apexart

block Curated by: Ute Meta Bauer
Coordination: Christiane Erharter Workshop: Yvonne
P. Doderer
March 15 - April 15, 2000 -
Opening reception: Wednesday, March 15,
6-8

block is a project developed through a
seminar and workshop for young European artists and architects participating in
the theory program of the Institute of Contemporary Art at the Academy of Fine
Arts in Vienna. The participants have developed two kinds of constructions:
individual projections of New York City and a prefabricated structural system.
block brings both from Austria to New York and joins them together at
Apex Art.

Participants: Angelika Bartl (Austria), Monika Blaschke
(Germany), Pirmin Blum (Switzerland), Sandro Droschl (Austria), Christiane
Erharter (Austria), Andreas Fogarasi (Austria), Ulrike Griessmayr (Germany),
Kristina Haider (Austria), Andre Krammer (Austria), Stefan Malicky (Austria),
Wolfgang May (Germany), Matthias Mayr (Austria), Wolfgang Meisinger (Austria),
Yves Mettler (Switzerland), Matthias Meyer (Germany), Karl Spoerk (Austria),
Martina Steckholzer (Italy), Gabi Sturm (Austria), Nikola Winkler
(Switzerland).

block on the web:

http://www.theselection.net/

Everybody has their own America, and
then they have the pieces of a fantasy America that they think is out there but
they canÕt see. (...) So the fantasy corners of America seem atmospheric because
youÕve pieced them together from scenes in movies and music and lines from
books.
Quotes by Andy Warhol:America, Harper & Row New York
1985

Digital Atlas of New York City http://130.166.124.2/NYpage1.html</font>

Source: online-dictionary wwwebster Main
Entry:
1block (...)
6 a (1) : a usually rectangular space
(as in a city) enclosed by streets and occupied by or intended for buildings (2)
: the distance along one of the sides of such a block b (1) : a large
building divided into separate functional units (2) : a line of row houses (3) :
a distinctive part of a building or integrated group of buildings. (...)

2block
transitive senses 1a : to make unsuitable
for passage or progress by obstruction b archaic : BLOCKADE
c: to hinder the passage, progress, or accomplishment of by or as if by
interposing an obstruction d: to shut off from view <forest canopy blocking the sun> e: to
interfere usually legitimately with (as an opponent) in various games or sports
f: to prevent normal functioning of g: to restrict the exchange of
(as currency or checks)
3 : to shape on, with, or as if with a block
4 : to secure, support, or provide with a block <block a
hat>
synonym see HINDER

Thesaurus
Entry Word:
block
Function: noun
Synonyms barricade, barrier,
blank wall, blockade, roadblock, stop, wall

In 1807 Simeon deWitt, Governeur Morris
and John Rutherford are commissioned to design the model that will regulate the
ãfinal and conclusiveÒ occupancy of Manhattan. Four years later they propose
(...) 12 avenues running north-south and 155 streets running east-west. With
that simple action they describe a city of 13 X 156 = 2,028 blocks (excluding
topographical accidents): a matrix that captures, at the same time, all
remaining territory and all future activity on the island. The Manhattan Grid.
The Grid makes the history of architecture and all previous lessons of urbanism
irrelevant. It forces ManhattanÕs builders to develop a new system of formal
values, to invent strategies for the distinction of one block from another.
(...) The Grid defines a new balance between control and de-control in which the
city can be at the same time ordered and fluid, a metropolis of rigid chaos
(...) In the single block - the largest possible area that can fall under
architectural control - it develops a maximum unit of urbanistic Ego. (...)
Since all Manhattan blocks are identical and emphatically equivalent in the
unstated philosophy of the Grid, a mutation in a single one affects all others
as a latent possibility: theoretically, each block can now turn into a
self-contained enclave of the Irresistible Synthetic. That potential also
implies an essential isolation: no longer does the city consist of a more or
less homogeneous texture - a mosaic of complementary urban fragments - but each
block is now alone like an island, fundamentally on its own. Manhattan turns
into a dry archipelago of blocks.
Quotes from Rem Koolhaas: Delirious New
York, 001 Publishers Rotterdam 1994

