FOCAR

Projects

Webmaster — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 15:00:15 +0000

“The idea of starting a group arisen from our strong will to express and share around an artistic gesture in the Urban and Rural space. Our projects are designed and structured around the identity of the individual chased by the consumerism and society, bringing in the spotlight the principles that keep this society going.”

focAR group (Alina Tudor and Razvan Neagoe)

Je passe / J’habite /Je vis

Starting from the idea that every place is defined by the people who live there, we are now faced with a mixture of nationalities and races which is helped by the tourism to increase its diversity. So that man become beset by men. From the outside. Coming and leaving. Flurry, order and disorder.

Then architecture–city and urban–city too.

Pleasant and civilised congeries of very new and very old. Two notions wich can paradoxically survive and help each other beeing juxtaposed. They highlight each other.

The project’s intention is to reflect inside the outside space as it really looks for the people who visit or live in it. We wanted to understand and watch the City of Lyon from two different points of view, through the inhabitants’ eyes and the tourists’ eyes.
We considered the two different perspectives and mixed them in an art installation.
Living in Lyon we understood there were two worlds coexisting. The inhabitants interfere less with the tourists but from inhabitants’ point of view the tourism means crowd and it can be annoying sometimes.
Using the separation of these worlds as a main idea of the project, the installation is made of four parts:

• THE RECTANGLE: the rectangle is very used in Lyon’s architecture so that we decided to describe it inside the container. It is designed as a rectangle in perspective and it is an expression of the inhabitants and their homes. The rectangle contains a projection on the wall and the floor of the container made by the names of the inhabitants of Lyon.
In the middle of these names there is a watering can as a resonance with the green space of Lyon which needs to be larger. Generally speaking, the watering can is a symbol for growing and looking after; so that we want to keep this idea for the project: the growing and improving green space, the growing and improving living space.

• THE TOURISTIC LAB: tourism can be very annoying for the inhabitants but it represents a very actual side of the city. This lab is made of different things that remind of tourism: kitsch souvenirs, remains of drinks or food (collected from famous places) and pieces of the touristic space (water from Rhone or Saone, sand, leaves, earth etc)
The installation is about the common things you can see and use every day, things that in the tourism terms become different, unusual, souvenirs or piece of landscape.

• THE INHABITANTS LAB: this lab is a representation of the other side of the city, it’s about the inhabitants thoughts and opinions. It is presented as a video projected on the front wall of the container.
It is focused around the inhabitants of the 7th district points of view as a particular case of the city. We chose this area for the film because this is the place where we worked during the art residency and we could observe it more than any other inhabitants’ areas.
Last but not least, the 7th district is not touched yet by tourism; it is still multicoloured and owns a strong personality. Lived by different races and types of people we found it unique and we think it’s a place that should be kept without being majorly changed in terms of multiculturalism.
From this point of view the video is a reflection of the district inside the container. People were invited to answer a few questions about the city, the area and about the tourism as well. Their answers compose an interesting lab of opinions.

• THE VISITORS: the fourth piece of installation is made by the visitors themselves. Our artwork is completed only when the container is visited by 1 or 2 persons.
The 12 square metres surface of the container is the surface corresponding for 1.6 persons in Lyon. The number is obtained dividing the Lyon surface on the number of people founding here (tourists and inhabitants).
Entering the container people can see a real image of the space they belong/use/take.

more details here
Roger Tator gallery, 1 quai Claude Bernard, Lyon, 69007

‘Steps to Identity’ project in the 2010 Biennial Illumini

London is well known for the busy life going underneath it – whether it’s the underground, tunnels, passages or any other place located under the city itself. The Tube is the transportation option chosen by most of the inhabitants of this city, due to the well-known agglomeration above ground, so we can in fact talk about an entire underground development of the city due to this. Difficult to build from a technical perspective, underground London is actually just as accessible as above ground London. Due to this development, underground London has developed its own identify, due to a whole series of elements that define it, the key word here being “diversity”.
The Greenwich passage is a link part of this chain of underground development, an actual tourist spot while also being an access path used very often – yet maintaining a spectacular architecture.
A large number of pedestrians use this pass daily, from different social categories, age groups and ethnic groups.
Thus, the Greenwich passage reveals itself as an corridor animated by the human crowds, a hallway loaded with different silhouettes, some in a hurry, some relaxed, but all and each one of them adding to the identity imprint of this place with every step laid here.

more details here

installation art project

exhibition image

MOnuMENTS (june 2010)

more details: here

MOnuMENTS Documentation

Monument of Independence Independence Square, Iasi, Romania

Monument of Victory Park of Constantza Town Hall, Constantza county, Romania

“THE COUNTRY ELAN” MONUMENT Walter Maracineanu Square, near Cismigiu Garden, Bucharest, Romania

The Travellers Box Project, in addition to MOnuMENTS project (March-April 2010)

In between 14 March – 25 April 2010 focAR group will set off together with “The Travelers Box” Project.
focAR group’s action is part of The Travelers Box Project. The event will take place in the very heart of London.
Transferring the project (MOnuMENTS) in London may bring a new direction to the project. It is now possible to suggest a comparison – the observation of the monuments from the two capitals. The interest points of the research are the concept, the urbanism, the artist, the techniques and the general partner, (the state) as well. Being a visual expression of a public attitude, the monuments history has always developed between the two extremes – the pious acceptance, while evoking a glorious past and disproof.
more details: here

