Lungomare

• Manuela Demattio
• Roberto Gigliotti
• Carlotta Polo

• Andreas Flora
• IMPEXunlimited
• ma0
• Martin Mutschlechner
• Ogino Knauss
• PEANUTZ Architekten
• Saul Saguatti
• Bartolomeo Sailer
• Studio1.Institut für Entwerfen

Site visit 1
08.04.05
Manuela Demattio, Roberto Gigliotti, Carlotta Polo

A walk from Lungomare to del Colle woods in the direction of “the sea” represents the first of the site visits within the Urban Observatory project, organized by the Lungomare agency of urban exploration. A group of urban explorers will go for a walk, moving along an imaginary straight line southwards, informally reading, recounting, and documenting the city. Using a video camera, a camera, a tape recorder and a sketchpad, images, sounds, and random encounters will be annotated. The act of walking leaves marks on the earth that signal the beginning of the Urban Observatory and mark the route and points of observation of this first site visit. The method of arbitrarily reading the imaginary line permits a spontaneous description of the city, recounting what is encountered along a path that doesn’t actually exist: There is no science in the action, leaving to chance and surprise the sequence of objects and situations encountered. The process is ‘geomorphological’ and doesn’t make a distinction between surfaces with different characteristics or uses. It is a ‘mobile gaze’, which restores a subjective responsibility to the citizen-observers.

Site visit 2
08.05 – 13.05.05
Bartolomeo Sailer, Saul Saguatti – Bologna

Fotorama is a performance in which video artists and a group of citizens experiment with the animation of digital photographs and live recording, with the aim of creating an artistic portrait and documentary of Bolzano. It will be created in the branch of Lungomare (former Löwenzahn shop) in Piazza Domenicani. The result will be a video as reproduction and interpretation of images and live sounds, characterized by the randomness and possibility of error typical of a live performance. Fotorama through its participatory component wants to on the one side rediscover the place where one lives, reawakening an attention to certain daily routines, and on the other, provide a new vision of “digital appliances” (computer, camera, audio recorders) as simple creative tools.

Site visit 3
17.05 – 20.05.05
Studio1.Institute of Design, M. Mutschlechner, A. Flora – Innsbruck

For a long time the urban interstice was intended as a “void” between the buildings or simply as public space (without quality). This research starts from the assumption that the urban interstice can be used as a planning tool, as a means through which to structure space and provide the world isolated from architecture, meaning and context. Whilst the architecture of buildings requires forms and symbols to represent itself, and tends to define its own formal and functional perspectives, the urban territory can break free from these constraints and yet remain coherent. Like the backgrounds in Hieronymus Bosch paintings, the urban interstice connects a world “apparently fragmented,” by re-contextualizing and providing a continuous surface of human interaction.kontinuierliche Oberfläche menschlicher Interaktion schaffen.

Concept: urbaner-zwischen-raum/Stadtlandschaft (in German)
Invitation to the discussion (in German)

The sector outlines a well-defined zone within the urban area, which marks the territory under investigation. The defined section intentionally ignores existing borders and patterns within the urban neighbourhood structure, thoroughfares, rivers, topography – in order to examine the supposedly known territory from a different perspective (P.8)

Site visit 4
23.05 – 27.05.05
IMPEXunlimited – Berlin

In 2003 IMPEXunlimited carried out its first DETOURISMO experience in Leipzig where participants could choose from four thematic itineraries. The excursions could be undertaken alone or in a group of friends. The results of the site visit (photographs, artefacts and documentation of the experience), presented as part of an exhibition, have provided the basis for a discussion on the current state of public urban space. In Bolzano IMPEXunlimited will present a new DETOURISMO. For the preparation of the itineraries a four day workshop is planned, the first phase of which will be to introduce and discuss the methodology of DETOURISMO. Following this, groups will be established that will develop “their” personal itinerary and a Guide Vague (a small brochure similar to a tour guide) put together, to be given to the “detouristi” who follow their route. All produced texts will be digitised and analysed in statistical form according to the Cluster analysis method. Through this form of analysis the texts will then be reorganised to provide information not only on the perception of the city held by the participants, but also on the connection between the image of the city presented by the writers of the guides and the “detouristi”. IMPEXunlimited will provide the technical and theoretical support for the design and layout of the guides (specific computer knowledge is not necessary). All of the itineraries developed can be followed in the form of excursions for the entire duration of DETOURISMO II.

Site visit 5
14.06 – 17.06.05
oginoknauss – Florence

The public space of the contemporary city is essentially space for exhibition and passage. A complex system of surfaces, on which the flow of people, vehicles, information, and energy have a growing influence. The urban surfaces, in addition to constituting the physical structure that contains and distinguish these flows, increasingly express themselves as a communicating system of signs. What emerges is ”vertical urban planning” where the rental income from urban objects assumes an increasing value in comparison with the communicative capacity of the spaces, and in which the power of large advertising agencies becomes increasingly evident. What also emerges is a conflictual dialectic between spontaneous practices of communication and artistic expression (graffiti, writing, street art, and informal, political communication) and institutional and regulatory control exercised over the territory. The main topic on which we intend to focus attention during the site visit in Bolzano will be expressions of the semantic space of the city: how they manifest themselves, discriminate, occur, and how spontaneous and institutional, commercial and political uses of urban spaces enter into conflict; how the system of advertising space articulates itself. The work undertaken during the three-day site visit will have an instant and instinctive character that will try to describe in an “epidermal” way the impact with the perceptual landscape of Bolzano.

