An empirical research on the
use of public space
Who owns public space and to what extend can someone claim a part of the city? With several playful interventions I tried to stretch the consensus on the public domain. But when my attempt to appropriate public space got appropriated, the project took an unexpected turn.
This is the story of the bike and the polish people.
For the full story check publication here
Bikes with a maximum width of 1,5 mere are allowed in public space (Art. 5.18.29).
Hight and length were never included in the law, so I started building.
My attempt to appropriate a part of public space got appropriated.
I started a conversation. When the response turned out to be in Polish, I decided to continue in this language.
With every letter I wrote, I also changed something to the bike. A lamp, a lock, etc.
After several letters, I found out I got responses in different handwritings.
There where three people living in my 0,9m x 1,80m bike.
They asked me whether it was fine if they would stay there a bit longer. “Of course! As long as you take good care of the bike”. And they did. They started to clean up, make there bed every morning. Quite a nice little shed.
But then the rain came. And I knew there was one big problem:
The roof was not waterproof. “Use this silicone sealant to seal the roof”.
But unfortunately, they ignored my advice. Because they had a better solution. A waterproof idea, but also quite a shabby one.
At this point, the police started to notice this weird looking object.
The next morning I found my bike completely trashed. No sign of the Polish people.
The day after I found the last remainings of what once was the house to three people.
For me, this story of the Polish people is quite exemplary for how we look at public space. For two weeks everything was fine because the bike looked descent. The moment the Polish people started to improve the house in their own pragmatic way, you see that aesthetics start to play a role in the fact wheater you can manifest yourself in public space or not. The moment the police found out, a system is set into motion: the Polish people get arrested, a company is called to get rid of the bike and then everything is back to normal again.
I wanted to see if I could claim a part of the public domain. A volume. I started noticing all the elements on the street owned by utility companies. I saw them everywhere. Companies like Eneco and Evides own thousands of little volumes all over the city. I thought that if I would replicate these elements, nobody would notice. As long as it looks normal, nobody sees it.
After placing the electricity box on the street nothing really happened. Nobody seemed to notice something changed. But when I met Perzsman, a homeless man from Iran, the closet instantly found its purpose. I gave Perzman the key so he could use it as a locker. It now serves as his private public property.
Mail gets collected every now and then after 5pm📮
With more bikes than people, bikes are part of the street-scape in the Netherlands. This also challenges the idea of an immaculate environment, because bikes often end up as forgotten orphans, demolished and left behind. “Deterioration” is what the government calls this. We don’t want deterioration, we want “clean“. But this causes a problem, because officially these orphans are someone’s property. Even the government can not just take someone’s property away. So, the following will happen: when the law enforcement notices a forgotten or damaged bike, they attach a warning sticker on it: “This bike will be removed on a specific date”. On that particular day, the bike will be removed and brought to a bike storage, where the owner can get it back after paying a fine. Bikes that will not be picked up, get either sold or demolished after 3 months.
I was surprised by the amount of warning stickers I found. And I was also surprised by the variety of criteria the bikes were selected on. Some where just fine, some were barely bikes anymore. A person had to decide whether a bike gets a sticker or not.
When I welded two –well maintained– rears of bikes together and placed it back on the street, it got removed within a week and without a warning. Although all parts in this bike were perfectly fine (no flat tire, no rusty chain) it was clear to the authorities this was not a bike anymore but ‘an object’.
Every time the pavement showed sinkholes, some municipal worker came to fix it. This became quite a routine because rats would still dig holes under the tiles in order to enter their underground domain. why not make easy for both parties?
During my Master Contextual design at the Design Academy I started to occupy a part of another department. I gradually expanded a structure into the –very clean and empty– space of the department Information design.
Crawling, slipping, creeping, creatures.
All together, all the same.
In our city, in our streets,
in our homes, on our train.
We drink, enjoy,
we live our lives,
Like ants we crawl
like bees in hives.
We build our way
We eat, we eat,
we drink some more
Take what we need
We fill our hands
With what we make
long as it lasts
Until it breaks
when we served ourselves the purpose
supported by what we had made
The only thing that’s left behind
the traces of what we create
All these smooth
And flawless lines
Produce, consume,
disposable lives
In the end we pretend,
there is nothing to hide.
This is us.
We, the people.
In collaboration with Joep Brouwer.
An object based on a song by Mark Lotterman.
It is a camera obscura in which I painted the back wall with phosphorescent pigment (glow in the dark). By looking through the lens you will block the light; the picture will fade away.
A work made for the smallest museum in Rotterdam, Het RoRo.
I took apart this beautiful USSR alarm clock and hang it piece by piece as an exploded view. Nice detail: It stil shows the time.
While doing research on the location for this piece I found out there used to be a hospital for 75 years. To be more specific: the exact location of this piece would be in the waiting room of the hospital. This piece is an abstract translation of a waiting room.
[Photo's@ johannes ode]
Het centrum van Rotterdam is een soort tussenstation, waar mensen van buiten het centrum iets komen halen, om vervolgens weer te vertrekken. Zo zie je dat het centrum niet zozeer door de bewoners, maar vooral door de mensen van buitenaf wordt gemaakt. In Groeten uit Rotterdam wordt het centrum op ieder dagdeel door een andere buitenstaander gedefinieerd om zo een beeld te krijgen van het dagelijks leven in het centrum van Rotterdam.
In mijn scriptie schreef ik over de invloed van de moderne beeldcultuur op de perceptie van geluk.
Eén hoofdstuk ging over facebook, een platform dat vooral gericht is op positief nieuws. Ruimte voor relativering is er nauwelijks, men vindt enkel 'leuk'.
Met de robot, Mike El (anagram voor like me), wil ik een kritische noot plaatsen bij het gebruik van facebook. Mike El vind alles en iedereen leuk.
Op de pagina van Mike El vind u onder andere een link naar mijn scriptie.