The Travellers Box Project, in addition to MOnuMENTS project (March?April 2010)

On 15th of April focAr group set off together with Travellers Box for the second time. The event took place in the very heart of London and consisted in a performance?journey. The action documented monuments located on the National Gallery – House of Parliament route. These monuments commemorate the heroes from wars or representative personalities for British space. The two members of the group placed a flower bouquet at each monument and held a silent moment in the heroes’ memory.

performance (15 April 2010)

On 10th of April performance in West Ham – “We are the champions” statue (sculptor Philip Jackson ? At the junction of Barking Road and Central Park Road Showing Bobby Moore, holding the Cup, with Geoff Hurst, Martin Peters and Ray Wilson. This shows the four celebrating after England won the World Cup in 1966. The artist has depicted these soccer heroes as being larger than life). The action consisted in the placement of a flower bouquet at the monument and in holding a meditation moment about “heroes” condition.

performance (10 April 2010) West Ham

We keep a “diary” of The Box using photos. As long as we host the Box, we are going to take a photo of The Box daily, trying to notice the evolution of the project. Every day will add something new inside or around The Box.

"Diary" The Travellers Box Project (march-april 2010)

Political Decision (started in April 2010)

“Politics is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally applied to behavior within civil governments, but politics has been observed in other group interactions, including corporate, academic, and religious institutions. It consists of “social relations involving authority or power” and refers to the regulation of a political unit, and to the methods and tactics used to formulate and apply policy.”(Wikipedia)
Political Decision is a signal?project, a social one meaning to draw the citizen’s attention on his identity. This concept was developed in a form of work?in?progress activities each activity in it making each time the project even more complex and complete. Therefore it is under a continuous change gathering “traces” with each presentation.

political decision

Red Spot (2008)

RED SPOT is a finger pointing to several problems in the city: buildings, streets, neighbourhoods, in a Bucharest that was little Paris sometimes, now is a city buried under cars, dust, resentments (is it a young European city?), a cultural capital in the future or a chaotic commercial, consumerism city?

Project RED SPOT has proposed to point out to those places which are abandoned. The city centre is such area, and it is forgotten for too long. There are lots of streets fading away in front our eyes meanwhile with listed buildings even, which are very numerous and enhance scruffy and gray atmosphere of Bucharest.

In 2008, the Red Spot project was part of the Programme of public art I love Bucharest, part of the European Year for Intercultural Dialogue, which was supported by ProHelvetia through United Experts. It is an art gesture constructed as a signal-project, a project meant to warn the people of Bucharest –inhabitants and authorities, individuals and private companies – and it had as objectives: a building, a street or a monument.

more details: here

Red Spot

MOnuMENTS project (started in 2007, ongoing)

“MOnuMENTS” is an artistic project, which proposes a cultural and social reflection; aiming at a dialogue between rural and urban spaces, between different mentalities, between past and present. “MOnuMENTS” is a natural, organic response from the artists to all these mutations and reconfigurations of the present time. The immediate result is the documentation of the diversity as a mixture between the urban and rural development, between cultural gestures and collective and individual gestures. The mission of the project is a “work in progress” nature, which means ongoing working possibilities, means associations, changes and social dynamics. We are dealing with cultural gestures as well as individual or collective gestures, in between different representations but using similar techniques. “MOnuMENTS” presents the reality through the enticement of gesture, cultural and imagistic quotes which get filter and interpreted, and the balance in between metaphorical and abstract. Monuments have always had a dual character: on one hand they commemorated history, and on the other hand they have been contested by many social groups which opposed certain ideological tendencies. The studying of monuments is a necessary study everywhere, as they offer many dates that are carved in stone regarding various ideologies and historical moments. Our research started in 2007, but the project officially opened in 2009, when we made a performance aiming to attract the attention of forgotten monuments or the ones in a state of visible decay. This happened on the route from Constantza to Bucharest when we had the opportunity to notice the differences between urban and rural exhibited monuments.

more details: here

Bacau (Romania)

London

Lyon (France)

Memory of the Golden Age (started in 2009, ongoing)

It is a project having a documentary, history, artistic, cultural and social structure, touching on the economics, as well.

more details: here

mixed media

Romania

fabrica in drum spre bicaz 2008

Agenda (performances) (started in 2009, ongoing)

May First celebrations are held everywhere in the world for well over a century now and the diverse significance attached to this date tend to somehow blur on the canvas of a multitude of causes that people congregate around recently.

The origins of these celebrations are easily lost in an immemorial past. Whether it was the night of the Walpurgis in the german countries or the celtic festivals of Beltane (the ancient celtic word for „May”) or countless other popular celebration rites from different areas of Europe, May First was a major pagan celebration. These traditions were recovered by Christianity and integrated in the symbolic patrimony which is visible even nowadays.

May First celebrations in the modern times are inherently connected with the emancipation of the workers and unions forces at the end of the XIX-th century, namely the union street protests from United States and Europe for the „eight hour day” (that success is widely considered as the first step in the emancipation of the proletarian conscience). May First was universally declared the International Workers’ Day at the beginning of XX-th century, being celebrated today in over 100 countries all over the world.

