My own private utopia
Thomas More’s 1516 book Utopia envisioned a place where
realism and surrealism could coexist, a “nonplace” where creative
thought reigned. How could he have had any idea that 500 years later the
figurehead of the modern version of utopia would be a mouse? In 1995
Disney’s plan to build a real-life working town called Celebration, a
skewed suburban vacuum of perfect lawns and three-stall garages aiming
to marry the sterile wholesomeness of the 1950s with the wonders of 21st-century
technology, seemed almost unattainable. Today Celebration really does
exist, with real live citizens. It’s just a hop, skip and jump in the
SUV from Disney World.
Utopia Now!, the California College of Arts and Crafts current
Oakland exhibition, foregoes ideas of utopia based on bizarre Truman
Show-esque neighborhoods and the futuristic pointlessness of “a robot
will do my dishes” by merging art with urban planning, science, and
practicality to create accessible, applicable, and relevant ideas that
can be implemented now. Much of its projects’ success derives
from ideas of collective thought and collaborations with artists and
specific communities — small-scale projects capable of being implemented
by many people and many groups.
The idea of utopia must first confront and resolve problems of
habitable space and domestic life. But what if your habitat is the
street and your bedroom is a stairwell? Michael Rakowitz’s paraSITE,
one of the simplest and most innovative projects in the show, is part of
a collection of inflatable shelters for the homeless. Created out of
plastic trash bags, Ziploc sandwich bags, packing tape, and plastic hose
— estimated cost, $5 — the shelters are attached to HVAC (heating,
ventilating, and air-conditioning) system outtake ducts on building
exteriors, creating a habitable micro-climate that can endure the cold
winter nights of even the Northeast. Rakowitz has worked with the
homeless in Boston, New York, and Cambridge to create shelters that
dodge the anti-camping laws specific to each city, fabricating one
shelter similar to a cocoon-shaped sleeping bag, which did not violate
the law prohibiting domed or triangular structures that rise more than
3½ feet above the ground. The shelter on display at CCAC is more
tent-like than anything else and looks like an inflatable spaceship or a
soft jungle gym. One of Rakowitz’s homeless collaborators actually used
it for three years.
Like the paraSITE projects, creating a utopic ideal initially relies
on subversive compliance, or finding and exploiting loopholes in the
system for public good. That is Spanish artist and architect Santiago
Cirugeda’s specialty, illustrated by his architectural game entitled
Dumpster. When Cirugeda discovered that a dumpster could be left on
public space for an indeterminate amount of time, ideas of mini-parks,
reading rooms, and compact flamenco joints danced in his head. Complete
with a step-by-step guide on how to get the necessary permits and an
outline of the regulations surrounding the project, Cirugeda’s
self-proclaimed new “urban reserve” encourages and almost relies upon
the participation and execution of Dumpster by others, thereby
creating a network of oases throughout the city. Mini-utopias.
The Dutch collective Crimson is an actual urban planning group
comprised of artists. Their project entitled WiMBY! (code name for
“Welcome into My Backyard!”) is the anti-NIMBY — the “Not in My
Backyard” phenomenon of urban areas that Crimson calls “one of the
biggest obstacles for contemporary and urban planning and urbanism
today.” Commissioned by the Rotterdam Department of Planning and Housing
in 1996, the project involves the complete renovation of the satellite
town Hoogvliet. Originally a poster-child city for post–World War II
urban planning, Hoogvlie slowly shrank into an economically depraved
urban wasteland. An important aspect of Crimson’s design philosophy is
the use of what is already present. No matter how ugly your apartment
building is, it’s still your home. So the idea was “instead of
demolishing the modernist fifties walk-up flats … you go for their empty
facades. You rip away the mask of modern abstraction and boredom and
find a hidden world of an intense diversity in the living rooms …
bathrooms and ballrooms of the people.” WiMBY! reflects the real-time
transition to the better that is so often forgotten in the search for
the utopic prize.
Several of the works in the exhibition interpret the idea of utopia
in concept; most are probably not attainable. Vito Acconci/Acconci
Studio’s A City That Rides the Garbage Dump illustrates a plan
that uses large bowl-like structures to house individual buildings,
green spaces, or water (including swimming pools and fish farms) that
float upon methane gas released into the air. San Francisco artist Amy
Franceschini’s Mongkok features a video about a mobile market,
where owners fold their shops into compact box-like structures capable
of being carted away and stored in a relatively small space — similar to
the guy selling cheese logs from a kiosk in the middle of Stonestown
Mall. This mirrors Franceschini’s desire for each person to be
completely self-sustained, inspiring the creation several backpacks that
are part of Mongkok, which symbolically carry whatever one needs.
Both works focus on the idea that sustainability is the means to achieve
a utopic end.
In this world of billions of opinions, we will obviously never agree
on a congruent definition of utopia. Some expected that Celebration,
Florida would be one, but the residents experienced their first murder
last year. Utopia Now! stresses the idea that utopia is valuable
as a fluid, transcendental theory. It’s application that needs to
be continuously reinterpreted in order for its basic principles to
remain paramount and relevant, thus avoiding the fate of idealistic
theories strangled by their own commandments. Create your own utopia.
Sarah Lidgus (sarahlidgus@hotmail.com)
