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| Cloud City, May-October, 2012, MET, NY, (p)Wally Gobetz |
Pinksummer (Ps):
Superstudio in 1970 wrote "In those years it was becoming very
clear that continuing to draw furniture, objects and similar domestic
decorations was no longer the solution to the question of living? And
it could help even less to save it's own soul". "Radical"
architecture of groups such as Superstudio, Archizoom and other
collectives started in the second half of the 60's to free itself
from the pragmatism of the discipline to project a philosophy of
life. In 1973 again Superstudio declared: "Architecture never
touches the big issues, the essential topics of our lives.
Architecture stays at the corner of our lives and takes part only at
a certain point of the process, usually when the action has been
codified?. You are an architect that works as an artist or an artist
with a background as an architect: do you think that art, with its
finality tout court, if we can call it finality, is to inform ideas,
is more adapt to investigate the big issue of life or even only to
de-futurize the future?
Tomás Saraceno (TS): Usually I try to leave the task of categorising my work to
the others. First of all we should define the work of the artist and
of the architect in history. For me it is more interesting to find
interdisciplinary events between those two areas of research. Up
until now I felt more opportunity with art than with architecture:
with art the possibility of expanding the process of perception sets
a critical attitude into motion that considers and reconsiders,
re-interprets, decodes your position reverses the reality, reverses
the world. If I decide to look at this keyboard for four hours
without touching it, my relationship with it will not be the same. In
any case we can apply the term "architecture" to an
infinitude of contexts and understand that architecture could be a
thing much more vast: architecture of computers, architecture of a
poem? Architecture is everywhere and cannot be viewed essentially as
the science of constructing houses, cities, etc. I think that the
aims and interactions between disciplines must be continuously
re-invented for each specific context. After operating a dissolution
of ?disciplines?, We have to try to activate a process of
re-actualization in relation to ever changing contexts, to therefore
find a feedback for a faster process of communication, capable of
imagining more elastic and dynamic rules. Maybe we can learn from the
principle of ecology as a system of cohabitation of different
cultural areas. This would help us to understand the need for a
principle of cooperation. It is a system based on an entity-principle
of "networks" (all the living systems communicate between
themselves and share areas of research) "cycles" (all the
living organisms are fed with a continuous flux of substances and
energy from their environment in order to survive and all those
organisms produce a surplus that becomes usable for other species. In
this way the substance is always in circulation through this network
of life), "partnership" (the exchange of energy and
resources in an eco-system is supported by a pervasive cooperation.
Life on the planet is supported by the principles of cooperation,
partnership and networking), "diversity" (an ecosystem
gains the stability through the richness and complexity of its own
ecologic network. The bigger the biodiversity the bigger the
resistance), "dynamic balance" (an ecosystem is flexible,
is a network in continuous flux. Its flexibility is the consequence
of multiple feedbacks that keep the system in a status of dynamic
balance. Not a single variable is maximized, all the variables are
floating around their optimal values). It would be interesting to
obtain this kind of system of relations among art, architecture and
science.
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| Cloud City, 2012 , (p) Wally Gobetz |
Ps:
In Greek "utopia" means no place, it is the name given by
Tommaso Moro to an island governed by ideal political, social and
religious structures. Utopia is the projection of a better world that
is the opposite to the reality of existing history. Utopia draws
strength from a rationalization that opposes the madness of current
times. In your work this concept of Utopia is present, making use of
highly technological materials as well as a sense of wonder. Your
utopia seems to be one of building habitable unity, urban
agglomeration, and cities with a feeling of the extraordinary. Your
Utopia seems to be one following the movement of the clouds, allowing
you to surpass national boundaries, a bit like that happening in
airports. These units are contained in balls made from a material
patented for this use (aerogel). Do you think that Utopia is
something that can be realized or is it an unstable concept, that
creaks when confronted with reality?
TS:
Utopia exists until it is created. A hundred years ago was it not
considered to be a utopian thought that people could travel by
aeroplane? Now, five hundred million people fly every year. In 2010
it will be three-trillion. The idea of utopia is in constant mutation
and changes according to the era. I think that the individualism that
characterizes this period in history makes this concept an unstable
and fragile one. Now there is an ever better consciousness of
sustainability in our lives on planet earth. In this way, my work
tries to explore and interpret the present reality, using
technological innovations for new social objectives. For example, my
idea of Air Port City is that of creating platforms, habitable cells
or cities that float in the air, that change form and join into each
other like clouds. This flexibility of movement, in relation to the
national states, finds an answer in the organized structures of
airports: the first international city. Airports are found in various
cities and are divided by "air-side" and "land-side";
with "air-side" you are under international law. Every
action you make will be judged according to international norms.