May First is one of the most important days in a year when a plurality of ideological, political, ecological, etc. discourses are signaled through major street demonstrations in cities around the world: different socialist, communist, anarchist groups demonstrate on May First, remembering the predecessor’s fight while signaling pressing contemporary social issues. Many of these demonstrations have in common the impugnment of the capitalist system.

The worker, the man who is working is the central figure of this day. The long story of May First celebrations is marked by the evolution from a pagan celebration of spring and nature to the dynamic, protesting affirmation of the working man’s identity – a long evolution which underlines the dichotomy between the ancient and mythical celebration of the nature’s forces / modern celebration of human forces. The method of celebration remained common – dynamic, sometimes violent, anarchical.

more details: here

performance

Vadu - performance

Ion Corvin forest - performance

216 project (2008)

216 is a personal project of a documentary, artistic, cultural and social structure. 216 represent the number of pregnancy days – from the moment one finds out the great news until the actual birth; and 2008 is obviously the year these days have been spent in.
216 is a photo and video project, which allows us to rediscover ourselves as individuals, through the art of drawing. We have attempted to change the relationship with the everyday, the commonplace, and the usual. The belly has become a social place where we question the urban and rural identity through the lens of a new experience, the experience of preparing for a new life, which in turn triggers a new attitude. We express our thoughts, confusions and feelings encountered during this period regarding the society, the politics, the natural disasters, the global warming, the start of the financial meltdown worldwide, the current situation of art in today’s society, the supermarket, the shopping mall, with the tarmac, the concrete, the grass, the tree, the park, the boulevard, the streets and so on. This way we have auto?invited ourselves to getting involved, to make a stand, to have an attitude, to make a social and cultural gesture in the same time.

216 project

stART Dambovita and Red Spot (2007-2008)

In 2008, the Red Spot project was part of the Programme of public art I love Bucharest, part of the European Year for Intercultural Dialogue, which was supported by ProHelvetia through United Experts. It is an art gesture constructed as a signal?project, a project meant to warn the people of Bucharest –inhabitants and authorities, individuals and private companies – and it had as objectives: a building, a street or a monument.

more details: here

stART Dambovita

Phone Box (2008)

The call box continues the series of non?conventional spaces of Urban Traces, the phone becoming an exponent of the urban society. It is a part of our life helping us to make connections and keep in touch with everyone. In every apartment there is a stable phone every individual has one or two mobile phones, in every boulevard or street there is a call box. The phone means movement and expresses the identity of individual who talks on it. The stable phone used to be a communication means more rapid and it means the identity of the older generation.
The offers of the mobile phones companies are at competition and for the new generations the phone represents more than a means of communication. For them the mobile phone is a way of living. Its brand, colour the gesture with which one answers the mobile, the call bell shows the identity of the individual who possesses it. On the other hand the call box is assaulted. It has become a social place. It is physically assaulted by the urban society. The windows of the call box are usually broken. And yet there are extreme situations when individuals need this call box and make phone calls. People pass indifferently by it. No one sees it no one asks any questions about it. It is sometimes used as a shelter against rain. We bring into discussion the urban and rural identity through the call box. We will express our thoughts confusion and feelings in relation with the society with the concrete, the grass, the tree, the park, the boulevard, the street. In this way the individual is invited to participate, to look for a position, an attitude so that he may launch a social gesture.

more details: here

EXIST

Phone Box

Urban Traces (2007-2008)

UT is a signal?project, a social one, meaning to draw the citizen’s attention on his identity. This concept was developed in a form of work?in?progress activities each activity in it making each time the project even more complex and complete. Therefore it is under a continuous change and modification gathering “traces” with each presentation.
The main idea of the project is “Identity” – the artist’s identity, the individual’s identity, the nation’s identity! Identity – not national, not ethnical, not sexual or religious, not communitarian or zonal or any other kind but an urban identity, an identity created by the urban society which defines us, given by the coloured monochrome of every day and every night of the cities where we are born, grow live and work, a borrowed identity, non?personal impersonal. An identity, unidentified, imprinted with every detail of the urban life starting with block district, shop, super?market mall and ending with the politics and culture of the city, its specific means of behavior and communication.
Urban Traces is a project mainly in black?and?white decomposing the dirty grey of the city and painting the traces we do not perceive as they are proper to us for the very simple reason that they penetrate us and mould us.
The exhibition spaces for the project were both from conventional and non?conventional field trying to cover as many representative elements of the city as possible. Each exhibition had its subject subordinate to the main idea of the project with a view to gather more and more information about what a city means, art in the city, or perception of the urban space.

more details: here

Urban Traces

High up there, there’s a house (2007)

