Intervention #2

Uniform

Packing the the uniforms in the Expodium apartment. 

intervention #1

Picture of the advert we submitted to the street newspaper (a newspaper sold by homeless people in the streets of Utrecht) in January.

Mail to IKEA

Van: Doris D [dorisdenekamp@googlemail.com] Verzonden: woensdag 11 januari 2012 15:04 Aan: PUBLIC RELATIONS NL Onderwerp: [SPAM] Pop-up kunstwerk rond IKEA Utrecht Beste Meneer, Mevrouw, Wij willen namens informal strategies, een jong kunstenaarscollectief, u graag een voorstel doen voor een pop-up kunstproject in de buitenruimte rond IKEA Utrecht. Op uitnodiging van Expodium, een cultureel platform uit Utrecht, benaderen we de IKEA als buurtbewoner in Kanaleneiland. Als eerste stap hebben we in het najaar van 2011 een week lang ontbeten in het IKEA restaurant. Al snel zagen we dat een grote groep mensen heel regelmatig van deze service gebruik maakt. IKEA fungeert als een sociale ontmoetingsplek in de wijk. Als tweede stap van ons project willen we deze relatie tussen de IKEA en haar directe omgeving tastbaar maken. Door buurtbewoners te vragen het IKEA uniform aan hun waslijn te hangen, willen we hedendaagse maatschappelijke en economische situatie spiegelen aan de situatie in het begin van de 20e eeuw. In die tijd ontstonden hele arbeidersdorpen rondom fabrieken - de werkgever zorgde niet alleen voor banen, maar ook voor huisvesting, educatie en gezondheidszorg. Hiermee namen bedrijven een belangrijke maatschappelijke functie in. Dit historische rollenpatroon, kenmerkend voor het begin van de industrialisatie, is in deze tijd weer interessant nu de regering steeds meer verantwoordelijkheden overlaat aan het bedrijfsleven. Omdat de filosofie van IKEA een sterk sociaal karakter heeft, lijkt het ons mooi om juist in samenwerking met IKEA dit historische beeld opnieuw te ensceneren in de hedendaagse context. Door buurtbewoners te vragen het IKEA uniform op te hangen aan hun waslijnen ontstaat een prikkelend beeld van de veranderende sociale en economische omstandigheden sinds het begin van de 20e eeuw. Deze tijdelijke manifestatie bezorgt IKEA exposure op een verrassende manier - we zullen namens informal strategies pers aandacht genereren zowel in Utrecht als daar buiten. IKEA kan ons helpen dit project te realiseren door de IKEA werkkleding te sponsoren. Het gaat om 50 gele T-shirts met logo en 20 blauwe werkbroeken. We willen het project graag begin februari 2012 realiseren. We willen graag een afspraak maken om verder over dit project te vertellen. Daarnaast staan we ook open voor vragen via de mail of telefoon. Hartelijke groeten, informal strategies   Nanda de Bruin nanda.de.bruin@ikea.com
to me

Beste Doris en Geert,

We hebben jullie voorstel m.b.t. een pop-up kunstwerk rond IKEA Utrecht met veel belangstelling gelezen.

Het is een origineel idee en begrijpen jullie enthousiasme.

Hoewel we het idee zeer sympathiek vinden, past het op dit moment niet bij de manier zoals wij als IKEA naar buiten willen treden.

Daarnaast sluit het ook niet aan bij de doelstellingen die wij hanteren met betrekking tot sponsoring.

Wekelijks ontvangen wij diverse sponsorverzoeken. Zoals jullie zullen begrijpen kunnen wij niet alle verzoeken honoreren. Op frequente basis werkt IKEA Nederland alleen samen met Unicef, Safe the children en het WNF. Daarnaast heeft IKEA Utrecht een vaste sponsorafspraak met het Ronald MC Donald Huis te Utrecht. Op deze manier kunnen wij optimale steun verlenen. Dit betekent wel dat wij op bijna alle andere verzoeken afwijzend reageren. Zo ook op jullie verzoek.

Wij wensen jullie echter veel succes met jullie projecten.