Total control under freedom. Air Port City is like a flying airport;
you will be able to legally travel across the world, taking advantage
of the airport regulations. Work on this structure tries to contest
political, social, cultural and military restrictions that are
accepted today, in an effort to re-establish new concepts of synergy.
A year ago, with the help of engineers and lawyers, I took advantage
of an application of a new material called Aerogel, to be used in
vehicles that are lighter than air. These vehicles use a gas that is
lighter than air to rise up: helium, hydrogen, hot air, a mix of
these, or others. The use of Aerogel gives these vehicles the
possibility of flying solely on solar energy. These vehicles are the
more efficient alternatives for our future of mobility and for a
possible "colonization" of the sky. There will be no more
need for airports, air pollution will cease; they will be efficient
alternatives for new satellites and will create new possibilities for
communication. These situations will makes faster and more
energetically-sustainable movements possible, an incredible mobility
for people, information, data, creating a continuous re-definition of
the boundaries and of national, cultural and racial identities.
Everything will move with greater ease, creating continuous and
quicker relations and inter-relations, and the possibility of
choosing conditions of life and preferred climates. They will be like
entities in a permanent state of transformation, similar to nomadic
cities. Gypsies will never go back to the same place, simply because
the place will continuously change. Air Port City is like a huge
synthetic structure that works towards a real economic
transformation. Obviously the Air Port Cities would agree to
development without damaging the biosphere, in this way improving the
conditions of life on earth and avoiding any existing dangers and
menaces, such as a possible meteorite collision, urban
over-population etc. Moving from a personal "belief" to a
collective one is the first step towards the realization of this
idea. After the unification of Europe a
"europeanafroamericanasianoceaniasfydsdf" will be created:
like the continental drifts at the beginning of the world, the new
cities will search for their positions in the air, to then find
themselves in the universe. From Cirrocumulus to
Cirrocumuluscity!
Imagine: around the world without a passport! It would be important to reach a new international agreement that would allow citizens more than just a passport, and for citizens without a state to have a "united Nations" passport, which would give them basic human rights in the countries in which they were staying permanently or temporarily, as Majid Tehranian supports in "Worlds on the Move". Moreover, as Yonathan Friedman notes, at the moment only 2% of the world population migrates. My idea of cities and civilizations encourages a continuous mobility. If, as maintains Lewis Mumford, cities had origins in necropolises and therefore from a culture of the dead, today we have internet sites that put the ashes of the dead into orbit, with the motto "Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Stardust"! History seems to be repeating itself: we are ready for flying cities!
Imagine: around the world without a passport! It would be important to reach a new international agreement that would allow citizens more than just a passport, and for citizens without a state to have a "united Nations" passport, which would give them basic human rights in the countries in which they were staying permanently or temporarily, as Majid Tehranian supports in "Worlds on the Move". Moreover, as Yonathan Friedman notes, at the moment only 2% of the world population migrates. My idea of cities and civilizations encourages a continuous mobility. If, as maintains Lewis Mumford, cities had origins in necropolises and therefore from a culture of the dead, today we have internet sites that put the ashes of the dead into orbit, with the motto "Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Stardust"! History seems to be repeating itself: we are ready for flying cities!
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| Cloud City, 2012 , (p) Wally Gobetz |
Ps:
Once Buckmister Fuller said: "The spaceship Earth was so
extraordinarily well invented and planned, according to our
consciousness, that the humans were on board for 2 million years
without even suspecting that they were on board a ship". Newton
maintained that gravity is the force of the darkness, the cause that
regulates the cosmos. The search for transparency and lightness in
your work seems to oppose the law that chains corporeality: is flight
an ancient metaphor for liberty? Isn't the sky a reality beyond the
place that imprisons?
TS:
Revolution! Think about the fact that the invention of the hot air
and hydrogen balloon came about as a means of escape and protection,
around 1970, in the time of the French Revolution. It is significant
that during these times of uncertainty, the people looked to the sky
to escape from the reality of earth. The balloon created a great way
to level out the inequality of French society. The aristocracy could
have large areas of land, but the sky was free and belonged to
everybody. And in this way, further on in history, when a society
goes through a traumatic phase, people look for refuge in the sky to
escape from the chaos and uncertainty. Brian Charlesworth wrote: "As
we emphasized several times already, natural selection cannot foresee
the future, and merely accumulates variants that are favourable under
prevailing conditions. Increased complexity may often provide better
functioning, as in the case of eyes, and we then will be selected
for. If the function is no longer relevant to fitness, it is not
surprising that the structure concerned will degenerate."
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| Cloud City, 2012 , (p) Wally Gobetz |
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