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| LAHub
Civic Plaza Competition |
12.2002
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| design competition for a civic square and public park in downtown Los Angeles | |
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| LAHub
Civic Plaza Competition |
12.2002
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| design competition for a civic square and public park in downtown Los Angeles | |
The square is conceived as a sort of neutral and open space. Elements punctuate the space as totems would do. The resulting public space is ritual in a sense and gives rise to a new interactive urban choreography. It's not going to be a sacred place intended in a traditional sense, in all its immortality; rather it's going to transmit fleeting and transient sensations to people going through it, turning them from passive observers into active participants. The final aim is a democratization of people's appropriation of the public realm. In opposition to the society of the spectacle typified by Hollywood Boulevard, home of the stars, this will be a place for 'anonymous' celebrities. Common passers-by will get their second of celebrity as they walk across the plaza platform. One of the cameras located above the elevated walkways stops its gaze onto one of the passers-by who by chance walks by the totem and follows him for a few minutes. As soon as the person steps onto a spot close to the box (totem), in fact, an optical signal is sent to a camera that will catch a glimpse from his eyes, an expression from his face, a movement from his body and restitute it during the night, in the form of a projection onto the pavement of the plaza. In response to the growing importance of 'the virtual' as opposed to 'the real', the totems in the plaza will express this dichotomy by putting people in front of both facts: physical materials -that are permanent by nature- and projected (real and fictional) images that are transient by definition. Colored glass and projectors alternatively display fictional or real imagery onto the pavement of the square. During the day they are real projections of natural light filtered by colored glass panels (as do stained-glass windows of an old gothic church); as the sun begins to set, projectors take over and cast pre-recorded videos onto the pavement. The walkways as well as people's images projected onto the pavement of the square make common people the true protagonists inside the square. A sort of democratic visibility is thus offered to everyone. Passers-by become the object of the cam gaze. There are social as well as psychological implications in this operation, of course: by knowing of being continuously observed by a video camera people "lose" their right to be different in private (i.e. to have distinctly separate public and private identities and behaviors). The private sphere is penetrated even though we are moving in the public domain. A performative role is hence imposed upon people by the presence of the camera. The balance between private and public behavior seems to go strangely awry. Project exhibited at Gallery 727, Los Angeles, CA, USA, May 20-June 28, 2003; presented at BEYOND MEDIA 03 (7th International Festival of Architecture in Video), October 2003, Firenze, Italy; published in INTIMACY (catalogue of the 7th International Festival of Architecture in Video, Mandragora, Firenze 2004). |
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