Met vriendelijke groet,

Nanda de Bruin

Storemanager

IKEA B.V. vestiging Utrecht

van Rensselaerlaan 7

3526 AP Utrecht

Postbus 3241

3502 GE Utrecht

tel.: 0031 (0)30-2876285

fax:  0031 (0)30-2892450

nanda.de.bruin@ikea.com 

www.ikea.com

Calibration targets

  This week we landed in Kanaleneiland to take in its social and built landscape for Expodium’s Sneak Week in preparation for a project to be realized in June. It is indeed expansive.

Jasper and I set out to find a way to mediate between the 1:1 scale of the street level experience and the scale of the master-plan of this massive housing project. Built in the 1960’s this neighborhood was already condemned as a failure however, morning till night what struck us was how quiet it actually was and the ways that the plan still provides basic functionality for its residents. This was one perennial antinomy of many.

We decided our work must find a way of binding up the scales and registers at play in this area. We found ourselves on the IRC chat of the UAPV project, an open-source unmanned aerial vehicle ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CR5y8qZf0Y ). Visiting three mosques in the area brought to bear the way that the latent Islamic aesthetics play out in the communal and national pressure to clarify identity.  Visiting libraries we photographed books on desert expanses to concrete cosmic Soviet architecture and from modernist sculpture to traditional geometric ornament. These images were duly recorded for reference but the process of making them meant they would become ingredients in our concoction.

It occurred to us today how much our role resembles the feature of  the Calcutec, from Murakami’s novel (Hard boiled wonderland - the book I have under my pillow at the moment). The Calcutec has been trained to use his subconscious as an encryption key. The Calcutecs work for the quasi-governmental System, as opposed to the criminal "Semiotecs" who work for the Factory and who are generally fallen Calcutecs. The relationship between the two groups is simple: the System protects data while the Semiotecs steal it, although it is suggested that one man might be behind both. Converting the world into codes, corrupting the production of meaning. We eventually delve forever into the world that has been created in our subconscious mind.

One could say that the Calcutec is similarly detached from society. He prefers being alone, drinking whiskey, listening to music, and reading old novels by dead authors.

We did often go outside though, as the public area’s between the high-rise housing blocks at Kanaleneiland were the domain from which we were supposed to extract information. Information like the status of the weather, the amount of people on the streets, the cat meowing at night, the arrangement of receivers mounted on balconies, the various languages in which the word w e l c o m e is spelled out above the main entrance throughout the street, the peculiar design and cryptical functionality of the devices set up at playgrounds… the age-level of kids making obscure deals when leaning against these structures... etc. etc.

Digestion meant that the key points of interconnection did indeed arise. We found that the term ‘Horror Vacui’  was used for both open-space between the housing blocks and the last Orientalist reading of Islamic geometrical ornamentation. This translates to the fear of empty-space. Caravan’s crossing the endless sands finally arrived at city centers or sarais to feel the presence of being- social or divine. The space between the stacked dwellings became a place of dark possibility. We chose not to treat this concurrence as mere coincidence.

Our brains filtered though photo-archives of the city, picking up on a vision of an architectural future that now lays far behind us. Floating through computer renderings of a reality yet unknown, but ideal. We flipped through books on monuments in Timboektoe and Teheran, untitled modernist public sculptures and geometric patterns in the undulating fields of Morroco and those with which we imprint the land under our shoes. 

This week of encounter and inquiry brought Jasper and I into agreement that the contradictions of this place should not be smoothed over by ‘picking sides’ or by making ourselves useful in ways that seemed hardly appropriate. Instead we decided that we would bind up these contradictions in a work that incorporates a variety of perspectives at once. A work that absorbs all the narratives constructed to explain and explain-away the monumental construction that is Kanaleneiland.

The paradoxes of IKEA

As we stroll along through the film sets of IKEA, where everyday life seems to be waiting to take place; as we open the curtains to look through the windows where there is no outside; as we thirstily open the taps where no water ever runs: We try to break through the suspension of disbelief.

Semiotics can be a useful tool when trying to break through the fourth wall of a theater play.  But as we start reading it seems IKEA has created another diversion, the use of paradoxes.

We take acting crazy seriously.

Cheap but not at all costs.

Our wooden boards are your specialty.

