ART AND PUBLIC SPACE IN TIMES OF FICTION
Surveillance, contagion, security, mobility, distance, isolation. These words have broken abruptly into our everyday lives, leading us to open up debates, and to reconsider our situation as a society. But these concepts are not foreign to us. Since the beginning of Idensitat as an artistic and research project, we have approached them from the perspectives of urban planning, social space, the human body or translocal mobility. Over the next few days, we will share some of our lines of work which touch upon these concepts, with the intention of revisiting them, comparing different times and situations, and also to be mindful of what these concepts are, and their meaning beyond the present circumstances.
This web space showcases a series of projects from Idensitat, in collaboration with artists, cultural agents, associations and groups in the academic sector, and in the fields of urban planning and architecture, among other actors in social space.
CONCEPTS / PROJECTS
"FREE TIME - FREED TIME" / Documentary Ecosystems of Leisure
"BORDERS"_VOICES LGTBI. TRANSLOCAL MOBILITY AND CULTURAL AND POLITICAL ACTIVISM
"TECHNOLOGIES AND SURVEILLANCE"
"CONTAGIARSE" / Artículo para Archivo de Prácticas Colaborativas
"PANDEMIA" / Zombi Spaces
"ISOLATIONS"/ ID Barri Besòs. Isolation - Connections / Nexus
"FREE TIME - FREED TIME" / Documentary Ecosystems of Leisure
"Free time is not the same as freed time, and we don't know what to do with our freed time. Free time has already been domesticated with a series of leisure and production activities, of consumerism, of prosumerism. But what has happened is that we have forgotten our freed time."
These words from Mijo Miquel, artist and researcher, are part of the documentary Ecosystems of Leisure, made by Idensitat between 2018 and 2019 during the project Transversal Aesthetics - Ecosystems of Leisure (Valencia, Castellón, Alicante). This project aims to analyse what contemporary leisure is, how it impacts upon personal relationships, urban contexts and artistic spaces from a variety of perspectives such as urbanism, mediation, activism, art or architecture and through artistic practices and actions in educational spaces.
More documentaries in the framework of the project
BORDERS_VOICES LGTBI. TRANSLOCAL MOBILITY AND CULTURAL AND POLITICAL ACTIVISM
We analyze the word Borders in the context of sexual and gender identity with the experiences of people in situation of political refuge in the documentary VOCES LGTBI, an audiovisual piece that is part of the project NEXES_NEIGHBOURHOODS, BOUNDARIES, PRECARIOUSNESS, CREATIVITY, MULTIPLE CONNECTIONS.
VOICES is a documentary by Idensitat and Xeito Fole and members of ACATHI (Associació Catalana per la Integració d'Homosexuals , Bisexuals i Transexuals Immigrants), with the collaboration of Natxo Medina, a part of NEXES, a project by Idensitat project which explores the relationships between limits, connections and precariousness which are generated in neighbourhood contexts. It deploys processes of analysis and creative action to contribute to transgressing those limitations imposed by vulnerability, as well as to construct links between ideas, people and different areas of the city.
DOCUMENTARY
MORE INFO ABOUT THE PROJECT
TECHNOLOGIES AND SURVEILLANCE
Project led by Antoni Muntadas and produced in collaboration between Enter_Forum and Idensitat.
"SURVELLANCE: The contemporary city is full of monitoring devices. Surveillance cameras exercise a vertical perspective, operated by mechanisms of power, while all kinds of devices, from mobile phones to Google Glasses, weave a network of horizontal perspectives. Internet, the other contemporary city, is taking over the role of traditional public space, and users are subject to other monitoring devices. These mechanisms act ambiguously, sometimes invisible, property of a new private conglomerate of information control."
In this article written by Ramon Parramon Arimany (Idensitat), and published in the magazine "Archive of collaborative practices" of the Do It Yourself Institute (Todo x la Praxis), the relationship and hybridisation between educational contexts and collaborative artistic practices is considered and analysed on the basis of a series of projects, carried out within the framework of Idensitat, which works "To transform the vision of the institution from within, working with it, for it and against it at the same time."
ID BARRI BESÒS. ISOLATION - CONNECTIONS / NEXUS
"How might we understand the idea of isolation in the context of a district? Does the definition of district posit some idea of border? What connections exist, which do not, and which are likely to exist? What are the boundaries, visible and invisible, which facilitate disconnection? Can we define explicit elements which refer to connection and isolation?"
ID Barri Besòs (2016-017) and Nexus (2018 - 2019) are two projectes that takes place in the area comprising four areas bordering the river Besòs: Bon Pastor, Trinitat Vella and Baró de Viver and La Sagrera.
The districts bordering the river Besos share certain characteristics which define them as vulnerable neighbourhoods. Being in the suburbs, they present situations of urban isolation, often caused by communications infrastructures crossing them, combined with shortages of public facilities and services. In addition, they are notable as districts with serious social risk factors, such as the lowest rates of available family incomes, high unemployment rates and high rates of long-term unemployment, the highest number of foreclosures, informal employment, overcrowded housing and serious slum conditions.
Moreover, these neighbourhoods have traditionally been built up as a result of social and collective struggle, and represent important sources of production of the city's popular culture. Many people gather around facilities, community centres and various organisations, creating a major community revitalisation through festivals and other cultural events.
More information
"PANDEMIC. Contagious Urbanism, replication of ill-adapted models, repetition, reiteration, typified spaces. Spaces modelled due to the effects of biters' activities."
Zombi Spaces is an Idensitat project, active since 2008, that questions the logic of speculation in land, using the zombie as its central metaphor. The phenomena which are characteristic of global capitalism, such as periods of crisis, or the close relations between political and private interests, generate overcrowded and highly risky sites which turn into semi-abandoned and dormant spaces, repeatedly activated and deactivated, finding themselves in an indefinite or a transitional state between some-place and no-place.
