Allard van Hoorn: Platform for Urban Investigation

Platform for Urban Investigation is a the nomadic, cross-disciplinary research facility investigating local urban environments around the world working with architects, designers, choreographers, musicians and visual artists. The Platform for Urban Investigation collaborates with the Rijksakademie Amsterdam and it's RAIN Networks.

PUI uses the following tools:
1. Workshops
2. Open-door brainstorm sessions
3. Exhibitions
4. Publications
5. Performances
6. Productions
7. Residencies

In order to conduct its research PUI will continuously travel around the world visiting urban environments on all continents inviting to take part in the above activities a broad variety of cultural producers like:

a. Architects
b. Urbanists
c. Choreographers
d. Dancers
e. Visual artists
f. Musicians
g. Writers
h. Philosophers
i. Curators

Platform for Urban Investigation Shanghai I
Platform for Urban Investigation on May 13 – 26 at Island6 Arts Center, Shanghai, China

During the residency of artist Allard van Hoorn at Island6 Arts Center from May 13th until May 26th 2006 the Platform for Urban Investigation has researched Shanghai as an environment for reinterpretation of form and movement in the city.

Various activities were ongoing during these two weeks. The audience was welcome to visit Island6 Arts Center and participate and co-develop this open-door workshop environment. Allard van Hoorn gave workshops, conducting interviews with various cultural producers and did continuous research while working in this space and the city around it. A calendar with precise schedule of activities was posted.

Following are a few examples of the many project executed for this Platform for Urban Investigation:

Projects

– – – Model Junction No. 1, David Cotterrell – – –
Based on study of various models of traffic simulation of, amongst others, Shanghai, an attempt is made to forecast the ultimate road-planning scheme if car ownership would be the only driving force within this framework. Step-by-step growth from footpath to clover highway structures are developed and shown during the Platform for Urban Investigation.

– – – Visual Ping Pong, Students from Raffles Design Institute / Dong Hua University in Shanghai and Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in London – – –
Each week visual messages were sent by email between Raffles Design Institute/Dong Hua University in Shanghai and Central St Martins College of Art in London. Like a game of visual ping pong the images move quickly to and fro between the two sides with each player adding their own imaginative spin to the pictures. Like any game each player cannot predict or change what the other player does.

– – – Remote Instructions (Western Shift), Lee Walton – – –
Lee Walton provided instructions from Brooklyn, New York for the Platform for Urban Investigation to be executed in Shanghai. On this occasion Western Shift asked for objects in the public space to be moved a few inches or feet in western direction symbolizing the new developments in China.

– – – Shanghaid, John Ingledew – – –
The newest pride of urban Shanghai, the World Financial Center, was being advertised on posters throughout the city. Oposers vandalized the posters by cutting out the bottle opener shaped building where after government officials or project developers pasted the buildings back in with cheap Cello tape. These high quality posters were the life-size reproduction of the makeshift repaired posters.

Platform for Urban Investigation Shanghai II
Platform for Urban Investigation Shanghai II on February 26 – April 1 2007 at Island6 Arts Center and the Shanghai Museum of Contemporary Art, Shanghai, China

Artist Allard van Hoorn organized the third Platform for Urban Investigation at Island6 Arts Center and the Shanghai Museum of Contemporary Art from February 26th until April 1st 2007. The Platform for Urban Investigation Shanghai II researched Shanghai's urban landscape as an environment for reinterpretation of form and movement in the city.

The panoptic architectural structure was chosen as the theme of The Platform for Urban Investigation Shanghai II. The panoptic structure was used in the early 20th century as a round building construction in which the center, in case of a prison the guards, could control the entire surroundings, in the case of a jailhouse the prisoners.

After a rapid shift of the role of the individual in Chinese society from periphery to center due to the shift from communism to capitalism / consumerism, the panoptic model was chosen to be the theoretic starting point against which all participating projects were measured.

In total a group of 33 cultural producers and 40 children from different schools participated in this creative environment that aims to create new ways of looking and seeing the urban environment and our cultural development. The program that lasted a month resulted in many workshops, sculptures, installations, international contacts and much more. Collaborative works were sent around the globe and back and all resulted in an exhibition at Island6 Arts Center that lasted until April 1st 2007.

Following are a few examples of the many project executed for this Platform for Urban Investigation:

Projects

– – – Movimiento de Traslación, Vanessa Fernández Guasch with help of Alexandra Verhaest – – –
This is also a project by Cuban artist Vanessa Fernández Guash who did a cartographic recording with white pencil on black paper of the streets of her hometown of Havana, Cuba. Again, Alexandra Verhaest executed the Shanghainese version of this project.

– – – Low Polygon Boulder (Landscape Machine), Guillaume Ségur – – –
Guillaume Ségur created a mathematically designed boulder that was inspired by a Chinese rock for printmaking, reflecting on the relationship between nature and human intervention. Being more than a meter in height the new boulder could then be used a tool for creating a new landscape within the fields around Island 6 Arts Space by rolling it forward.

– – – Folding Cities, Mimi Tong – – –
Between February 26th and 28th Mimi showed insight in her working process and results based on cut and folded urban imagery. Her imagery is based on an investigation of the urban space which is two-dimensional. She uses special paper to print these images and then starts working on them by cutting and folding recreating the three-dimensional. The pieces are then arranged in different settings. At Island6 a large scale presentation was chosen.

– – – Re-Designing the Guggenheim Allard van Hoorn, Stefano Tedesco, Yan Mengfei and Qi Shaoli – – –
A drawing of a building translated into a dance, then into a picture, subsequently into a musical composition, which is turned back into architectural models once again. This project is a study of transformation and the relationship between the state of the static and the dynamic.

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