Expedition 5
14/06 – 17/06/05
ogi:noknauss – Firenze

Der öffentliche Raum in der zeitgenössischen Stadt bezeichnet grundsätzlich einen Ausstellungs- und Durchführungsraum. Ein komplexes System aus Oberflächen, auf welche die Strömungen der Menschen, der Fahrzeuge, der Daten, der Energien einen zunehmenden Einfluss haben. Die urbanen Flächen definieren die Struktur, die diese Strömungen enthält und organisiert. Darüber hinaus entwickeln sich diese Flächen immer mehr zu einem kommunizierenden Zeichensystem. Es fällt eine “vertikale Urbanistik” auf, innnerhalb der die Eigentumverhältnisse der urbanen Objekte im Vergleich zu der Kommunikationskraft der Flächen einen zunehmenden Wert bekommen und innerhalb derer die Macht der großen Werbeagenturen immer offensichtlicher wird. Darüber hinaus fällt auch eine konfliktreiche Dialektik auf zwischen den spontanen sowie künstlerischen Kommunikations- und Ausdrucksweisen (Graffiti, Writing, Street Art, informelle und politische Kommunikation) und der Kontrolle der Institutionen und Gesetze über die Stadtlandschaft. Während der Expedition in Bozen möchten wir uns hauptsächlich mit der Artikulation des urbanen semantischen Raumes beschäftigen: Wie offenbaren sich, wie differenzieren sich, wie folgen sich und stoßen die spontanen und institutionellen, kommerziellen und politischen Nutzungen der urbanen Flächen gegeneinander, wie artikuliert sich das System der Werbeflächen? Die Arbeit, die während des dreitagigen Workshops durchgeführt wird, wird einen instinktiven und augenblicklichen Charakter haben, durch den der Impakt mit der Wahrnehmungslandschaft der Stadt Bozen in direkter Weise beschrieben werden kann.

Site visit 6
28.06 – 01.07.05
Ma0 – Roma

Public space is quintessentially the place for disorder and the unexpected; for amplification and infraction of rules; an open field of forces, conflictual and unstable space; urban display that highlights changes in social conditions and the mixing of cultures; a playground where new practices of appropriation, sharing and privatisation are triggered, from tai chi lessons in the morning, to Slavic Sunday picnics, from the evolution of skateboarders, to the writers collective, from ethnic markets, to illegal drugstores etc. Through these phenomena of appropriation of public space, it is possible to monitor the degree of vitality and growth of an urban ecosystem, its ability to react dynamically, and to assimilate spatial and social boundaries that constitute the physical, cultural, and economic environment. An unorthodox mode of political participation (in the sense of the polis or city-state) and free interaction with the complexity of the urban system and the rules which they intend to monitor and govern the territory. The ma0 site visit aims to document the spontaneous and improper uses of public space, to reveal their forms, investigate their origins and authorship, understand their relationship with the city and its inhabitants and – why not ? – suggest something new for them. The project is a public event in its collection of information, production of ideas, the way it puts into play experiences, and takes place alongside those who use and inhabits these spaces at the time of the site visit. During a first phase of collection, information and reporting on the “misuses” of territory in Bolzano will be followed by the exploration and subsequent discussion of the material collected. The presentation evening at Lungomare is designed as a public meeting/lecture on the theme addressed of the territorial misuses in Bolzano and of its urban playgrounds.

Site visit 7
12.07 – 15.07.05
Peanutz Architekten – Berlin

Armed with tables, chairs, paper and pencil BozenComixTeams start by positioning themselves in strategic places around the city of Bolzano. Their mission: Collect stories from the inhabitants and document them through BozenComix supercool. The Bozencomix products will be displayed on the site itself (system of exhibiting, clothes line and pegs). Passersby are thus tempted to document their own stories in the form of BozenComix. The exhibition of BozenComix acts as a stimulus to exchange stories lived in the city, of favourite spaces and places, of unloved areas and other aspects of the subjective perception of the city. The character of the BozenComix event awakens curiosity and stimulates interaction. The BozenComix document points of view that are extremely personal and information difficult to represent with statistical tools. The stories are not only recorded, but also interpreted through the drawings by members of the BozenComixTeams.

Peanutz Architekten: Program (in Italian)

Concept: Osservatorio urbano #1 (short version, in German)
Concept: Osservatorio urbano #1 (detailed version, in German)
Conclusio: Osservatorio urbano #1 (in German)

Autonomous Province of Bozen/Bolzano-South Tyrol, Culture Departments
Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio
Autonomous Region of Trentino-Alto Adige
City of Bolzano, Culture Department

Supporter 2005:
Clipart, EOS-Solutions for Business, Finstral, Heinrich Gasser, Parkhotel Laurin, Höller-vollendet Räume, mc11- Management Consultants, Tecnomag