manipulating reality

KA. It's increasingly become apparent that creating Liminopia is impacted and influenced by its greater environment, namely the studio in which it resides. These images are attempts to alleviate those outward distractions, in order to play with and explore ideas that are at the moment, only visible in the imagination. A bit of photographic intervention has been used to create an illusion of 'sky', giving forth the possibility of Liminopia being an actual environment in and of itself. While manufactured and manipulated, it's interesting to see and consider how these photographic interventions can open up new ideas and create different contexts.

Covering the surface

Conversation 1

SS. The current work in progress on Liminopia has sites of development which are gradually creating further developments radiating out from the initial buildings into larger sites of urban activity. Gaps are filling in and the landscape is being covered, however some areas are already creating zones at which the adjacent areas are difficult to build on. One of the major areas at which this condition exists is the industrial zone with a factory and its associated toxic environment. Although one of the early developments the adjacent land remains unused and it might be suggested that our usual discomfort at being near such developments in the real urban world is being replicated in our imagined world of Liminopia. In what is a our own controlled world of Liminopia why do we still replicate these sites of alienation and how might we respond to mediate this area and how might this process in Liminopia be tranferred to ideas responding positively to the redevelopment and re-engagement of such zones in our own real city of London?

planning permission requested

liminopia gets a fun fair

more items to be added, of course.

Liminopia's origin.

One might think that given the freedom to imagine an urban environment, free from the normal constraints that living in a collective environment or society imposes, it would allow our minds to imagine the best urban situations and architectural solutions. Freed from constraints of negotiation and planning processes we might imagine a world in an idealised appearance, all the best things we hope for in the style and structure of an urban world we would build around us, a city to serve us in all the most positive ways. However it would seem that the structure of our real cities and towns with all their movements through industrialisation, modernism and globalisation has in many ways internalised in our thoughts so deeply that our sense of a pure and untouched Utopia cannot even be imagined purely without the oppressive and unloved manifestations of the urban environment informing our view. We intend or expect to create a Utopia but as materials are collected and manifest in our view of this imagined cityscape we manufacture not only places of leisure, enjoyment and architectural purity but sites of industrial might and economic power almost alienating in their size and power, industrial wastelands that appear in the final throes of usefulness and wasted and scorched forests encroached on by our city and left to dry and decay, in any ones eyes a Dystopia.

And that is where we are, between states, neither a Utopia or Dystopia but a landscape that is both at the same time or something between. An environment between these states, from our imaginings of an urban world both postive and negative, a Liminopia..... The Liminopia.

construction site

playing with scale, within the framework of an image

new elements

It's interesting to see the sorts of objects being used, how we manipulate them and so on. Things like texture, scale, surface and shape are being thought about... talked about... considered. Lighting is another issue we have discussed and want to incorporate.

urban sprawl

 

 

 

territory

As a group of three, we’re used to negotiating territory within the context of putting together events or shows, but this is the first time we have collaborated on constructing an actual piece of work.

It’s whole different kettle of fish…

Having established the overall territory of the work (the tarp as boundary) we set about placing various objects we’d collected, playing with the space and getting a feel for the potential of the project as a whole. It was interesting (but hardly surprising) that each of us chose an area that wasn’t directly next to another’s ‘work’, and already we were each very aware of ‘boundary’ ‘territory’ and ‘ownership’. It also quickly became evident that, while not wanting to constrain each others’ ideas, some sort of structure needed to be agreed before we could really crack on. So:

We agreed that it was likely that a large part of what would be constructed would evolve from found objects, but that we weren’t limited to this.

We quickly abandoned any notion of ‘relative scale’, and decided to let the work unfold organically to see where it was going. If we found that we wanted negotiate things like scale, placement, use of materials etc. during that process then we would, but the overall feeling was to have this ‘metropolis’ unfold organically and reactively rather than be mapped out beforehand.

