This paper is a foray into my architectural practice following its past endeavours, understanding its present condition and tracing its future. In my work the creativity is always bound strictly to dif-ferent contexts and has subversive political aspirations. I outline the tactics of modest challenge as a key component in my practice. It is tactics that has the ability to inflict some amount of positive unease to the people inhabiting the space. While presenting six realized designs I discuss and define three more specific tactical design tools I tend to use: the personal ‘body politics’, narrative and metaphor as architectural tools and contextual site-engineering.
Most probably there is no architecture whatsoever that could be considered completely apolitical.108 Politics is always there — any space is acting at some level to organise your behaviour. It guides you around, it hides you away or puts you on a pedestal. It makes you being observed or decides what you are being showed. It affects the way you cook your food at home, how you walk the city street.
Hence this kind of politics is omnipresent, only the amount and visibility of its existence varies. I would like to argue that a possi-ble distinction can be made considering the ambition of the built environment — weather the architects understands the building’s political being and makes the way it performs somehow visible, or whether it is just a silent tool perhaps depicting itself as a functional container, or even trying to establish itself as an ambitious sover-eign creation of free creative mind, addressing general form rather than people and their presence in space.
Thus a very general division can be made between buildings that hide away their political agenda and the other ones that try to consciously make visible or even challenge the disciplinary forces that inform them. Within this distinction it seems to me that I can establish politicality as a property of design, a quality I can address with my designs. I do not see it as a universal framework for classification of built environment — this would not be needed, it would be definitely too vague and imprecise. Rather it is a per-sonal design framework that avoids focusing on aesthetics and puts
108 In this text I understand the notion of politics in the perspective as articulated by Michel Foucault, seeing the politics as set of tools creating the disciplinary society we live in.
less emphasis to the direct reference and connection to the today’s over-addressed topic of ethics.
In this framework of politicality I seem to have developed the concept of modest challenge as a central design tool in my prac-tice. It is about being conscious of the impact of seemingly neutral spatial disciplinary strategies, trying to contest the obvious while understanding the limited agency of architectural creation as a tool to change the society. The modest challenge is there to create awareness of the specific space, a hopefully pleasant sensation of being somewhere. It shall make you curious, it should fulfil you with a small amount of positive unease. I would like to argue that this is the way a space can deviate from the foucauldian path of dis-cipline and punish towards the passage of deviation and happiness.
Modest challenge is neither a riot nor a revolution. Maybe it could be seen as an unauthorised peaceful and pretty silent gathering, a self erected traffic barrier or a zebra crossing sprayed on the asphalt during the night.
5.7.1 Operation Kontekst109
Probably there is nothing more important in architecture than context — only context is giving buildings their power. Accord-ingly, the creation of positive unease is always site-specific and context-dependent. The strategy is, not surprisingly, every time specifically created based on the surroundings and the questions that arise in this very specific environment. I think the ‘strategy of modest challenge’ is more discernible and better visible in my installations, art objects and exhibition designs as these projects are more experimental, they do not need to address the building code or other normative documents, they are usually temporary and they are there to make their point as simple and clear as possible. In the following section I present six examples: the first three instal-lations following three architectural works that do highlight the most relevant strategies of the ‘modest challenge’ I have been using for the creation of the positive unease — the personal ‘body poli-tics’, narrative and metaphor as architectural tools and contextual site-engineering.
109 Kontekst is my office created in 2014. From 2004 until splitting the office in 2014 I was partner of Salto architects (www.salto.ee). Most of the work presented stems from this time and is achieved with my former partners Maarja Kask and Ralf Lõoke if not stated otherwise.
Figure 5.19 Hanging video boxes for the
”Untold Stories”
exhibition.
photo:Vahur Puik
Chapter 5 Politics for, in and through creative practice Veronika Valk, Michael Corr, Karli Luik
5.7.2 Stories left untold
The modest challenge creating the positive unease was in its purest form put on display with the creation of the exhibition design for the “Untold stories” exhibition in 2011 in Tallinn Art Hall. The main topic of the exhibition was articulating the voice of LGBT community. Focusing on short films as the main media the show was telling stories about managing various forms of sexualities that are often treated with disgust and hatred by “normal” people. That is why these stories are usually hidden away and left untold, espe-cially in Estonia that is, regarding this topic — albeit its overall innovative image —, a common homophobic post-soviet state.
The proposed design was extremely simple, consisting only of small boxes hanging from the ceiling with two raised cinema seats installed inside each box. Boxes were rough, made of insulation material to create an environment with good acoustics creating just a nice half-separated environment inside the art hall, a com-fortable place for leaning back and enjoying the movies. The most important topics I addressed were the possibility of (de)formation of identity by spatial means and the general possibility of creat-ing solid borders in social contexts. It was about disturbcreat-ing the borderline between the inside and the outside. It was very easy to
‘cross the border’ at the exhibition — you just had to bow down for a second and enter a completely different environment slipping from the wide white cube into a dark and intimate space. Still, you were there not entirely — as the box was lifted from the floor, open below, leaving the bottom half of your body vulnerably visible for anyone outside the ‘closet’, pushing people out of their comfort zone, creating the ‘positive unease’ and conscious awareness of your very presence and own identity.