True Story: “In this project a house, a block, a street, a district and city along with two boys and two girls were involved. We had a chapter, a part about vacuum, a part about the history of a house in a block. In this street demolition came first and then the famous blocks?of?flats were raised. The years have passed and these blocks have become history, a history of today’s society. Over the coming years they will be demolished and replaced by new residences. In this very block of flats contrasts, disillusionment, joy have lived and the concrete walls make part of them. The cold concrete has become a part of the people who live inside.
Every individual has its life, its identity. The hosts who put at our disposal their apartment came to the conclusion that the cold concrete may become warm every time they get home, late at night. The concrete is for them like a human being suffering every time they are away for too long and is happy when they smoke inside. We experienced this sensation too: that of a guest welcome by the human concrete and we were impressed by its quality – becoming warm when the inside is populated. The same way we got to meet the human?concrete – the apartment. So we let everyone know that the hosts will be involved in the project called Urban Traces. The human?concrete thrills with joy. It has meant to become a star. So we started the job. Brushes, canvas, a camera and much black and white. “She” wanted to be involved in decoration but the hosts objected to it. “She” is the star and we are going to show it the way it is. Empty like vacuum. Without its masters. As they work all the day to bring her gifts in those six hours of staying together at night. Some days passed and the big day arrived. Guests, discussion and conveniences. But our heroine stayed alone. The access to it was permitted for a single person. With invitation. Stupor! First person to enter said “Only this?”. The human?concrete herd and got angry because it was only it itself as it is every day?empty. A film was on TV for the human?concrete not to forget about its masters… it happened that the masters were written with some sound words of the urban space. After a few minutes people became accustomed with the human?concrete and the human?concrete with them. She was more welcoming, but as empty as it was before and the discussion in the corridor grew stronger. It suffered with every leaving of a visitor. So at night there remained only the two guests involved in this project and the hosts. It become again that human accustomed with the monotony of every day. The moment to enjoy together came but it was too late. Everybody had to go to bed. “

more details: here

Upstairs, in the building flat there is a home

Performance

Webmaster — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 18:19:55 +0000

MOnuMENTS project in conjuction with The Travellers Box project

Curators Lars Vilhelmsen, Karen Ay, London UK (go to MOnuMENTS in conjuction with the travellers box )

On 15^th of April focAr group set off together with Travellers Box for the second time. The event took place in the very heart of London and consisted in a performance-journey. The action documented monuments located on the National Gallery – House of Parliament route. These monuments commemorate the heroes from wars or representative personalities for British space. The two members of the group placed a flower bouquet at each monument and held a silent moment in the heroes’ memory.

more details: here

View MOnuMENTS project in conjunction with The Travellers Box Project, Curators Lars Vilhelmsen, Karen Ay, London UK in a larger map

MOnuMENTS project in conjuction with The Travellers Box project

MOnuMENTS project

“MOnuMENTS” is a natural, organic response from the artists to all these mutations and reconfigurations of the present time. The immediate result is the documentation of the diversity as a mixture between the urban and rural development, between cultural gestures and collective and individual gestures.

The mission of the project is a “work in progress” nature, which means ongoing working possibilities, means associations, changes and social dynamics. We are dealing with cultural gestures as well as individual or collective gestures, in between different representations but using similar techniques. “MOnuMENTS” presents the reality through the enticement of gesture, cultural and imagistic quotes which get filter and interpreted, and the balance in between metaphorical and abstract.

more details: here

View MOnuMENTS project by focAR group - Romania in a larger map

MOnuMENTS project

Red Spot

more details: here

Red Spot (2008)

Red Spot

Agenda – project

more details: here

Agenda project

Agenda

Urban Traces

The project “Urban Traces” was born from the same urban environment – in cities like Bucharest, Iasi, Cluj, it has been focused on subjects such as the urban and noise pollution and as a final point, global warming. This project was started one year ago and it has populated since conventional spaces (art galleries, museums) as well as some unconventional ones (apartment, phone box, the underground, shops).

more details: here

Urban Traces (2007)

ASEZareaTRECereaCERCul

Opposed to the urban projects, the project ASEZareaTRECereaCERCul was created, which helped us pinpoint another type of identity – a lost identity which speaks about the returning of the urban individual to nature. During the same HUMAn international symposium we had an installation-act in the Cucuteni village called VERDE. This was a “question” asked to the inhabitants of the village, regarding the global warming effect towards the Urban and the Rural.

more details: here

TRECereaASEZareaCERCul project

RED SPOT (NAG#2)

more details: here

The white night of galleries (2008)

Curier project

Proiect pilot realizat in cadrul evenimentului Street Delivery, Bucuresti, 2007

Un oras fara oameni este doar peisaj.Devreme ce nivelul de urbanizare al orasului Bucuresti este in indiscutabila crestere, ramane ca gradul de umanizare sa-l ridice pe scara valorilor umane..Ma apropie si ma desparte , in egala masura, de celalalt – anonimul , un oras Bucuresti. De cele mai multe ori, acest celalat ramane suspendat in paginile care se rescriu in fiecare an in cartea de telefoane.In aceste circumstante propun un exercitiu de comunicare libera intr-un mod traditional, prin scrisori. Este chiar mai mult decat atat – este un gest de curaj stiind ca, desi nu scriem, in modul acesta, prea des – , am senzatia ca orice om ce participa se asemana cu un atlas care poarta in spate privirea universului. Este o metoda mai putin conventionala de o incepe un dialog – anonimatul celui care scrie este caracteristica libertatii de expresie, conditia fiind insa ca asocierea libera pe marginea subiectului discutat – orasul Bucuresti , sa insemne responsabilitatea de fapt pe care o avem fata de celalat, anonim catre anonim.Proiectul acesta este un proiect de arta publica , aparut in cadrul evenimentului Traseul Cultural str. Verona, eveniment de cultura urbana / Street Delivery, 1-3 iunie 2007 cand strada a fost inchisa pentru masini si deschisa pentru oameni si este dezvoltat cu sprijinul artistilor din programul I Love Bucharest.Corespondenta va fi facuta cu ajutorul Galeriei Grigore Mora, a carei adresa este Str. Grigore Mora, nr.39, Bucuresti.(proiect realizat impreuna cu arh. Adriana Mereuta)

more details: here

Curier project (2007)

