Future Propositions for a City
A Sequence of Biographical Reflections
A Sequence of Biographical Reflections
A series of artists were invited to undergo a research period into reflections into Coventry..
Work under construction during 2015 Presented June 2016
Martin O'Brien – Zombie Flick
I am proposing to turn my attention to the centre of Coventry and occupy it with my sick political body using its modernist architecture as the location for a series of interventions.
This project takes the contemporary obsession with the zombie in popular culture as its starting point and considers how this may function as a way of allowing the imagination of another, more utopian, world. The first decades of the 21st century have seen the rise of the zombie in films, literature, art, performance, flash mobs, and protests. The zombie narrative’s engagement with a post-apocalyptic world is an exploration of how to live differently as survivors must develop new forms of community and find new ways of organizing and living. For many, the zombie is associated with an apocalyptic dystopia. The political potential of the figure has often rested in its ability to represent a society in decay. Yet, recent years have also witnessed a growing engagement with the zombie itself as a site of possibility, as a figure that enables us to imagine another world and empowers us to take action. My project proposes to explore the utopian possibilities opened up by the figure of the zombie. I am asking: what happens after the zombie apocalypse? What new possibilities emerge from the figure of the zombie? Notions of infection which are central to the zombie narrative will offer ways of thinking through the generation of community and as a way of conceptualising the coming together of people in order to generate a new world.
I am proposing to turn my attention to the centre of Coventry and occupy it with my sick political body using its modernist architecture as the location for a series of interventions.
This project takes the contemporary obsession with the zombie in popular culture as its starting point and considers how this may function as a way of allowing the imagination of another, more utopian, world. The first decades of the 21st century have seen the rise of the zombie in films, literature, art, performance, flash mobs, and protests. The zombie narrative’s engagement with a post-apocalyptic world is an exploration of how to live differently as survivors must develop new forms of community and find new ways of organizing and living. For many, the zombie is associated with an apocalyptic dystopia. The political potential of the figure has often rested in its ability to represent a society in decay. Yet, recent years have also witnessed a growing engagement with the zombie itself as a site of possibility, as a figure that enables us to imagine another world and empowers us to take action. My project proposes to explore the utopian possibilities opened up by the figure of the zombie. I am asking: what happens after the zombie apocalypse? What new possibilities emerge from the figure of the zombie? Notions of infection which are central to the zombie narrative will offer ways of thinking through the generation of community and as a way of conceptualising the coming together of people in order to generate a new world.
Lauren Heywoodd – Read the Future of the City
Lauren Heywood’s ‘Read the Future of the City’ is a 54 deck of playing cards referring to the different functions of ‘the City’. The cards act as a social tool, inviting players to reflect upon the present and future of where they live. Each card offers a point from which the City can be measured through the players’ reading and conversation. By playing games known to the participants, the cards are a flat and accessible instrument to instigate conversation about the mechanisms and values of the city. The project draws upon the long history of playing cards as a tool for conversation, strategy and play; and the divinatory process of tarot reading as a means to gain insight about future situations by posing questions.
www.laurenheywood.co.uk
Lauren Heywood’s ‘Read the Future of the City’ is a 54 deck of playing cards referring to the different functions of ‘the City’. The cards act as a social tool, inviting players to reflect upon the present and future of where they live. Each card offers a point from which the City can be measured through the players’ reading and conversation. By playing games known to the participants, the cards are a flat and accessible instrument to instigate conversation about the mechanisms and values of the city. The project draws upon the long history of playing cards as a tool for conversation, strategy and play; and the divinatory process of tarot reading as a means to gain insight about future situations by posing questions.
www.laurenheywood.co.uk
Sandra Bouguerchh & Ashok Mystery – Romancing of the City
Our proposal Romancing the City (inspired by City
twinning) uses the idea of “Romance in the city” as a vehicle to
engage people of Coventry to explore how areas, political wards,
people, and the topology come together to form the character of
Coventry. As a romantic city: Can it win hearts?
On Valentine's Day 2015 Coventry was among the top 10 ‘least
romantic cities’ in the UK. What if areas within Coventry were
reimagined as Internet Dating profiles - how would they match
up? In the future will Coventry be viewed as a more romantic city,
one of imagination, hopes, and dreams? The relationship between
architecture, anatomy and human sexuality may be explored. The
Cathedral is a physical expression of hope, love, celebration: the
original Blind Date.
Our proposal Romancing the City (inspired by City
twinning) uses the idea of “Romance in the city” as a vehicle to
engage people of Coventry to explore how areas, political wards,
people, and the topology come together to form the character of
Coventry. As a romantic city: Can it win hearts?
On Valentine's Day 2015 Coventry was among the top 10 ‘least
romantic cities’ in the UK. What if areas within Coventry were
reimagined as Internet Dating profiles - how would they match
up? In the future will Coventry be viewed as a more romantic city,
one of imagination, hopes, and dreams? The relationship between
architecture, anatomy and human sexuality may be explored. The
Cathedral is a physical expression of hope, love, celebration: the
original Blind Date.
Amelia Crouch – I'm Fine Thanks Don't Mention It
Tomorrow Belongs to Nobody Amelia Crouch will be using Coventry’s Modernist architecture as a backdrop to create a new video work, combining text and performance interventions into the city. Initial inspiration for the piece comes from the film Alphaville (1965) by Jean-Luc Godard, and from the article ‘Agency, Rationality and Social Policy’ (2001) by Paul Hoggett. www.ameliacrouch.com Watch the film L I N K https://vimeo.com/150990273 |
Screen Shots:
Rob Hamp - The Silent Ska
Rob Hamp’s City Arcadia project “The Slient Ska” involves taking a real-time data recording of the 2.2 miles of Coventry Ring Road using Ground Penetrating Radar techniques. This recording will provide a continuous documentation of what is on the surface ‘on the face of it’ and ‘what lies beneath’, resulting in a historical cross-referencing diagram showing the construction, condition, man-made make up, any anomalies, thickness of each material element, reinforcing and “Ska’s”.
