Mezzo moderno, mezzo distrutto
Mezzo Moderno, Mezzo Distrutto (Half Modern, Half Destroyed) is a socially-engaged public art project currently being researched and developed. The project's online and installation concepts involve creating a hybrid work which will examine contemporary perceptions of space and collective creative process. The aim is for this work to culminate in a large-scale multi-projection installation in the public space of Gillett Square.
Mezzo Moderno, Mezzo Distrutto is concerned with how a wide cross-section of daily users, of the town centre and neighbourhood of Dalston, East London see and choose to interpret their urban environment as it goes through a period of unprecedented change. Visually, it invites participants' reflection on the quality of change in local urban and architectural design and whether it contributes to 'genius loci' (spirit of place).
This project asks can moving image open channels of communication of another level (away from entertainment and advertising); of inspiration, empowerment, and aspiration, developing our understanding of changes in urban environment today and sense of ownership of our surrounding.
Collective creative process:
Collective creativity is embedded in a field of exciting, creative dynamic human interactions with multidirectional and unpredictable outcomes. Using the idea of youtube.com as a familiar and accessible online platform for collecting and displaying video, this software enables direct community participation through use of an online repository. The methodology used creates a framework in which an open, collaboration with particular communities is facilitated (of non-experts who create content for an outdoor video installation).
Architecture:
Urban environments are complex, dynamic, rapidly changing systems controlled and shaped by a range of social, economic and political factors. Duality, complexity, simultaneity, pluralism are in the nature of the built environment of a city. Order and disorder, planning and chance, innovation and tradition, memories of the past and visions of the future are all part of our everyday urban experience. The drive to improve the quality of our urban environment, together with the widespread recognition that better buildings can generate economic, social and cultural well-being has initiated a new-found, widespread passion for architecture, reflected by the steady rise of regeneration projects throughout London, with Hackney being no exception. This project looks into how the local residents see this space, future adjacent developments and does this contribute to previously established location's distinctive atmosphere, a ‘spirit of place’. How do 'spirits' past and present work together?
