Median Living
Author: Simon Sellars • Nov 17th, 2007 •Category: Ballardosphere, alternate worlds, architecture
- A Donna Dennis ‘tourist cabin’, Park Avenue, New York. Photo: Peter Mauss/Esto.
‘Interstitial architecture’ has always held my attention and Ballard’s world is riddled with it, like the short story ‘Billennium’, with its discovery of the walled-away living room that represents ‘absolute spatial freedom’, a sign of hope in an overcrowded world where public and private space have completely merged. Or the malevolent mystery of the sealed off urban ‘black areas’ in ‘Concentration City’ — what could possibly lie behind them? Not forgetting the triangle of industrial wastescape in Concrete Island, walled off by the speed and power of the motorway, that mighty technological cliff-face.
Just as palpably, the real-world examples of the artists who built a secret apartment ‘beneath an I-beam and above an unused dusty storage room’ in the Providence Place Mall, and of Paul Thorp, the lonely and lovelorn farmer living in the middle of the M62 motorway, provoke all kinds of questions. In an over-commodified, all-seeing, all devouring age in which every point on the map seems to have been articulated, colonised and claimed, the inarticulate nature of these ‘blurred zones’ generates a readymade, real-world wormhole, one foot within reality, the other foot without. Autonomy. ‘Form liberated from meaning’, if you like. Slippage. It could be read as subversive, finding air pockets within a suffocating system, or simply sad and desperate, a literalisation of marginalised people falling through the cracks in the system, like the Wolverhampton Ring Road Tramp.
When I first saw these ‘tourist cabins’ (via Tom Moody), built on no-man’s land, between worlds — the median strip of New York’s Park Avenue — I thought they were real. Travel agencies catering to urban spelunkers. Of course I’d pay to stay in one (although the problem of urban marauders would be ever-present), so imagine my slight disappointment upon discovering that this is in fact art, sculptures created by Donna Dennis.
It’s fascinating art, though, aiming to uncover ‘overlooked fragments of vernacular architecture’. Here’s some background to the project:
“Donna Dennis’ Tourist Cabins on Park Avenue create a thought-provoking juxtaposition between the humble structures and the affluent residences for which the boulevard is known,” said Commissioner Adrian Benepe. “While New York bustles along Park Avenue, the small, self-sufficient buildings are isolated in the median and, complete with a satellite dish, suggest a hunger for communication and a connection with the outside world.”
“The first tourist cabin-sculptures I made were inspired not only by childhood experiences on family trips but also by the way a small building can stand in for a human presence. Each time I have exhibited my cabin-sculptures, the setting—City Hall Park or a river in Aberdeen, South Dakota—has added new meaning. When I thought of placing these tiny houses amid the glass and concrete and noise and bustle of Park Avenue, the constellation-filled ceiling of Grand Central Terminal inspired me to add a satellite dish that would somehow connect them with distant space and the peace and quiet of the star-filled summer night.”
Drawing inspiration from overlooked fragments of vernacular architecture both rural and urban, Dennis is known for her complex, lyrical and metaphorical sculptural installations.
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Simon Sellars
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A fine appraisal of the interstitial, Simon.
Makes me think of the last old weatherboard home, complete with date palm, to be cleared before our local shopping centre became the Gargantuan thing it is now.
The owners of this house would not sell - one could look down from the food court into their garden, in the middle of the car park. Precious.
thank you, genevieve. shopping centres (malls) have a lot to answer for. and yet, they draw one in…
their power is undeniable, almost as if they are alive…
Went to the one I’ve mentioned above a few weeks back on a Friday night, usually a no-go zone for me. The food court was spooky, something Blade Runnerish about it despite the BRIGHTNESS and laminated surfaces.
All the cheap, monotonous clothes created by the enslaved that we are wearing, I think, the lack of free time made clear by all the families shopping together and eating on the run - and the delusion so easily created that you will find something you need here. Then you will take it home and try to find somewhere to put the damn thing, while the homeless man walks up and down the hill three blocks from your house, all day and probably half the night as well.
Only alive because we’ve stopped making stuff for ourselves, I think…we are complicit.
Sorry. Catherine Deveney has really got to me today. That and the freaking election.
Re: Wolverhampton ring-road tramp - The Guardian article you linked to didn’t mention that after he died it came out that apparently he’d been an enthusiastic Polish recruit to the SS, and after the war was initially quite unapologetic about his involvement, but later exiled himself to the ring road. Not sure how much of this is true and how much is speculation, but it was the main story on local news shows (I know, I know … hardly reliable). I’m sure you’d be able to find out more via t’internet. I have the misfortune to have lived in and around Wolverhampton for the last 15 years.
The ring-road as one of Dante’s circles of hell …
I heard about that, actually. Makes his exile significant, perhaps.
Genevieve: Shopping malls are more alive than me. You’re in Victoria, aren’t you? Have you ever been to Chadstone? As a shopper I feel like a neuron in a brain there, switching energy back and forth like a remote relay, completely oblivious to the machinic whole.