For me it is in a way almost too literal carnation of Foucault’s worldview. In his book “Discipline and Punish” he examines the practices of discipline and training associated with disciplinary power. He points out that these practices were first cultivated in isolated institutional settings such as prisons, military establish-ments, hospitals, factories and schools but were gradually applied more broadly as techniques of social regulation and control. The most important feature of disciplinary power is that it is exercised directly on the body. Disciplinary practices subject bodily activities to a process of constant surveillance and examination that enables a continuous and pervasive control of individual conduct. The aim of these practices is to simultaneously optimise the body’s capaci-ties, skills and productivity and to foster its usefulness and docility:
“What was then being formed was a policy of coercions that act on
the body, a calculated manipulation of its elements, its gestures, its behaviour. The human body was entering a machinery of power that explores it, breaks it down and rearranges it /… / Thus, disci-pline produces subjected and practiced bodies, “docile bodies”.”110 But it is not only the body that these disciplinary techniques target.
Foucault presents disciplinary power as productive of certain types of subject as well. Later on in his book he describes the way, which is described by Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon, in which the central technique of disciplinary power — the constant surveillance — which is initially directed toward disciplining the body, takes hold of the mind as well to produce a psychological state of “conscious and permanent visibility”.111 Accordingly, individuals internalise this perpetual surveillance and through it they produce the kind of self-awareness that defines the modern subject.
Thus in the case of “Untold stories”, the design in its simplicity addressed the questions of how has your subjectivity developed to your current state and what is your personal relation to the diverse practices of today’s society, it tried to foster the self-awareness of the spectators and combined with the art works exhibited it called for an extremely intimate and emphatic experience.
Another personally important strategy here is the process of articulating a metaphor spatially. As “coming out of the closet”
is obviously a widespread and universally understood metaphor, so creating its spatial reference could be seen a very postmodern strategy in the way of building the exhibition, a maybe too obvious and even disturbingly literal reference for some taste. Still, it is deliberately postmodern, where “postmodernism’s real qualities are mean, sarcastic, blank, difficult, challenging, yet somehow simul-taneously psychedelically positive”,112 as Sam Jacob recently stated.
I see it as another modest challenge, working on the borderline of space and language. I do agree with his definition, where the postmodernism’s core is the floating signifier, the notion of the sign detached from the thing it once referred so that it no longer points to a clear, agreed upon meaning. It is not translating language into space. I rather see it as a quality of spatial material to be able to form metaphors that are thickened to narratives in people’s minds.
110 Michel Foucault, “Discipline and Punish: the Birth of the Prison.” 1979, New York: Vintage Books., 138-9
111 ibid, 201
112 Sam Jacob on the prospect of a Postmodern-ism revival, http://www.dezeen.com/2015/08/13/
sam-jacob-opinion-postmodernism-revival-we-are-all-postmodern-now/
5.7.3 Addictions, and noticing them
As stated in the beginning, deviation from the normative could be one strategy for creating the modest challenge. This is the basis of the methodology I would call “contextual site engineering” — a methodology we have been using over and over again. Only being very aware about the specific context allows producing a coherent and meaningful deviation. So this way of thought is starting with the very close look and analysis on site, finding and separating elements available for architectural treatment and a deviation. It can be a subtle change of a common everyday object found in the particular context that in the particular context does redefine itself and gain new meaning.
One example of this kind of way of thought is the proposal for the memorial for addicts in the centre of Tallinn where the design consists just of a redesigned manhole. Creating this kind of strangely addressed memorial in the first place was an initiative by a rather populist politician running an anti-casino campaign.
Thus, the chosen site is located just next to the headquarters of the biggest Estonian casino-chain. It is the place where they used to have protest demonstration against casinos. Before the competition there was circulating a rumour that they actually already a plan for a bronze sculpture depicting a casino addict chasing her wife with an axe and they need the competition only to legitimise the chosen design — a sculpture that would probably have been a lot better visible and publicly much easily understood. So it was a surprise to win the competition, as our proposal was definitely not a memorial that could have normally been expected. Instead of a “proper” art-work it is rather a weird piece of infrastructure, a strange manhole with a shape of a human being. Nevertheless as the design is not really “outstanding” in the very literal meaning of the word it is still waiting for the funds.
As in the case of untold stories here again the flow of material is brought to a metaphoric level. The rainwater entering the manhole works similarly to the visitor in untold stories where she was going spatially through a series of entering and exiting cupboards — a spatial element is gaining a narrative nature through its contextual setting. From being purely functional objects, the narrative nature transforms them into specific manifestations with minimal or no aesthetic ambitions. The aesthetics has been minimised in order the narrative nature could arise and dominate.
