| EDWIN STOLK | |
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"AIMLESS TRAJECTORY", A maneuver within the enemy's field of vision. [updated 03 February 2011] For more information scroll down |
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"AIMLESS TRAJECTORY" by Edwin Stolk, part of a collaboration between artist Loek Grootjans and the Sandberg Institute, inquiries in public space. "It's a miracle it didn't kill us." Stolk's general research with this project goes out to a lived experience, a visual form which infiltrates daily infrastructures and becomes part of a movement in time and space. 3) Main concept [03-02-2011] "AIMLESS TRAJECTORY" consists out of a wandering; Edwin Stolk invites the viewer to become participant, to step together into a green 1995 Volkswagen polo which is owned by Stolk. The only defined moment is the moment they (he and the participant) have planned to leave. Where the journey goes is not defined, how long it will take neither. There is no route planned in front, nor time schedule known. While they drive the streets, highways, viaducts, roads, the direction is only based on intuition and by dialogue. The wandering will result in a shared experience of transport infrastructure; the experience will not be documented in any other way than by the memory of the participants. The wandering can be seen as a manoeuvre within the enemy's field of vision because they infiltrate within usual traffic, traffic which is heading for their fixed destination, with total opposite pre-structural intentions, an opposite way of using the transport infrastructure. "AIMLESS TRAJECTORY" is a researching the idea of non-places described by Marc Augé in an essay and book of the same title, Non-Places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity (1995), Marc Augé coined the phrase "non-place" to refer to places of transience that do not hold enough significance to be regarded as "places". Examples of a non-place would be a motorway, a hotel room, an airport or a supermarket. The aim is to search for new perspectives concerning our idea of reality and perception of reality. The infiltration is also inspired by the walks organised by the Situationist International. The title "AIMLESS TRAJECTORY" refers to the form of drifting [dérive] described by the situationists. "In a dérive one or more persons during a certain period drop their usual motives for movement and action, their relations, their work and leisure activities, and let themselves be drawn by the attractions of the terrain and the encounters they find there. But the dérive includes both this letting go and its necessary contradiction: the domination of psychogeographical variations by the knowledge and calculation of their possibilities." [Knabb, Ken, ed. Situationist International Anthology, Berkley: Bureau of Public Secrets, 1995. pg 50.] To the Situationist International, whose interest inhabited space, the 'dérive' brought appeal in this sense of taking the 'fight' to the streets and truly indulging in a determined operation. The dérive was a course of preparation, reconnaissance, and a means of shaping situationist psychology among urban explorers for the eventuality of the situationist city.
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2) Developing concept: The below described idea of a wandering formed after studying 'DE ELFENBAAN': "AIMLESS TRAJECTORY" consists out of a wandering; Edwin Stolk invites the viewer to become participant, to step together into a green 1995 Volkswagen polo which is owned by Stolk. Where the journey goes is not defined, how long it will take neither. There is no route planned in front, nor time schedule known. While driving the streets, highways, viaducts, roads, on our intuition and by dialogue, two video screens in the back of the car show film material of 'similar' surroundings, transport infrastructures. Its aim is to experience the shared human perception of non-places as described by Marc Augé. The attempt is inspired by the walks a form of drifting [dérive] organised by the Situationist International. The idea of the video in the back of the car is to combine the perception of the participants of the wandering with the perception of other user uploaded internet videos of highway rides. [02-02-2011] After an interesting presentation and discussion at Sandberg Institute on Wednesday 2nd February, Stolk realized that the videos shown in the back of the car were in conflict with the shared experience and dialogue by the participants of the wandering. The videos are taken out of the concept.
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1) Start [02-11-2010] Edwin Stolk writes: 'Investigating leftover spaces, non-places, no-mans-land, brought me to 'DE ELFENBAAN', a small forest next to a highway near Bodegraven in the Netherlands, where I used to play as a little boy. The forest became twice smaller several years ago because the government decided to double the capacity of the N11 road, which connects Leiden with the A12 in the direction Utrecht. The natural place taken by the road was compensated by closing the leftover natural space for people and 'giving it back to nature'. In the mean time also small tunnels were realized so-called animal crossings. Official investigators were hired to rapport the government on how the animals use the defined leftover space and which animals use this place and tunnels.( A rapport on the investigations [Dutch only] you can find here: http://www.mjpo.nl/downloads/310502-014_faunapassages[1].pdf)' 'It is in my opinion too easy to make a statement about the human idea on compensating our use of nature and excluding human presents from this leftover nature. My interest goes out to the purpose in destroying parts of nature by these means. In the same time I am interested in these realized depersonalized motorways, the influence they have in the perception of our daily surrounding and on our idea of time and distance.'
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