NOTES ON PIETER VREEDEPLEIN SQUARE, TILBURG
Eric Reyes-Lamothe
SQUARES
Pieter Vreedeplein Square has a triangular shape. In fact there are two plazas, one smaller than the other, both having similar shapes.
Vreedeplein Square can be considered a commercial site.
It is partial to think on the Square without considering:
-The paths used to shorten distances
-The use of commercial areas.
-Real State interests on the area of the Square.
In many cases, surrounding buildings on Plazas in Mexico house the Institutions that rule the space. For example, the buildings on the Zócalo are still used by the Federal and Local Government. Besides, there is the Cathedral and the business buildings. They were built during colonial times. By themselves, these buildings are representations of power.
In La Plaza de las Tres Culturas (Square of Three Cultures) is where the massacre of students occurred in 1968. Its name comes from a concept of the architect Mario Pani who built the family complex during the 1950’s with the idea of having a Square where Aztec and Colonial buildings could coexist with modern buildings.
The design of the space did not allow any possible escape for the people who were protesting, as it is enclosed among the buildings and there is not major streets surrounding.
After 1968 -and a devastating earthquake in 1985 that collapsed many buildings of the complex- the Square became a mythical place for the identity of the Mexicans.
PARKING LOT
A place to keep still what is made to move.
It has an ambiguous character, as it is public and private at the same time. It is a closed public space for transit.
It has a multimedia disposition. Covered with surveillance cameras and speakers. Color changing LED lights.
Is it possible to make a protest inside the public-private space?
An exhibition inside the parking lot, with borrowed pieces from the de Pont Museum?
The columns inside the parking lot evoke Cordoba’s Mosque.
Proposal: Doing an exhibition inside the parking lot, using borrowed art works from the De Pont Museum
MULTITUDE AND PROTEST
"A protest is an exploration of the city, an exhibition of numerical power, gentle competitions between Schools and Faculties for an assistant record, political practice expressed as a theatre of the mass." (MONSIVÁIS, Carlos. Los medios de comunicación del Movimiento. Suplemento especial, La Jornada, 2 de Octubre del 2008: México)
I found a book on the history of Tilburg, where big crowds of people were protesting during the sixties. (VAN EIJNDHOVEN, Jeroen; VAN DER HEIJDEN, Rinus. Tilburg in de jaren ´60. Uitgeverij Nieuwland, Tilburg: 2007)
Is there a machine, a microphone that can be used by the multitude to express them?
Historically, Democracy has not been a medium for this. The voice of the multitude is not heard in the general vote, even at the most democratic country in the world. The circumstance gives the multitude some options to choose, but this is not a precise way to hear what a multitude needs.
Nevertheless, there are writings about the wisdom of the crowds. If they are intelligent, first they should be allowed to express by their own means.
Protests have been partially helpful to express the needs of the multitude. But some sectors of society are absent, possible because they are afraid from repression, as could be the case of migrants in the Global Cities (SASSEN, Saskia. Globalization and its discontents. The New Press, 1998)
Internet is not a vehicle either for the communication of the multitude. Not everybody has basic technological knowledge, and many persons in countries in development do not even have access to the web.
Until now, the voice of the multitude has not really been heard in its full capacity.
PEDESTRIANS AND CYCLISTS
The biggest groups that cross Vreedeplein are people in bicycles.
There are paths well defined used by the people that move through the Square.
Traffic in Tilburg: Half of the street belongs to the cyclist. The other half is for cars.
A pedestrian in bicycle is not any more a pedestrian.
There must be a monument to the bicycle.
SPACE, TRANSIT AND MARKS
How can it be that the people that move through a space can define it?
People build the space.
One person can fill the space of the Square, in different times.
Two persons can occupy the same space, in different times.
“I was here, and now I’m not the same”. Say hello to my future self
A person that moves through the Square makes the place, physically. He or she defines it. Thinking on Manuel de Landa’s writings on Bio-mass, that flux of people through time and space in thousands of years. Space may be determined by what is in transit through it.
“Over the millennia, it is the flow of biomass through food webs, as well as the flow of genes through generations, that matters, not the bodies and the species that emerge from these flows. Our languages may also be seen over time as momentary slowing downs or thickenings in a flow of norms that give rise to a multitude of different structures. And a similar point applies to our institutions, which may also be considered transitory hardenings in the flows of money, routines, and prestige, and, if they have aquired a permanent building to house them, in the mineral flows from which construction materials derive.” (DE LANDA, Manuel. A Thousand years of Nonlinear History. Swerve Editions, New York: 2000)
Transit through the space is described when one goes through it. Transit means the followed route, but it is also a mass produced by the one who moves, occupying the space in different times. Like on Muybridge’s photos.