This repetitive data gathering exercise will resonate with the Ska music synonymous with the city through its visual similarity and constant regularity and this connection will be further cemented with the production of a limited edition vinyl of the recording.
Rob Hamp’s City Arcadia project “The Slient Ska” involves taking a real-time data recording of the 2.2 miles of Coventry Ring Road using Ground Penetrating Radar techniques. This recording will provide a continuous documentation of what is on the surface ‘on the face of it’ and ‘what lies beneath’, resulting in a historical cross-referencing diagram showing the construction, condition, man-made make up, any anomalies, thickness of each material element, reinforcing and “Ska’s”.
This repetitive data gathering exercise will resonate with the Ska music synonymous with the city through its visual similarity and constant regularity and this connection will be further cemented with the production of a limited edition vinyl of the recording.
Spencer Graham – Coventry - City - Specific - Listening
For City Arcadia Spencer is collecting physical recordings (cassettes, CDs and records) that feature the word Coventry in either track titles or recording artists’ names. A final selection from these recordings will be taped onto C60 compact cassettes, resulting in a soundtrack for Coventry as a concrete, imagined and multivalent place.
http://spencergraham.net/coventry-city-specific-listening/
For City Arcadia Spencer is collecting physical recordings (cassettes, CDs and records) that feature the word Coventry in either track titles or recording artists’ names. A final selection from these recordings will be taped onto C60 compact cassettes, resulting in a soundtrack for Coventry as a concrete, imagined and multivalent place.
http://spencergraham.net/coventry-city-specific-listening/
Coventry BeachThe post-war city-planners had almost realised their Utopian vision for Coventry – but suddenly remembered that they had overlooked one vital thing if they were to make Coventry the best place to live in Britain – if not the world! An emergency meeting was called and plans were soon drawn up for the creation of Coventry Beach. Donkey rides and swing-boats were set up on the sands and people flocked from far and wide. Children made sandcastles there and the grown-ups relaxed in deck chairs and threw crusts at the seagulls. Sadly, for reasons no-one can account for, the beach fell into disuse and before long the city-planners built a shopping centre over it. You can still find souvenirs from the ‘time of the beach’ if you look hard enough, and older people still talk about it with affection. My project is a celebration of the distant memory of Coventry Beach.
http://www.sadiehennessy.co.uk |
Research & Development Projects ~ Future City Arcaida
Julia O'Connell is one of the artists carrying out some early R & D work as part of the City Arcadia project.
This is the hidden life of a functioning, working, living city.
How do the small scale, the micro and or the seemingly insignificant everyday textures, sounds and surfaces of the city inform my work? How can I give prominence to their importance and place in the city?
My proposal is to create a Small.Scale.City.Skirt for Coventry; there are initially 2 development stages.
This is the hidden life of a functioning, working, living city.
How do the small scale, the micro and or the seemingly insignificant everyday textures, sounds and surfaces of the city inform my work? How can I give prominence to their importance and place in the city?
My proposal is to create a Small.Scale.City.Skirt for Coventry; there are initially 2 development stages.
- The creation of a unique Coventry fabric digitally printed and hand embellished featuring a collection of images of surfaces and textures of the city.
- The fabric will be the base material to produce the first ever Small.Scale.City.Skirtthat reveals and embeds the everyday ephemera particular to me in Coventry.
Finding a New National Park - LARA HAWORTH + LUCY HAYHOE We walk circuits and circuits around the city, looking for signs of a national park. It is -1 degrees C, the sun glares with no bite: a distant, angry planet. We take 5-minute warmth breaks in the Belgrade Theatre toilets. We look out for signs of the natural, banging our hands together, seeing limestone cliffs in the scaly exteriors of student accommodations. We shake our heads, move on. We stop at the Tourist Information Office by the Cathedral, another warmth shelter. We flip through leaflets for car museums, hiding amongst real tourists, who ask questions like “Can you call us a hotel? £50 a night?” and “when is the train station?” Each time, they tear us off a map of the city from a big pad. Wildness feels around the edges of the city, with hands. The concrete glitters like hardcore diamonds under the ice. We follow the river out of the back of Spon End. It ends in slush and thick mud and dead household objects, and disappears. Buddleia are suddenly everywhere, bobbing their heads above boarded off wastelands, sticking out the sides of pubs and car parks. Slowly, a route emerges. A natural history walking tour of Coventry. Out of City Arcadia, round to the Belgrade Plaza wasteland, up in the glass lift to the top floor of the multi-storey carpark, which seems to float in cold cloud. This will be our hub, our visitor centre, panoramic outlook, nature wintered to brown all around the ring road. Across the plains to the north we can bring in deep time, somehow, we’re not quite sure how. Down again, round to the cathedral past some Old Red Sandstone, Lady Godiva’s news, the BBC, a noodle shop. Over and across the excavations, to the cathedral, then out again, across the big square, to Primark and the underground cavern, then round the back of KFC to the exposed metre of river. We pick our way through some construction work to its edge, flowing fast, healthily, through a brick culvert. A man drilling stops. “You didn’t know there was a river here, did you.” |
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