EXIST (Phone BOX project 2008)

The windows of the call box are usually broken. And yet there are extreme situations when individuals need this call box and make phone calls. People pass indifferently by it. No one sees it no one asks any questions about it. It is sometimes used as a shelter against rain.
We bring into discussion the urban and rural identity through the call box. We will express our thoughts confusion and feelings in relation with the society with the concrete, the grass, the tree, the park, the boulevard, the street. In this way the individual is invited to participate, to look for a position, an attitude so that he may launch a social gesture.

more details: here

EXIST (2008)

Protest – Galateea Gallery (2007)

The Travellers Box Project, in addition to MOnuMENTS project

Exhibitions and art installations

Webmaster — Sat, 29 May 2010 13:03:11 +0000

Project title: Je passe / J’habite /Je vis en résonance avec la Biennale d’Art Contemporain de Lyon

Schedule:
Authors of the project: focAR group(Alina Tudor and Razvan Neagoe)
Artists in residence: 16th august – 16th september 2011
Exhibition: 17th september – 16th october 2011
Du lundi au vendredi, de 14 h à 19 h
Ouvertures exceptionnelles le samedi 17/09,
de 12h à 22h et le dimanche 18/09, de 11h à 19h

Project context: City Switch
Producer: Roger Tator Galery, France
Organizers: Modernism.ro, Romania, Roger Tator Galery, France
Partners: Romanian Cultural Insitute Paris, France

pe modernism down and here again

Political Decision

A part of our project Political Decision(the film) was included in 23rd Festival Les Instants Vidéo.

poster

‘Steps to Identity’ project in the 2010 Biennial Illumini

more details here

exhibition image

MOnuMENTS, UNA Gallery (2010)

MOnuMENTS project starts from the necessity of a reflexion on the deficitary relationship we have with history and recent memory, following a representative piece for the relationship between the political discourse and urban weaving. Developing like a long-term project, MOnuMENTS maps the country following zones: Dobrudja, Banat, Wallachia, Oltenia, Moldavia, Transylvania, Maramures – gathering documentary evidence and archiving monuments of all types on all country territory.

MOnuMENTS represents an indication of the way in which we see our own history and ourselves as people. An indication of ideological values belonging to a certain historic period to which we have referred. An indication of art and politics. Avatars they have undergone throughout the time are a good barometer of political and social changes that have occurred in the space they populate.

Documentation started in 2007, the first event occurred in 2009 on Constantza – Bucharest route and consisted in flowers laid in each monument and marking their regret by standing silently for a minute. The immediate purpose was to draw attention to those monuments forgotten or being in visible degradation.

more details: here

MOnuMENTS project (UNA Gallery 2010)

RED SPOT - Museum of Romanian Peasant, Bucharest, Romania (2008)

more details: here

RED SPOT- Museum of Romanian Peasant (2008)

“U.T.–Global Warming”, MORA gallery, Bucharest, Romania (2008)

In January 2008 Urban Traces reached the age of one year and we wanted to show the public the project as it is now; a grey city, over polluted, trapped in the problems of habitation and urban aesthetic inherited from the Communist years and the actual consumer. Bucharest got a more intense traffic and more concrete. We discovered that we are the top of the most polluted capitals in Europe.

Exhibition that ends the project makes no exception, thermal assault on visitors simulates the process of global warming and it is a way of getting the visitor involved asking for reaction. We excessively heated the gallery so that everyone got a discomfort but not all the visitors understood the real motive for it.

The exhibition consumes old stages including them or reusing them. The urban map on cloth given to visitors at the entrance is wrapped in plastic. Plastic everywhere; wrapping the walls of the gallery and any object inside is the symbol of consuming, a hint at ubiquitous values of the product taken instead of the cultural value and of course a hint at pollution.

more details: here

U.T.–Global Warming, MORA gallery (2008)

Phone Box, HUMAn program (2008)

We bring into discussion the urban and rural identity through the call box. We will express our thoughts confusion and feelings in relation with the society with the concrete, the grass, the tree, the park, the boulevard, the street. In this way the individual is invited to participate, to look for a position, an attitude so that he may launch a social gesture.

more details: here

Phone Box , HUMAn program (2008)

“U.T.44, 26”, Galateea gallery, (2007)

The following text was the reason for the exhibition at Galateea Gallery in Bucharest:

“The sound represents a vibration of particles of a medium, capable to produce an auditory sensation. The sound propagates under the form of elastic waves only through substances (air, liquid or solids) and cannot be propagated through vacuum. In the air the propagation speed is 340 m/s.

The noise is a disorderly superposition of more sounds. It is produced from natural sources but especially from those anthropic one: equipment, means of transport, machines, people. Sound pollution produces stress, fatigue, diminishing and losing the auditory capacity, psychical instability, fissure of buildings, breaking windows. The noise acts on the whole body because the auditory sensation gets to the central nervous system through which it influences on other organs. The effects perceived by man are: attention is reduced along with working capacity and as a result the risk of accidents grows; installation of the auditory tiredness which can disappear along with the noise disappearance; trauma as a result of the exposion to intense noise for a short time. These traumas can be giddiness, pains lesion of the auditory system and even breaking of this system; – losing weight, irritability,sleeping disorder, deficiency in recognizing colours especially of the red colour, deafness in case of high frequency sounds. The effects depend on the person nature, on complexity, on nature and noise intensity.” The source: Lectures in digital format (http://www.ase.ro/biblioteca/carte2.asp?id=59&idb=).