Vreedeplein is a space for consumption.
River of people. Flux of people. In the river of people identity is not lost.
Is it possible to mark the path of the one who crosses the Square, on the ground or in the air?
Is it possible to force the one who goes through the Square to change the direction of the path?
Perhaps, with the use of the kind of barriers employed during construction periods.
I saw two persons at the Square that were walking trough the same path, in some point interposing each other’s way standing face to face. There was a corporal discourse between them, like an unexpected dancing.
A parody of traffic: A highway intersection like those used for cars made for the bicycles going through Vreedeplein. The problem here is that the bridges and ways would go directly to the entrance of the stores.
PLEINVREES
(In Dutch, Agoraphobia)
Agoraphobia: Extreme or irrational fear of crowded spaces or enclosed public spaces.
Literally means Fear of the marketplace.
The literary translation from Greek is not clinically accurate. The defining feature of agoraphobia is anxiety about being in places from which escape might be difficult. The sufferer becomes uneasy in environments that are unfamiliar or where he or she has little control.
Triggers may include crowds, wide-open spaces or traveling alone, even for short distances (answers.com)
Agora: [In ancient Greek] A public open space used for assemblies and markets.
A monetary unit in Israel. In Hebrew means small coin.
Dans le terme d'Agoraphilie on retrouve le préfixe Agora qui signifie la foule. A l'inverse de l'agoraphobie, l'Agoraphilie désigne une personne aimant particulièrement la foule les lieux publics etc... Une personne Agoraphile aimera faire l'amour dans des lieux publics au risque très excitant de se faire surprendre par quelqu'un... (clicksexe.com)
PORTABLE TRADING
The street vendor embodies the victory of the pedestrian over the street once used by the car. Actually, this is a struggle still present in some streets in Downtown Mexico City.
The street vendor carries with baggage, like the traveler does.
Business-Flaneur.
The one who sells in the middle of the traffic jam takes advantage of the slow movement of the crowds in cars.
Portable labor: In the streets of Mexico is common to see persons that use bicycles adapted to be knife-sharpeners.
A trailer is an unpowered vehicle pulled by a powered vehicle. Commonly the term trailer refers to such vehicles used for transport of goods and materials. Some times recreational vehicles, travel trailers, or mobile homes have been referred to as trailers.
Towing is the process of pulling or drawing behind a chain, line, bar or some other form of coupling. Commonly, towing is done by road vehicles. But boats, tractors or people can tow cargo.
ANIMALS
Today, there are no more than five pigeons on Vreedeplein
PLANTS
- At the middle of the Square, there is a flower stand that shortens the extension of the place. According to Benjamin, Haussmann enlarged the Avenues in Paris to avoid barricades. At Vreedeplein it happens the opposite, as an obstacle is placed to keep away the crowds.
- “The true goal of Haussmann’s projects was to secure the city against civil war. He wanted to make the erection of barricades in Paris impossible for all time. With the same end in mind, Louis Philippe had already introduced wooden paving. Nonetheless, barricades played a role in the February Revolution. Engels studies the tactics of barricade fighting. Haussmann seeks to neutralize these tactics in two fronts. Widening the streets is designed to make the erection of barricades impossible, and the new streets are to furnish the shortest route between the barracks and the workers’ districts. Contemporaries christen the operation strategic embellishment.” (BENJAMIN, Walter. The Arcades project. The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press: 2002)
- I have seen Peyote behind display windows.
FATIGUE AND SLEEPING
Note on tiredness. Madrid, May 2007.
Do not mind the wars/ hunger/ snow storms/ or the chess game
I do not mind children/ good music/ travel offers/ or friendship
I just want to sleep
- I found that Philippines is a friendly place to sleep on the streets.
- The space that cars use for parking is similar to the shape of a twin size bed.
ACTIONS-NOTES
- Let the crowd make marks on the floor: cement powder; white sand; water (the term watermark can be used in this case referring to this kind of marks)
- Billboards: Communication with the one who goes through the Square. It is a medium to connect the possibilities of an action and the space to be used as a stage.
- Make a choreography using bicycles.
(The empty Square. Eight cyclists coming and park in circle) - Take pictures of my bicycle next to monuments in Tilburg.
