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Mobile Bienale

Part 1 Project 2001
Christophosor Romanos
Susanna Mayerle
University of Bath | UK
Mobile Bienale

Swindon _ the starting point to set up a network of public spaces, which are interlinked via the transfer of audio and visual signals.

The nodes of the network will be placed in public car parks and are intended to house varying art installations.

The car park being a democratic space is undergoing a constant transformation due to the mobility and activities of their users.
The same adaptability and flexibility applies to the mediocre towns which are part of the proposed network.

The car park functions as a virtual harbour shipping immaterial goods in and out of each town.

Physically I propose a flat pack building system based on a modular system _ modular dimensions of universal car paking bay.

Having established this overall base unit an ever changeable spatial formation can be set up by curator and architect to house exhibitions of any size and arrangement.

The aim is to create an environment which triggers the curiosity of the car park user to engage with the installations _ magnets around the car park are identified and buildings are placed to force people on a subliminal level to enter the spaces and be confronted with the art work as well as exchanging ideas with other participating towns.

Christophosor Romanos
Susanna Mayerle


The setting is Swindon, which has been described variously as being among the fastest growing towns in Europe (FT) and as one of the most boring towns in Britain (Miranda Sawyer - Park & Ride), Swindon is looking forward to becoming a city.

Each student developed their own brief, discovered a site or sites and proceeded with their design project independently but aware of others.

This operation was called : CONSTRUCTING A CLOUD - the fabrication of a multiplicity of independent particles moving at varying velocities in relation to each other - a collective form, constructed from individual actions, continually changing in time.

This student's mobile bienale project exploits both a local condition of redundancy in relation to parking provision and car use (which may ultimately become ubiquitous), involving the 'universal' matrix of the car park, and a global proliferation of ART PRODUCTION and DISPLAY which uses the bi-annual exhibition as the agent for the construction of a transborder culture.

Her proposition suggests that art shippers might also handle the construction of the venue...shipping both together. It also proposes a global norm for the minimum increment of display / venue, which can be packed into the trucks that are used by art shippers all over the world.

The Century City exhibition, compiled by an international roster of critics, and destined to be shown in as many settings is used as a test case. Considerable attention is given to the means by which the touring exhibition is handled WITHOUT fetishising either flexibility or mobility....but emphasising the material, and visual effects produced by accumulating many of the minimum increments, which include immaterial qualities like floating, and strange effects of transparency and interreflection.

The juxtaposition of art exhibit, car park and residual built material, typical of the emerging 'post-urban' milieu is used provocatively.

2001
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