A common alternate method of street
arrangement is the grid (...) It has very ancient roots. The Bronze Age villages
of northern Italy were laid out in a clear rectangular grid and so was the
ancient Indus city of Mohenjo-Daro; Greek colonial cities, Roman camps, and
medieval towns (...) were all planned on it. It has been the preferred form for
new communities. It is systematic, easy to lay out, and provides equal,
rectangular building sites. It allows a numbering system for easy location. The
motives for choosing a grid may be philosophic (...) or they may be strictly
utilitarian, as when the Commissioners laying out Manhattan in 1811 rejected
circles, ovals, and stars and decided that "strait-sided and right-angled houses
are the most cheap to build and the most convenient to live in." (...) Size,
density, grain, outline, pattern - all are basic aspects of the city's physical
form. The impression of monotony arises in part from the lack of necessary
specialization; it is not inherent in the pattern (...) Yet towering buildings
set on open ground may have only an illusory advantage if overall densities
remain high and the open spaces are overloaded. In certain sections,
particularly shopping and office areas, there is both a technical and a
psychological need for concentration which the open pattern cannot supply (...)
The modern city requires a rhythmical balance between enclosure and openness,
[between] concentration and freedom.
Quotes from Tridib Banerjee; Michael
Southworth (ed): City Sense and City Dense. Writings and Projects of Kevin
Lynch, MIT Press 1991

(...) Martha Rosler reports of iron teeth
installed in the ground of house entrances in the Bowery that should spoil
sleeping comfort for the homeless. At the Viennese Karlsplatz park banks are
subdivided through armrests into single seats to prevent people from lying down.
By the means of many similar, more or less subtle strategies, social segregation
is pushed through. (...) In these days, the new Austrian state apparatus follows
ideological more than economic paradigms and protects government buildings and
right-wing party headquarters with barricades and water cannons against the new
"civil society".(...)
Andreas Fogarasi 2.00

(...)Rudolph Guliani's law and order
ideology forces people to disappear under the surface of the city. In its
extreme consequence the "zero-tolerance" policy allows no visibility of "the
other" of society. (...) If we read Manhattan as Bachelard analyses the house,
we identify N.Y.«s underground spaces as a huge Bachelardian cellar which is a
sphere of the collective subconscious of the city. The tunnel people are part of
the supressed elements of that collective subconscious.(...) In N.Y.C. the
uniformity of the grid is confronted with the anarchy of architectural
fragments, which are depending on financial speculation. The grid as a real
abstraction is in conflict with the organism of the city that N.Y. represents.
Manhattan is a social construct with its mechanisms of displacement, repression,
gentrification and segregation.(...)The grid allows the spatial proximity of
oppositions (Wall Street-Meat Market) while the mental segregation is kept.
(...)The existence of people living under the surface of the city in tunnels and
chambers means a new occupation and definition of urban structure. A new "social
layer" is introduced to Manhattan.(...)
AndrŽ Krammer 2.00

March 16;
6:30pm
Open discussion:
"Strategies of Resistance Today: the current situation in Austria"; with
participants

and guests

for further information on the current situation
in Austria, we recommend the following links:

http://www.betazine.org/
http://www.demokratische-offensive.at/
http://www.gegenschwarzblau.net/
www.t0.or.at/gettoattack
http://www.popo.at/
http://sos-mitmensch.at/

March 17; 2
pm

Open discussion: "Feedback
/ Reflection and Discussion about the project and the collaborative working
method"; with participants and guests

Please contact Apex Art for further
information or a copy of the brochure.

Hours: Tuesday to Saturday, 11-6.

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about this web site.
Last modified: June 30,
2003