- Use barricades to change the flux of the rivers of people.
- Pillow-Barricades.
- A temporary object built with people and bicycles.
- Invite the people who work at the Square to participate with an art piece. Something they know how to do or perform.
- Change one of the functions of the space at Vreedeplein.
Artworks should not be outside on the Square. The artworks should be in the building of the stores with guest artists appropriating the space.
The sellers should be outside, in an open-air market, and the stores facilities should be used as exhibition spaces.
The person that goes through both the open and the indoor space should change its perception of Vreedeplein, as the function of the space changed.
Department stores have borrowed the attributes of exhibition spaces: the lights, the shelves, the music, the whole environment is made to display products. There is a selection (almost curatorial) of the exhibited products as there are categories dividing and separating the space where the customer walks.
The shopping window is a stage.
On the other hand, there are many artworks -especially some kind of installations- that may function as a shopping window art. - To pay homage to the historical Pieter Vreede, the Square may be used for voting.
CAMERA-BICYCLE
Videotape the journey in bicycle from the studio to Vreedeplein, using a video camera attached to the back of the bicycle.
I would like to include sound with a voice that narrates a story.
Here, the use of space and time corresponds not only to Vreedeplein as an environment, but also as a perceptual space. The time it takes me to be at the Square from the studio represents a personal relationship I have with the public space. In this sense, I want to include within the framework of this work some e-mails I have received during the Residency, to make the idea of the perceptual space more evident.
The camera on the back records how the space goes away. Things escape. At the same time, it is possible to observe with detail the cyclists that ride close to me.
One day I recorded:
-The neighbor, his wife and children behind me, saying hello to the hidden camera.
-Two men fighting.
Another version would be driving a bicycle with a tape recorder attached and wearing a mask, to make people watch me. Somehow, I feel observed as I drive the bicycle, even if the camera is partially visible. Tony Labatt told me once that in the US, as a migrant, I was the scary other. In that sense would suffice just using a turban as I drive the bicycle with the camera. The idea of the reflection of the other would be fictitious, as I am not Muslim.
Journey-letter. Going to Vreedeplein, my letters. Coming back, the responses.
Mei made me observe that I like to ride the bicycle to Vreedeplein around five in the afternoon, when most of the stores are closing, and the crowds are smaller. I like the feeling of people preparing to relax.
DEATH OF THE BYCICLE
Two bicycles bound together by the front or back tires can work as an analogy of the death of the bicycle, the denial of movement.
I found rusting bicycles in the canals of Amsterdam.
FICTION FOR FICTION
What is the meaning of working on a fictitious project? Is it for making fictitious piece? Or does it mean work fictitiously? Perhaps it means pretending to work.
A fictitious working day:
Having breakfast. Toast, coffee and orange juice.
Reading the newspaper in the bathroom.
Taking photos and making sketches at Vreedeplein.
Thinking at Vreedeplein.
Back to the studio to work on the gathered information.
LEIBNITZ
IDENTITY OF INDISCERNIBLES. Two things are identical if and only if they share the same properties.
OPTIMISM. God assuredly always chooses the best.
SPINOZA
Spinoza walking with a book in his hand, ostracized by the Jewish community in Amsterdam (title of an image found on e-bay).
Baruch Spinoza wore a signet ring inscribed with the word Caute (Cautiously).
God is not some goal-oriented planner who then judges things by how well they conform to his purposes. Things happen only because of nature and its laws.
Nature has no end set before it[…] All things proceed by a certain eternal necessity of nature.
To believe otherwise is to fall prey to superstitions of organized religions.
B. RUSSELL
A man’s percepts are private to himself: what I see no one else’s sees… True, others hear and see something very like what I hear and see, if they are suitable placed; but there are always differences.
Sounds are less loud at a distance; objects change their visual appearance according to the laws of perspective. Therefore it is impossible for two people at the same time to have exactly identical percepts.
It follows that the space of percepts, like the percepts, must be private; there are as many perceptual spaces as there are percipients. My percept of a table is outside my percept of my head, in my perceptual space; but it does not follow that it is outside my head as a physical object in physical space.
Physical space is public and neutral; in this space, all my percepts are in my head, even the most distant star as I see it. Physical and perceptual spaces have relations, but they are not identical, and failure to grasp the differences is a source of confusion.
Perceptual space according to Bertrand Russell.
RUSSELL, Bertrand. An outline of Philosophy. Read Books, London: 2007
DEVELOPING A PROPOSAL FOR A FICTITIOUS PUBLIC INTERVENTION AT PIETER VREEDEPLEIN
Is it public?