Same strategy of translating the ordinary actions into poetic narratives is one I have been using extensively also with architec-tural projects. It is important to repeat and emphasise that what we
Figure 5.20 Memorial
”Notice the Addiction”
deal here with is not only the manhole. The shape of the manhole is not the most substantial part of the sculpture, it is rather a reference point, a central figure that directs towards the narrative that is the actual monument. What I do address with this ‘statue’ is an action that is already there, already happening — that is the flow of slop that is dripping down through the gutter anyway. The real instance we are dealing with is not a static piece of metal but an undergoing action. The manhole is a piece of poetic infrastructure that trans-lates the flow of wastewater into a sequence of life. A common piece of infrastructure has been reverted to being a sign — it is a signifier in the first place and its main function of being a gutter allows the sign to be easily understandable for everybody.
5.7.4 Being fast and slow
Mixing messing with infrastructure, artistic intervention, criti-cal awareness and politicriti-cal agenda in a Russian forest led to the creation of the “Fast track”, an installation that tries another way for disturbing identities. It was part of the Archstoyanie festival happening yearly in scenic countryside 300 km outside of Moscow.
It is a festival dedicated to land art where every year they build few more and dismantle some of the old artworks, the festival area gradually forming a semi-natural sculpture park. The event attracts thousands of people to come over for a weekend in July and enjoy discovering the installations, most of which are diverse pavilions or various kinds of spatial erections. So by default these works rely on the conflict, where the erections manifest contrasting against the surrounding nature, deforming violently the natural context, be the pavilion as sensitive and sincere as possible.
Thus, we proposed avoiding the conflict that would allow cre-ating a contextual and subtle intervention as our task. We concen-trated on the natural behaviour in a forest — movement —, some-thing that is common to all species inhabiting the area, including human beings. Recurring and frequent movement produces natural paths, so rebuilding one of them allowed us a subtle contextual intervention that produced very personal physical impact to the vis-itors. Our creation was the world longest trampoline — a new and different kind of pathway inside the forest. One of the intentions was to give new means to people to enjoy the environment, to jump higher and move faster, so they could experience how some wild animal could feel while moving around in the same environment.
Even though it was widely published in the media as a prototype for a pedestrian road for the future, a new invention for faster move-ment, our intention was diametrically different. Instead of praising
Figure 5.21 Installation
”Fast Track”
in Nikola-Lenivets, Russia. photo:
Karli Luik
technological innovation, it aimed to the process of being present there in this particular forest, demanding an unexpected control of your body and a more aware and connected being in the very specific environment. By temporarily speeding up the movement, we actually aimed for a slow, informed and critical presence.
5.7.5 Defining borders
Accordingly, thinking about different kind of borders and border-lines is frequently present in my projects. As presented with the project of untold stories, the creation of a physical border is an architectural statement that assesses the viability of the concept itself outside strictly architectural realm, in a broader cultural or social context. In this project the border is present both physically and metaphorically with the almost same intensity. I would argue that praising its presence within the irreconcilable discrepancy of both the built world and language, it tries to undermine its own existence. Showing off in the two realms at the same time allows somehow escaping from the real world, being somewhere in-be-tween, not entirely here. It provides metaphor as an answer to a question that was never asked. One could argue, that this kind of built environment then is there more of its own sake, pretentious and arrogant. That it defines itself as being completely artificial and maybe even superfluous and excessive. It is both cynical, sarcastic but still honest, modestly challenging and weirdly positive in its own way at the same time.
A more architectural example of a strict borderline is the design for the open areas of the Estonian Road Museum. Similarly to the
“Fast Track”, it is a project built in a scenic natural environment, a place you would rather not disturb. A museum of roads is obvi-ously not only about roads, but it is more about social, economic and cultural issues connected to the history of roads. So the roads are presented there together with their specific surrounding envi-ronments, artefacts and cultural background that constituted the specific landscapes. The main question was how to represent dif-ferent landscapes in a landscape, how to difdif-ferentiate what is in fact actually there and what is fiction — the represented landscape.
The proposed solution was the creation of a strong borderline: by burying the museum somewhat in the ground, drawing a strict line made of concrete separating the real and the presented, the natural and fictional. It is a 3-dimensional line with differing in height between 10 cm and 4 meters, that did change according to the slope of the original landscape and the needs of the exhibits.
The strictly separated identities — the real and the represented
Figure 5.22 Estonian Road Museum.
Photo: Karli Luik
— rely on each other. What is represented relies on beautiful sur-roundings, and the scar in the landscape that the museum has made also magnifies the beauty of the ‘original landscape’. The borderline only highlights the impossibility of any strict separation. It forms a simple frame where the inside and outside are tangible with the same strength.
Also the borderline of the museum has a dual identity similar to untold stories – it has a strong metaphoric presence. As a continu-ous cut in the landscape it has a simultanecontinu-ous reference of the main
Also the borderline of the museum has a dual identity similar to untold stories – it has a strong metaphoric presence. As a continu-ous cut in the landscape it has a simultanecontinu-ous reference of the main