i think i’ve seen this place before
In our project, we explore a currently empty space-specifically, the planned Wien-Holding Arena in 1030, next to Marx Halle-as a stage,
playing with emptiness as a carrier of the fantastic.
We imagine the area as a blank slate where individual worlds can be created or re-created.
We see it as both a site of illusion and a real place of suspended time: a living architectural drawing where constructions constantly appear and disappear,
the imagined being put into dialectical relationship with the reality of the city.
Images of the place, elements from our personal photographic archive, and photographs taken at various sites in the city are positioned to perform together.
They take shape in the area of St.Marx, a process guided by their subject matter and the environment in which they evolve.
By continuously revisiting the same locations, we build a space for our own trials. Our process is repetitive yet transformative:
cyclical elements and forms overlap, performing in different ways.
This method mirrors the way fragments (and memories) are appropriated, transformed, and layered to compose a city.
However, we also reflect on today's formulaic approach to building:
its homogeneity and exclusion of divergence, which prevent memory from being concretized in space.
We use the space's limitations to explore how controlled frames can constitute potential for transformation and change.
In this way, we perceive it as ephemeral and ever-becoming: a space that can be grasped and remembered.
'I think l've seen this place before' was presented from June 26 to September 1, 2024, at the skate park of the Freifläche St. Marx in 1030 Vienna.
In our project, we explore a currently empty space-specifically, the planned Wien-Holding Arena in 1030, next to Marx Halle-as a stage,
playing with emptiness as a carrier of the fantastic.
We imagine the area as a blank slate where individual worlds can be created or re-created.
We see it as both a site of illusion and a real place of suspended time: a living architectural drawing where constructions constantly appear and disappear,
the imagined being put into dialectical relationship with the reality of the city.
Images of the place, elements from our personal photographic archive, and photographs taken at various sites in the city are positioned to perform together.
They take shape in the area of St.Marx, a process guided by their subject matter and the environment in which they evolve.
By continuously revisiting the same locations, we build a space for our own trials. Our process is repetitive yet transformative:
cyclical elements and forms overlap, performing in different ways.
This method mirrors the way fragments (and memories) are appropriated, transformed, and layered to compose a city.
However, we also reflect on today's formulaic approach to building:
its homogeneity and exclusion of divergence, which prevent memory from being concretized in space.
We use the space's limitations to explore how controlled frames can constitute potential for transformation and change.
In this way, we perceive it as ephemeral and ever-becoming: a space that can be grasped and remembered.
'I think l've seen this place before' was presented from June 26 to September 1, 2024, at the skate park of the Freifläche St. Marx in 1030 Vienna.
I was wearing that red dress for the first time since l bought it. It is a long, wide dress, consisting of multiple layers of red fabric pierced with small round holes.
All these layers of holes put together are constructing the dress. One might believe that at some point you'll see the skin or the air through the little holes.
But then it's just another layer of fabric and another one and another. Like an endless horizon of red fabric pierced with emptiness.
All the amount of fabric put together gave the dress a certain heaviness. This heaviness on my skin felt like wearing my own body.
My body was grounded, placed over my pores and at the same time I felt like I could just float away.
The first time I put the dress on it was in the fitting room of the shop. It was like the whole room was filled with red paint: the hangers, the wooden walls,
the white ceiling, the floor, the carpet, the light, were red.
I had to step out in the hallway to see the fall outs of the dress. I always feel so vulnerable stepping out of dressing rooms, wearing the clothes I am just trying on.
It's like you are out of any role, you step out empty to show yourself like this to the world. In the same moment you need to ignore this fact and pretend that you are pretending.
I find that here lies the trueness of this moment. To perceive your reflection as something much more real than the world around you.
I put the dress on for the second time on the very same evening at home. I started fluffing and rumpling its veils while rapidly moving through the room.
It was the perfect dress for rapid movements. I have an old wooden floor in my room. It creaks every time I step on it.
I had a roommate once who made and practiced her own choreography on the floor. She was stepping with the tips of her feet only on the parts that were silent.
Making lines, tricking the noise of the space to build a new space. With every sound my steps were making, the dress became more and more my body.
I was going to meet my friends for an open-air movie and I was late as usual. I decided to run to the place, as waiting for the bus would have taken me much longer.
While walking on the street in the red dress, I was still trying different movements of my legs, my arms, my shoulders, my hips.
I loved how my hands were touching the fabric with every single movement: how many possibilities of hand movements it offered through its voluminosity.
I remember feeling so light.
When I arrived at St. Marx, I was already overwhelmed by this feeling. I looked at the sky. You don't see the sky that often in Vienna.
Untraced by lines, unframed, un-narrated. I wouldn't say that an uncontrolled view exists, but gazing at the sky feels the closest to it.
I felt almost afraid to step in the empty vastness of this space. Not a single path to focus on. I checked Google Maps to find out where I should land
if I were to jump over this entire emptiness. I traced an imaginary line from my hands to the pit of the arrow and threw my steps towards it.
While running on the cement, it felt like the whole space was filled by the sky. The skyscrapers, the fences, the bridges, the cranes, the ground, the red dress, were the sky.
With every silence my steps were making, I became more and more the sky.
Coll. Frac Centre-Val de Loire