The smallest price tag demands then most thinking.

There are always special offers at IKEA.

Great ideas for small spaces.

With the curtains closed, you'll have a better view.

Even the prettiest design is worthless, when it's not affordable.

We design mattresses for people who are awake.

Can the use of paradoxes be a clue in our quest for what IKEA is? A way out of the  dilemma of on the one side a corporate identity which says: " Democracy for all!" and on the other side a very obscure power structure, which protects it's decisions and expenses in a clamshell of affiliates and subdivisions?

NIGHT WALKERS #7 / Skinny Love

I stayed last night at the Auriollan apartment cause of the NIGHTWALKERS#7. 

We envited people to bring their own tea-cup ad promised to fill it up with warm tea. Starting this time inside, we screen a series of youtube videos related to tea drinking, we shared stories about how we got each tea-cup and walked in the park for an outdoors cup of tea. 

Eight people attended including me. Again not much but we are not quitting! It makes total sense to go on and Norna, Mai Lihnh, Calrijn and Koen are as persistent as I am. 

We scheduled  Night Walks all the way till February and we announced them as a WINTER EDITIONS. 

Designed by Norna Ross

We additionally created a survey for all of the attendants of NIGHTWALKERS sessions.  You can find it and fill it in here: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/L6VRMLZ

THIS MORNING

I woke up to post the group photo on the NightWalkers facebook group and put on some music. 

Strangely enough one of the neighbors is listening to same song as I!  I can hear it from the walls but cannot determine where exactly it comes from! Is it from upstairs? 

I posted an update on the Weiland 8 group on facebook asking to reveal him/herself if he/she sees this. 

I connected my laptop to the speakers and played the song again. I bet he/she can hear it from the walls. 

I could of course go out and knock the door of my neighbors. Could I? I guess I could. I am not doing it. 

I guess it's not one of my male neighbors. The song is too 'soft' to like if you are a macho guy. 

Stereotype after stereotype I exclude the next door neighbor, the girl on the apartment on the left with her boyfriend and so on.... 

Pretty lame way of going around it, I know! I bet a couple of years ago listening to that type of music coming from next door would have been quite a surprise. or wouldn't it? just thinking out loud. 

Is that the face of gentrification? Is that breaking stereotypes or building new ones?  

I get worried about it. 

Birdy music started again coming from the walls.

Hacks

waiting for the restaurant to open

It starts to feel like work. We notice some people who come here every day. And they notice us too.
There are the city workers, who, we suspect, check in at their work and then go directly to IKEA to have breakfast.
There is the elderly Greek looking man, who seems to wear make-up, who brings his own additions to the breakfast. Under a serviette he hides a tupperware container with feta and olives.
The woman who looks like a librarian, who always brings a book or a newsletter.
The group of 7 who all come by themselves to meet up here, always on the same table. Two of the women are bald.
And there are these Turkish looking men who look at us very conspicuously. They seem to be talking about us, do they know we are spies? But aren't we also part of this?

From an artistic point of view, it's interesting that the IKEA breakfast is such a participatory project: You fetch and combine your own breakfast and you clean up after yourself. In a lot of places there are messages like: "make yourself comfortable, grab a baby seat".
When a message asks for a certain behavior, there is always an explanation. For example: "When you clean up after yourself, we can keep your breakfast cheap."
Or: "When you keep the toilets clean, we can offer you low prizes."  The latter one is stuck on the bathroom mirror, so you can read it and look at yourself at the same time.

Because there is no surveillance in the restaurant, except for the man collecting the racks of used serving trays, we notice that people have developed hacks for the breakfast.
Of course when the second cup of coffee or tea is free, you can also take a third. Now what you do when you first had a cup of coffee and then you want tea from the same cup is: you press the button for tea, but instead of filling the cup, you rinse it with the hot water. When i's clean, you simply push the button again to fill it up.

If you can have a cheap breakfast, why not have a cheap lunch? Some people prepare and pack up their lunch, same as their breakfast.

Like the Greek, to bring your own additions, to lively up your breakfast and bring in some variation.

And when your breakfast is finished, instead of following the arrows through the whole store, you simply wave your hand in front of the laser and exit through the entrance.