Is it visible?
Is it a crowd?
Is it material?
Is it minimal?
Is it in transit?
Is it monumental?
Is it already done?
Is it contradictory?
Is it riding a bicycle?
Is the distance important?
Is it for sale at the stores?
Is time an important element?
Are the shopping windows used?
Is it done at the parking lot?
Does it have the shape of a book?
Is it associated with PieterVreede?
Is it a public intervention on the web?
Includes the people that go through the space?
Does it contribute with something to the space?
Do the people who work at the stores participate?
Is it built with the people that go through the space?
Is it interesting for the people that go through the space?
Are the people who work in the space invited to participate?
LETTERS AND COMMUNICATION
MEXICO CITY-TILBURG / TILBURG-MEXICO CITY
Sept/19/2008 09:10 PM
Bestia Mexicana [Bestia Mexicana -Mexican Beast- is the Hi5 nickname for the sociologist and philosopher Eunice Limón, b. Mexico 1983) says:
Bicycles: to think on them is necessary to imagine them, not only them, but also them.
I was thinking on the stationary bicycles, not as an accident, but because they are the only kind of bicycles that I frequently use. I have a sample in my living room, but I don’t use it since months ago. I consider that this relationship with the bicycle is kept since I put a petate bag on its seat (A petate is woven from the fibers of the Palm of petate, Thrinax morrisii. In Mexico and Central America is used mainly for bedrolls) that one day I started using to store oatmeal cookies. You should know that those are now my favorite eatable objects.
As I am writing this I can notice that all the mentioned objects at the living room, with the exception of the cookies, are objects that have been abstracted from their main functions due to practical reasons and spontaneity. In the case of the bicycle, I see that I applied a second abstraction to its function.
Now I stop: What function or functions do these things have? I can see one more thing behind: the value of thinking on differences, on corresponding oppositions that would not understand without each other. I do not stop now because few minutes are those I can stop following this rhythm.
Stationary bicycles are used to close the eyes for half an hour or more, with low chances riding into a hill, a wall or a car. Let’s say that stationary bicycles let me open my eyes inside of me. As I ride this bicycle sometimes I go through landscapes in my memory, or landscapes that rise and leave in the time between my open eyes, to my closed eyes, to my open eyes again.
Stationary bicycles do not take me to another place. What I say I do not know if it is a question, an agreement or a possibility… By its attachment, attached bicycles have lost one function: shift the cyclist in time and space. I do not stop, not in time, distance or function.
What time is it over there?
Sept/19/2008 09:59 PM
eric reyeslamothe says:
9.58 pm
Sept/21/2008 11:22 PM
eric reyeslamothe says:
I find interesting the relationship petate-oatmeal-bicycle.
I would not think about it.
Even tough, I have to mention that a year ago, when you did some research on Tulancingo River, you gave me some photocopies stored in an oatmeal bag.
The research on photocopies included the front page on a newspaper dated October 1999, when the flood came to our city. López Obrador was there already. There, in the news.
López obrador-flood-oatmeal
Stationary bicycles are objects that I like too. I have been doing series of photos of the death of the bicycle: inside the channels of Amsterdam, or simply parked bicycles abandoned on the streets covered with spider webs. One piece I did some years ago using one small bicycle and a tricycle, made reference to it. A petition for stability on the existence, perhaps.
Stationery bicyle: at the Museum of Textiles in Tilburg there is a machine that weaves fabric propelled with the energy coming from a bicycle that you can ride. Maybe it is not, but I thought this was super cool..!
Now I want to make a piece where the viewer propels the bicycle to light the room, haha.
It is illegal to drive the bicycle at night without lights.
Sept/23/2008 05:47 AM
Bestia Mexicana says:
8.43 (time of my pc)
After your last message I remembered the Zócalo.
I imagined myself pedaling to turn on the light (a blue light). I recently became more aware to stage lighting (after a Tuxedomoon concert, I guess).
The night. I like to work at midnight, when the new day is inaugurated.
It is true I recycle bags. It is a habit, a mild obsession. The cart I use to go shopping is full of them.
Sept/29/2008 07:54 PM
eric reyeslamothe says:
How do you insert images in the comments box? Humm…
Well, the ideal situation is this: I write that I found a bicycle seat with a petate… and here, in this space, would be the representation of the concept you developed previously.
An object found on the streets in Antwerpen.
