthaus Graz (29.09.2012.-20.01.2013)

As a part of the ephemeral City-of-Art, in which participation/collaboration has been redefined, project Carrito Cultural has been invited to ‘translate’ cultural development strategies for the River Medellin into local context of Graz. Social significance of collective and local knowledge represented starting point in building ‘production’ area of the imaginary city, involving local bike-enthusiasts REBIKEL and citizens of Graz. Another cultural activation vehicle has been developed from abandoned bikes founded at the streets of Graz and activated through the set of actions, spanning from public salsa classes till small reparations of the visitor’s bikes.

Publication / Book of Transformation 

Photos > Universalmuseum Joanneum (Nicolas Lackner), Camila Velez

Wasteland Twinning Forum , ZK/U, Berlin-Moabit, 21-23.09. 2012

The Anxious Prop collective has been invited to join Wasteland Twinning Forum in order to build another version of the Y-table that facilitate the generation of collective knowledge. Research vehicle called Objective Dialogues served as analytical station, proposing diverse methods for investigation of the wasteland-objects submitted from seven different sites. The table was equipped with 3d scanner and 3 stations (digital scale, measuring tools, magnifying glass), attached to the classification shelf, allowing pairs of investigators to build narratives around chosen object. The whole process concluded by recording a short summary and bringing generated sheet of information back to the cabinet, permitting other participants of the forum to read and reinterpret presented data.

Photos > R.Taylor, S.Kalika, J.Wunderling

Medellín, 29.07.2012, in collaboration with El Puente_Lab and Deúniti

As a part of tactical-urbanism strategy along the River Medellín, driven by alternative cultural infrastructure Carrito Cultural, action Dia de Playita invited local artists, homeless people living at the location and the random citizens into day-long creative-occupation of the space outside the master-plan. In the unusual setup of no-man’s-land (river sedimentation), innovative participation models took place in order to re-communicate inaccessibility, pollution and invisibility of the city’s main axis.

photos> Sebastián Ochoa Giraldo

PUF currently teach a master-course Production of Space in the Digital Age (specialization in Critical Urban Studies), which results will be  presented in series of excursions at the end of May 2013 (JUST 3).

Article > From a Patchwork of Territories to a Network of Collective Spaces , PEAR magazine (Paper for Emerging Architectural Research), Issue 5: Medellín Through a Kaleidoscope, London, January 2013.

The radical transformation of Medellín’s cityscape has been recognised internationally, through dramatic pictures of cable-cars flying over shantytowns, spectacular Library Parks designed by prominent architects and most recently the installation of a public escalator in the most violent barrio of the city. Furthermore, the Medellín-model has become a desirable path of development for many Latin American cities, embedded in social inequality, weak infrastructure and high rates of criminality.

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As a part of the Lecture Series under the title Contesting Space-Architecture as a Social Practice, PUF had a chance to present diverse ways of building alternative infrastructures, in order to oppose current situation in which majority is excluded from the urban governance. Beyond political protests, pranks and social-media driven gatherings, lecture had aim to reposition architect as a responsible person in the struggle for political in the public arena and to see potentials of performative planning for creation of collective knowledge.Particular focus has been given to formation of alternative cultural platforms, tools for tactical urbanism and offline-communication devices.

Medellin, Colombia, Aug. 2012, in collaboration with El Puente_Lab

Cultural activation of the Medellín River has been under agenda of the project Carrito Cultural (mobile cultural infrastructure), exploring potential of tactical interventions at particular spots in order to change citizen’s perceptions of the abandoned and hardly accessible area right in the middle of the vibrant metropolis. By inviting street-artist collective Deúniti to paint large-scale mural at the one of the river sedimentations, atmosphere of the conventional city-beach has been staged, involving homeless people that live at the location and inviting random citizens that use the river occasionally for the bike-based recreation. After capturing this unusual situation, local percussion collective Alibombo has borrowed us sound background produced at the car’s cemetery.

Tempelhof Airport, Berlin, 23.06. 2012

On the occasion of the exhibition The World Is Not Fair, AXP collective was invited to intervene in the pavilion of Institut für Raumexperimente under the title Translation Acts. For that purpose site-specific installation has been built, offering possibility of collective writing on pirate-box driven Etherpad Lite. Participants had chance to write a collective poem, to develop color based pattern and to do the mash-up from the given texts.

Programing > Philipp Bosch /   Photos > Sabine Schulz Blank

Critical Urbanism days_Vilnius_16-18.05.2012

J.U.S.T = Jamming Underused Socialist Treasures

How seven Mayors didn’t kill the Ghost? graffiti on the abandoned beer-bar Tauro Ragas, serve as a trigger to dig into complex past and question blurred future of the once important social space. Alternative visualization strategies has been practiced with students from EHU and activists from Archfondas, during the 3 days productive-camping at another underused cultural space KultFlux. Retracing famous sculpture of Tauro and bringing it back to original location in the sort of religious procession, opened up participative photo exhibition and invites people to rethink existing cultural developments embedded in commodification of leisure.

