multiplicity

 

www.multiplicity.it

The dream of a world-space completely fluid and passable is maybe the last utopia of the 20th century. The smooth quality supposedly inherent to contemporary space though, at a closer look of the territory seems to fail. One of the immediate results of global interconnections and movements, in fact, appears to be a proliferation of borders, security systems, checkpoints, physical and virtual frontiers. This phenomenon can be observed both at the micro-level of our surroundings and on the macro-scale of global flows. Borders are, in fact, all around us. They are both conventional and geographical, abstract and real, ordinary and controversial. An encompassing view of this combination of flows (of people, goods, ideas.) and restrictions on a given territory unfolds the complexity of both individual and collective identities that are, at the same time, constructed and diffracted by the experience of border-crossing.
Multiplicity is promoting a research project to detect this proliferation of border devices, along with its consequences and relations to contemporary space and society.

what
[ve]01: border counter is an installation project curated by Multiplicity and Officina Plug-in that will gather different experiences of borders-crossing on a pre-given route: Berlin - Venice - Jerusalem. It will be an on going visual atlas and archive on the idea of borders and on the processes that are needed to move through them. It will be a platform where different views, notions and experiences will meet and mingle. It will be a collaborative work made of the contributions of those who want to respond to this call.
[ve]01: border counter will gather, in this way, diverse perspective coming from a number of individual positions and personal analysis. It will be, at the same time, a fluid critical space, in which the idea of border will be both visually and critically diffracted and examined.

where
50th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia. Utopia Station exhibition. June 12th - November 2nd, 2003.

whom
this call is to all those architects, urban planners, artists, photographers, film-makers, designers, cultural practitioners who are interested in contributing to [ve]01: border counter. Multiplicity and Officina Plug-in invite them to share their travel notes, film material, visas etc. with other traveller-artists in order to build a collaborative project that gives a complex view on the experience of border-crossing.

how
all the participants are asked to travel through two given trajectories: either Berlin / Venice or Jerusalem / Venice. The paths, times, modalities of the travels are up to each participant. Trips can be on foot, by bus, bike, plane, train, boat, mule. or any other possible solution or combination.
The participants will have to deliver videos in mini-dv format and photos on cd-rom. Editing facilities will be available in the installation space. Travel papers, notes are welcome in combination with the digital material.

when
[ve]01: border counter will open on June 12th. An on-line confirmation is required to all the participants by may 31st via e-mail at info@borderdevices.org. During the first days, the installation will function as a meeting point for the traveller-artists and all the film material will be collected and edited with the support of our staff. Afterwards, videos of the different trips will be screened all together throughout the whole period of the Biennale of Visual Art 2003
[ve]01: deadlines
application may 31st
delivery june 10th - 20th
editing june 12th - 30th
exhibit june 12th - november 2nd

why
[ve]01: border counter is an invitation to put ourselves in between, in the middle of conflicts and contradictions. To detect the local conflicts, using an insider view. It is a tool to remind the proliferation of barriers, fences, enclaves, gathered circuits that our societies are building in order to underline and fix the identities of the multiple minorities which are structuring them.
[ve]01: border counter is a way to remind the weakness of our identity-remarks. It is simply mirroring the imperfect Polyarchy which is structuring our societies. Reflecting the arrogance and the dreams of its multiple minorities.

Border-device(s) - www.borderdevices.org - is an ongoing research/project by Multiplicity (Stefano Boeri, Maddalena Bregani, Maki Gherzi, Matteo Ghidoni, Sandi Hilal, John Palmesino, Alessandro Petti + Isabella Inti, Salvatore Porcaro, Francesca Recchia) and Domus Academy with Berlage Institute Rotterdam, Kunst-Werke Berlin, Officina Plug-in Venezia, Progetto Italia.

Multiplicity is a an agency for territorial investigation based in Milan. Multiplicity is concerned in contemporary urbanism, architecture, visual arts and general culture. Multiplicity detects the physical environment, researching for the clues and traces produced by new social behaviors. Multiplicity promotes and organises projects in various parts of the world. Multiplicity is an ever-changing network, recruited in the various geographical area of intervention. The research network is formed by architects, geographers, artists, urban planners, photographers, sociologists, economists, filmmakers, etc. Multiplicity projects and produces installations, intervention strategies, workshops and books about the recent and hidden processes of transformation of the urban condition. At present, the Multiplicity network counts on around eighty researchers, involved in three major projects: USE-Uncertain states of Europe (Bordeaux 2000, Brussels 2001, Tokyo 2001, Perth 2002, Milan 2002); Solid Sea, a study of the Mediterranean presented at Documenta11 and Border-Device(s), a research about the proliferation of controversial bounderies in the contemporary world (Berlin Kunst-Werke, Venice Future Center, and Venice Biennale 2003). Other recent projects include Tokyo Voids (Tokyo 2002), The Chinese Connection (Perth International Arts Festival 2002) and Space World - a Void workshop (CCA Kitakyushu 2002). Publications include: Mutations, (Actar, Barcelona 2001, with various authors); Mutations, (TNProbe, Tokyo 2000, also by various authors), Geographie und die Politik der Mobilität, (Generali Foundation, Vienna 2003, by various authors), USE Uncertain states of Europe (Skira, Milan 2003).