We talked a lot about territory, and what that meant, particularly in the context of ownership of the work. Who owns this? Is it the sum of its parts or do we each have a claim to the bits we do? Is that important? Are we going to become territorial? And if so how will we resolve any potential conflict? What happens when one person constructs something and another doesn’t like it or thinks it encroaches on something they have already placed? Or, what if someone wants to demolish or change an existing ‘area’ altogether? How is this negotiated?

We agreed to incorporate an urban planning strategy, whereby ‘planning permission’ would have to be sought and approved regarding changing existing work. But even this can be a stumbling block since we aren’t always in the studio at the same time and issues can’t be resolved immediately. But it makes it interesting in that this process mirrors reality in a way; planning permission in ‘the real world’ is never an immediate process. So the waiting and negotiation becomes a part of the unfolding of the work. It’s also another means of documenting the very real process of collaboration. 

We haven’t put forward any applications yet, although a piece of work was accidentally demolished, but has since been reconstructed.

work begins

We decided to use the tarp as our base for sort of metropolis with the box as the central point and everything unfolding around it.

Backstory

Our involvement with this project has been a somewhat long and winding road, with many twists and turns, false starts and a lot of questions being raised. Here's a bit of background:

We began by having a series of discussions about the project itself, what we thought it meant to us, how it connected with our individual art practices and with TangentProjects overall. Our initial proposal, made earlier in the year, was based on what was then known as the ‘Sandwich Box Project’, and is outlined below. Initially, we were to work within the framework of The Sandwich Box, and in some ways found it problematic, as the tent aspect never seemed to connect with us. When the project evolved into The Travellers Box and that aspect was removed, we found it a lot easier to engage with the project and things began to fall into place.

Initial Proposal

Using the text of TSB, “The intention of the Sandwich Box is to challenge or make visible elements of intimate spaces and to make opportunity for direct dialogue and activity about intimate spaces” as our trajectory, we would like to explore this idea over a six month period. Although our plan at the moment is to explore the initial concept outlined above, there is every possibility it will change and evolve into something entirely different. Ideas grow out of ideas, after all, and the collaborative process is itself a series of unfolding - of ideas, exchange of ideas and negotiation.

Whatever the overall outcome, the collaborative process itself will be documented. We see this unfolding as a piece of work in its own right, and specifically in relation to TSB, it is more about the journey than the destination.

Framework

The Box -
 While keeping our ideas open and flexible, we plan to base our starting point on the box ‘object’ itself. Using the box ‘object’ as a physical manifestation of a building or dwelling, we propose to invent a series of dwellings / buildings, some of which will be actually physically made (models, in scale with the box) and others of which will be drawings, possibly of imaginary structures / dwellings / buildings which would be impossible to make in the physical world.

The Models -
 Some of the models have the possibility of being constructed from found objects and materials, while others might be scale models constructed out of lightweight wood or similar. The idea of crossover between fantasy and reality is interesting to us, as is the idea of using found objects as metaphors for other ideas.

The Drawings - The drawings might speak of imagination and the secrets of the mind. They might represent what cannot be articulated in the physical world yet are real and valid nonetheless. In one sense, the drawings can also reference the notion of ‘intimacy’ because they are by their very nature, physical manifestations of the intimate reflections of one’s imagination and how limitless that is.

TangentProjects and the Travellers Box Project

Liminopia has been set up to document, describe and discuss the process of TangentProjects' work with the Travellers Box, an international, collaborative project begun by Danish artist Lars Vilhelmsen in 2004.

We aim to use this virtual space as a platform whereby the three of us can discuss our thoughts and experiences with the project as well as upload images and perhaps pose questions about the project as a whole and our collaborative process specifically.  So in it's purest sense, this is a form of raw documentation, and within that, as our work with the project unfolds, a dialogue of sorts will emerge.

Information about the project and its background can be found on the Travellers Box website and information about us can be found on the TangentProjects website.

Welcome to Liminopia...