Photos Alina Krushynskaya

The lecture introduced the concept of critical cartography in the digital and internet era, focusing on collaborative mapping strategies and diversification of mapping agents, as well as experimental activist/artistic drawings. The idea of the formation of collective knowledge through mapping was elaborated by introducing strategies of counter-mapping, networks-mapping and crisis-mapping.

In collaboration with El Puente Lab, platform for artistic and cultural production, Carrito Cultural has been developed as a mobile toolbox for the set of interventions along the river. It offers diverse spatial and programatic scenarios, which have aim to transform periphery character of the river through cultural inclusion. This bastardized vehicle serve both as receiver and emitter of location-based data and uses open-source mapping to visualize new cultural geographies.

Goethe Institute Belgrade, December 2011.

Medellin, Colombia, Nov. 2011

In the shadow of current Medellin’s megaprojects plenty of small-scale initiatives have grown, offering alternative socio-cultural developments. Those critical approaches in the form of resistance and proactive interventionalism question current urban development mechanisms based on control and exclusion of the majority. Environmental activism, new forms of participation, alternative education or crowd-based cultural jamming represent diverse ways to construct collective spaces, quite the opposite to idea of creating territories. This movie tries to trace a variety of self-generated initiatives and contrast them with over-scaled plans of municipality by putting forward the perception of kids, cyclist movement and local artists.

Lecture > Tiny Empowerments_Berlin case

Art interventions in the public space became important part of the urban communications. In the city of Berlin, cultural developments that contrast “creative industries” generate plenty of alternative spaces and micro-entrepreneurs with social responsibility. Beside the administrative curtain, cultural funds and patrons, those networks are establishing new labour forms empowered by information and communication technologies.

After introducing some case studies from Berlin as a sort of inspiration, together with the short movie Pequeños Empoderamientos (Tiny Empowerments), open discussion about situation in Medellin took place together with local artists and activists.

October 2011, in collaboration with Critical Urbanism Lab

Both the form and content of the J.U.S.T. project are motivated by a desire to counter one of the effects of globalization, particularly visible in, though by no means limited to, Eastern Europe. This is the sense that development is only possible when international capital is interested in investing in a particular site. The challenge of the J.U.S.T. project is to reverse this logic – can jamming spaces on a local level act as a catalyst for urban transformations aiming at greater social justice? Urban interventions have long been utilized in critical or artistic approaches.What this project aims to do is test their potential for providing alternative development strategies for underused spaces without flirting with power structures.

August 2011, video director & editing Julia Kloiber

Making-visible is a prerequisite for collective knowledge – and each mode of production makes their own, be it through visual or other channels. AXP C4 aims to question the differences and similarities between science and the plastic arts in terms of making-visible. In a playful examination of the scientific format of the conference, work and interventions are seen through open debates about science, art and architectural production. In itself a specific format of making-visible, the video at the same time documents what happened on occasion of C4 and shapes the retrospective perception of the event.

European Humanities University, Vilnius, 14-22.05.2011 

As a part of guest seminar Click-Click Urbanism, E-Skimming and Mapping, urban interventions in post-socialist context of Vilnius were critically examined and practiced in public sphere. Focus was on vacant modernist heritage and administrative ignorance that leads to dilapidation and real-estate speculations. Three spaces of leisure (beer bar, public amphitheatre and sport hall) have been culturally jammed with an aim to build long-term strategy together with local interest groups, cultural institutions and policy makers.

JUST 6.59 > fake opening ceremony of the social-agricultural club

JUST 1 min University > new knowledge-exchange format

JUST Ride-In > blending bike culture with cinematic experience

JUST booklet

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Despite the current urgency to deal with the enormous potential of the already existing urban material as Urban Editors, there seems still to be an enormous lack of interest in topics such as urban and architectural restoration, preservation, renovation, redevelopment, renewal or adaptive reuse of old structures among architects and urban designers. But ignorance in this matter can only be dismissed as socially irresponsible and economically and culturally unacceptable. But what might be the reason for the prevailing ignorance? Who is to blame? Why is Urban Editing considered to be so utterly unattractive?

The Anxious Prop Case 4, Reviewing Making-Visible, Stattbad Wedding , 30.03.2011, Berlin

Case 4 was collective effort to examine differences and similarities between science and plastic arts in terms of making-visible. By deconstructing scientific format of the conference, interdisciplinary team generated simultaneous discussions and presented new issue of feuilleton. Site-specific intervention in the sloped pool underlined sectional quality of location and created debates around customized bar-tables. This circular arena with void centre served as spatial model in which real-time conversations where recorded by rotating mobile with microphone at the end. Randomly selected thoughts of participants where re-appropriated and printed in the new visual language.

Photos : Lola Meyer, Daniel Fernándezpascual, Elizabeth Feder