Proposed Project Redoux

I'm re-posting this as an update to include references to Guy Debord's influence in finding a situational aesthetic. Rereading Debord's call for an intervention in urban continuity, I realized from my marked passages that I was writing from this influence without noting it below. So I've noted it.

For my ideal public art project, I would construct a carillon bell system that could be heard throughout an urban core. The bells would be installed either in an existing building or new construction depending on the location. Throughout the zone I would set up small pedestrian stations with a single button that activates the bells. Each station would activate a different song. If a song is playing, the station's request would simply be queued. I would also provide a manual keyboard at the bells to allow a player to perform pieces.

The different songs would provide an acoustic dialogue between people and neighborhoods of the zone. The bells would be loud enough to disrupt idle worrying -- but not encumber conversations or compromise pedestrian and traffic safety.

I think this project offers a hybrid of the permanent and ephemeral installations -- not a permanently visual interruption and more permanent than David Antin's skypoems. But I don't think it compromises the disruptive value of the aesthetic which I see as oppositional but not combative.

And as I said it borrows from Debord's situational aesthetic, specifically his unitary urbanism. "Unitary urbanism must control the acoustic environment as well as the distribution of different varieties of drink or food."

His idea was to create new forms through constraints -- much like a poetic aesthetic can be generated by constraints, such as Christian Bok's Eunoia or the French Oulipos who compose without certain vowels.

"It must take up the creation of new forms and the détournement of known forms of architecture and urbanism -- as well as the détournement of the old poetry and cinema."

He wanted to disrupt the commoditization of the individual and reclaim agency from cities that were built on the interests of capitalistic motives rather than humanistic or emotional motives.

My carillon bells would be in the initial zone. That would be my contribution. And then I would provide money to allow communities within a city to build upon the concept and add their own acoustical experiences. Here's how it would work. I would divide the city into geographic zones. Within each zone, place an acoustical device that could be heard throughout the zone. The zones would be drawn with acoustical principles in mind.

The residents and businesses of each zone could then come together and decide what kind of acoustical device or player to establish in their area with stations similar to the original one. They could erect a pipe organ, a symphonic orchestra or something else. I would leave it up to them. Through my "unlimited" funds, I would help them organize community meetings where individuals, agencies and other stakeholders could develop their vision and then apply for the funds to make it happen. Their projects would have to meet a loose set of parameters: that the acoustics be loud enough to be heard throughout the zone.

Let me go back to Debord here. His more radical version of unitary urbanism would create districts in various experimental cities -- each district would be able to lead to a precise harmony broken off from neighboring harmonies." Another colleague of his articulated trying to create a pure state of mind in each district that would induce a single emotion to which the subject would constantly expose herself.

Architecture would strive for atmospheric effects of rooms, corridors, streets, atmospheres linked to the behaviors they contain. Architecture would embrace "emotionally moving situations, more than emotionally moving forms" as its materials.

This far exceeds my modest proposal and perhaps for different purposes. But there is something to creating unique personal identities within urban areas which are more often known for their absence of the person -- the alienation of the individual and disruption of community.