We had enough with the city noise … and we took it into our gallery. This natural unbearable reaction appeared out of a frustration feeling. We cannot but look at this performance of the Urban.

more details: here

U.T.44, 26, Galateea gallery (2007)

Urban Traces.Urban Pollution, OLD Gallery (2007)

In 2007 in Cluj-Napoca, in the Old Gallery we had a minimal presentation of our project raising for discussion Urban Pollution. We would have liked to show that stencils can get another load if we use them in another drawing. In these cases it was only about cars as they are one of those branches producing fumes.

In the next paragraph was the theme of this exhibition: “A drastic change of the climate is expected if the carbon concentration in atmosphere gets to 550 ppm, which will cause an increase of the temperature with approximately 0,03°C” – The Intergovernmental committee UN for the change of the Climate.

We had a nice feedback and we achieved our object. At the beginning the guests were shocked both seeing and hearing and then after ten minutes they got accustomed to the noise they ignored the effects of the noise. We showed in this, way how much assaulted we are but we are not awave of it.

We tried to show the negative influence of pollution through sewage, canals through waters carrying organic waste, with pathogenic bacterium, fumes.

more details: here

Urban Traces.Urban Pollution, OLD Gallery (2007)

Urban Traces, Cupola gallery (2007)

The second halt of the conventional space was in Iasi where, besides the above-mentioned presentation, we gave the sound track directly in the street to be heard making a bridge between the starting point and the host-city. The tune was purposely meant to remind the old radio emissions – a subtle memory of “the Golden Age/Epoch”, a pendant for the blocks of flats, the heritage left to us by the Golden Age.

more details: here

Urban Traces, Cupola gallery (2007)

Urban Traces - Iasi

Urban Traces, Cupola gallery (2007)

Urban Traces, MORA Gallery (2007)

The starting point of the Project Urban Traces was at Grigore Mora Gallery in Bucharest.

Using for presentation multimedia installation we tried to ask questions about actual burning issues like integration, globalization, localization minorities and the way they are perceived by the citizens of Bucharest. We are interested in what defines us nowadays in a world of simulacra more real than reality, in which advertisement assaults us at every corner of the street options are ready made for us and identity is the definition of a service provided by advertising agencies.

The true statements, the shirts we exhibit are nor black, nor green but inscripted with all the defects of the today’s society which we take upon ourselves. The dirty grey of Bucharest was filtered decomposed in white and black has become a sign, a writing with which we rewrite the history on own skin and the way we perceive it today. The writing has become an image but it still has an obvious critical load in the state of an explicit inscription. The movie, the central piece of the exhibition is our means through which we want to assault the sense of touch, the hearing and the seeing.

Another obvious contrast is that between the image and the sound track, opposing presences which points out two terms: interiority and exteriority, white and black, interior silence and the noise of the street, diversity and uniformity. Urban noise, sound and imagistic background, which accompanies our lives, has as a result desensitization of the city man. And losing sensitiveness is a phenomenon of high irreversibility. In reply there are the images on the gallery’s walls, film stills which become ready-mode to be sent back as the street feed-back which caused them. Traces are a record and a photo of an identity in the urban space, with everything that involves, with the definition of a false understanding subjected to taboos: on thinking and behaving. (Cristiana Radu)

more details: here

Urban Traces, Mora gallery (2007)

Project Proposals

Webmaster — Fri, 28 May 2010 11:50:38 +0000

Romanian tourist map before and after 1989 (2010)

map before '89

map after '89

Red History (2008)

Our proposal is to illuminate targets with built during the communist red spots.

the houses of parliament

Carol Park Mausoleum

Monument of Victory Park of Constantza Town Hall, Constantza county, Romania

Volume Control (2007)

soon in English

Spatiul public este un spatiu al diferentelor si al tensiunilor . Este in aceeasi masura spatiul articulatiei ca forma prin care acestea pot fi conectate in cadrul sistemului urban.
Experienta cotidiana este marcata in mod constant de poluare . De aceasta data este vorba despre poluarea sonora, virtual progresiva, la care suntem supusi odata ce depasim limita locuintei.
Experienta spatiului public este depasita de relatia de complicitate care se stabileste in mod sustinut intre individ si suprafata constanta de trafic.
Avem de o parte Bucurestiul care se zbate in a castiga distante, densitate , benzi de trafic, limite de viteza, iar de cealalta parte un proiect de arta publica – Volume Control ce propune o reconstructie sonora a experientei individuale si/sau colective .
In mod selectiv cei doi artisti se opresc asupra unor zone ale orasului, testand tensiunea dintre om si masina.
Palniile fonoabsorbante vor provoca sunetul normalitatii, cotidianului, recastigand limita umana a limbajului si a proximitatii. Dincolo de natura sa efemera, sunetul devenit limbaj artistic genereaza atmosfera si spatiu/spatialitate.

volume control

Passage (2007)

togheter with arh. Adriana Mereuta

soon in English

Pentru un oras – Bucurestiul in cauza, echilibrul nu se afla numai in dorinte ci si in gesturi.Unul din aspectele neglijate substantial din punct de vedere cultural si exploatat unidirectional din punct de vedere social ale coregrafiei spatiale care inseamna un oras, este diferenta dintre viata de zi si cea de noapte. Este ca si cum am rupe cu mainile o foaie de hartie, uitand ca , de fapt, ne raman 2 parti ale aceluiasi intreg. Toate acestea in raport cu o alta experienta exploziva urbana – masina.

