the marks of time

as we begin to dismantle the mini metropolis that has become such a part of our lives, and, quite frankly, has dominated the studio for the past 6 months, and send the box on it's way to focAR group, it's time to reflect a bit. for me, one of the most interesting things about this collaboration has been the organic way it has unfolded and the parallels with building structures in the real world. unforeseen problems arise and decisions have to be taken. for instance, there was a time in the beginning where i really felt attached to the idea of protecting the structures from outside elements. the first heavy rain put paid to that and gave some areas of our 'city' a battering. we took the decision to leave the marks rather than make it pristine and it felt quite natural to do that. after all, when one builds a structure in the real world, it does rain and things get wet. admittedly, in the real world, damage would be addressed, but in our case, we felt the marks left represented traces of time elapsing and of the reality of dealing with the elements, even in our fantasy metropolis.

aerial shot before the rain

 aerial shot after the rain...

another interesting thing is the notion of scale. in the real world, scale, measurements and balance, both aesthetically and practically, are rather important. and those things were important to us, at least we assumed this in the beginning. but when it came to creating this space, the notion of scale went right out the window, and, it has to be said, rather quickly. the choice to use found materials dictated the scale, or lack of, and i think that added an element of sheer fantasy and impossibility that was in keeping with the idea of 'liminopia'. --ka

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.