Daca nu mai vorbim , cel putin, despre o casa in lipsa unei masini, putem totusi spera ca experienta unui muzeu depaseste acest determinism., cel putin din doua motive. Primul este dictat de o nevoie umana de valori si bunuri artistice. Cel de al doilea se bazeaza pe ideea ca muzeul face si el parte din categoria „spatiu public”. Definim spatiul public ca loc al schimbului cu dimensiune culturala.Pentru modelul totalitar ce reprezinta muzeul asta inseamna transformare, evolutie. Muzeul poate impartasi valorile si noaptea si se deschide si te invita cu ajutorul unui Pasaj Urban Traces.

Spatiul si viata interioara a muzeului se articuleaza experientei cotidiene printr-un gest artistic. Cadrele, versus portile fara usi, din plexiglas, vizual si psihic sunt limitele simbolice ale experientei umane. Il invita pe om la muzeu si muzeul iese in strada.

Este o invitatie si o provocare in aceeasi masura catre reflexia urbana dint-un motiv usor recogniscibil – scara umana a filtrelor. Pentru un spatiu privat platim pretul constructiei, a obiectelor cu care ne inconjuram. Pentru un spatiu public valoarea este data de dimensiunea umana si cea experimentala.

Pasajul- chestioneaza fenomenul urban si o extinde , nu asemeni unui balcon, ci ca intensitate, intensificare a socialului – cu ganduri, vise, cauze si efecte, situatii – o realitate personala, umana.

Passage

Video and Animation

Webmaster — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 16:14:45 +0000

Political Decision project (2010)

The Park (2010)

participated in screening video: “F.I.F.E CARBUNARI 2010”, the 7th Edition of the International Experimental Film Festival Carbunari 2010, Place Saint-Sulpice, Paris France

Urban Traces – Underground (2010)

participated in screening video: 2nd Annual Terminal Short Video Festival, Austin Peay University, Clarksville, TN, SUA curator Barry Jones

Urban-Rural (2006-2008)

participated in screening video: VideoChannel – [self]~imaging, VideoChannel Cologne, Germany (2010); The 5th International Festival for video art and experimental film ATTITUDE, Bitola, Macedonia (2009); F.I.F.E. C?RBUNARI 2009, the 6th Edition of the International Experimental Film Festival C?rbunari 2009, Florean Museum, Baia Mare, Romania (2009); ART within: The Artist in the Workspace, screening Geborgen Kamers, Holland (2008)

Tomorrow is another day (2009)

On the blue paths (2009)

Red Spot project (2008)

FLAG I

Car Lights

Political Decision

Webmaster — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 19:59:37 +0000

Political Decision is a signal-project, a social one meaning to draw the citizen’s attention on his identity. This concept was developed in a form of work-in-progress activities each activity in it making each time the project even more complex and complete. Therefore it is under a continuous change gathering “traces” with each presentation.

Using for presentation short movies and printed stickers we tried to ask questions about actual burning issues like global worming, integration, globalization, localization minorities and the way they are perceived by the citizens.

These movies aim to present the destructive image of the real world. Political decisions taken on a large scale affect us, the ordinary people on the economic, cultural and social level as well. We are annihilating ourselves, destroying the laws of nature, the substance, the identity and human relationships.

We are interested in what defines us nowadays in a world of simulacra more real than reality, in which political decision assaults us everywhere, options are ready made for us and identity is the definition of a service provided by politics.

victim

Steps to identity

Webmaster — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 11:16:48 +0000

Steps to identity project by focAR

Greenwich

Illumini Biennial 2010 – ‘Secret subterranean London’

Greenwich Foot Tunnel
History
The Greenwich foot tunnel is a pedestrian tunnel crossing beneath the River Thames in East London, linking Greenwich (London Borough of Greenwich) in the south with the Isle of Dogs (London Borough of Tower Hamlets) to the north.
The entrance shafts at both ends lie beneath glazed domes, with elevators that were installed in 1904 and then upgraded in 1992 and spiral staircases allowing pedestrians to reach the sloping, tile-lined tunnel at the bottom. The cast-iron tunnel itself is 370.2 m (1,217 ft) long and 15.2 m (50 ft) deep.
The tunnel replaced an expensive and sometimes unreliable ferry service, and was intended to allow workers living on the south side of the Thames to reach their workplaces in the London docks and shipyards then situated in or near the Isle of Dogs. The tunnel was designed by civil engineer Sir Alexander Binnie for London County Council, and was constructed by contractor John Cochrane & Co; the project started in June 1899 and the tunnel was opened on 4 August 1902. The tunnel is currently undergoing refurbishment and the works should be complete by March 2011, but it will remain open for most of the renovation work. The tunnel is also part of the UK’s National Cycle Route 1 linking Inverness and Dover, although cyclists are required to dismount and push their bikes through the tunnel itself.

London is well known for the busy life going underneath it – whether it’s the underground, tunnels, passages or any other place located under the city itself. The Tube is the transportation option chosen by most of the inhabitants of this city, due to the well-known agglomeration above ground, so we can in fact talk about an entire underground development of the city due to this. Difficult to build from a technical perspective, underground London is actually
just as accessible as above ground London. Due to this development, underground London has developed its own identify, due to a whole series of elements that define it, the key word here being “diversity”.
The Greenwich passage is a link part of this chain of underground development, an actual tourist spot while also being an access path used very often – yet maintaining a spectacular architecture.
A large number of pedestrians use this pass daily, from different social categories, age groups and ethnic groups.
Thus, the Greenwich passage reveals itself as an corridor animated by the human crowds, a hallway loaded with different silhouettes, some in a hurry, some relaxed, but all and each one of them adding to the identity imprint of this place with every step laid here.

Greenwich

The installation will be displaying a projection of lights through cut out silhouettes. A linear movement of the device which projects the light from left to right will be seen by the visitors as a movement of the cut-out characters.
The installation contains an engine which allows for the light source to be moved from left to right in a straight line on a track. The panel with the cut out silhouettes will be placed in between the light source and the wall. The panel is made out of carton, and as mentioned before the silhouettes will be cut out. The light will therefore project these silhouettes on the wall, as a moving series of attitudes and poses, presented sequentially.
There is also a sound installation which will play pre-recorded sounds and noises of the tunnel itself in full traffic hours, including the echoes and background noise, which will amplify the idea of movement.

installation art project

prop

exhibition image

biennial

The Travellers Box Project, in addition to MOnuMENTS project

Webmaster — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 22:39:32 +0000

The Travellers Box Project, in addition to MOnuMENTS project

Research and Documentation – “MOnuMENTS” Project is in full progress in London.

In between 14 March – 25 April 2010 focAR group will set off together with “The Travelers Box” Project.

focAR group’s action is part of The Travelers Box Project. The event will take place in the very heart of London.

Transferring the project (MOnuMENTS) in London may bring a new direction to the project. It is now possible to suggest a comparison – the observation of the monuments from the two capitals. The interest points of the research are the concept, the urbanism, the artist, the techniques and the general partner, (the state) as well. Being a visual expression of a public attitude, the monuments history has always developed between the two extremes – the pious acceptance, while evoking a glorious past and disproof.

On 15^th of April focAr group set off together with Travellers Box for the second time. The event took place in the very heart of London and consisted in a performance-journey. The action documented monuments located on the National Gallery – House of Parliament route. These monuments commemorate the heroes from wars or representative personalities for British space. The two members of the group placed a flower bouquet at each monument and held a silent moment in the heroes’ memory.

The Travellers Box Project, in addition to MOnuMENTS project

performance in West Ham – “We are the champions” statue (sculptor Philip Jackson - At the junction of Barking Road and Central Park Road Showing Bobby Moore, holding the Cup, with Geoff Hurst, Martin Peters and Ray Wilson. This shows the four celebrating after England won the World Cup in 1966. The artist has depicted these soccer heroes as being larger than life)

The action consisted in the placement of a flower bouquet at the monument and in holding a meditation moment about “heroes” condition.

: “we are the champions” statue

The Travellers Box Project, in conjunction with MOnuMENTS project

The Travellers Box Project, in conjunction with MOnuMENTS project 1

The Travellers Box Project, in conjunction with MOnuMENTS project 2

The Travellers Box Project, in conjunction with MOnuMENTS project 3

The Travellers Box Project, in conjunction with MOnuMENTS project 4

The Travellers Box Project, in conjunction with MOnuMENTS project 5

The Travellers Box Project, in conjunction with MOnuMENTS project 6

The Travellers Box Project, in conjunction with MOnuMENTS project 7

The Travellers Box Project, in conjunction with MOnuMENTS project 8

The Travellers Box Project, in conjunction with MOnuMENTS project 9

The Travellers Box Project, in conjunction with MOnuMENTS project 10

The Travellers Box Project, in conjunction with MOnuMENTS project 12

The Travellers Box Project, in conjunction with MOnuMENTS project 13

performance in East Ham. The action consisted in the placement of a flower bouquet at the monument and in holding a meditation moment about “heroes” condition.

The Travellers Box Project, in addition to MOnuMENTS project 1

The Travellers Box Project, in addition to MOnuMENTS project 2

The Travellers Box Project, in conjunction with MOnuMENTS project

The Travellers Box Project, in addition to MOnuMENTS project 3

The Travellers Box Project, in addition to MOnuMENTS project 4

The Travellers Box Project, in addition to MOnuMENTS project 5

The Travellers Box Project, in addition to MOnuMENTS project 6

The Travellers Box Project, in addition to MOnuMENTS project 7

The Travellers Box Project, in addition to MOnuMENTS project 8

The Travellers Box Project, in addition to MOnuMENTS project 10

The Travellers Box Project, in addition to MOnuMENTS project 11

The Travellers Box Project, in addition to MOnuMENTS project 12

We keep a “diary” of The Box using photos. As long as we host the Box, we are going to take a photo of The Box daily, trying to notice the evolution of the project. Every day will add something new inside or around The Box.

first day 22 march 2010

second day 23 march 2003

third day 24 march 2010

25 march 2010

26 march 2010

27 march 2010

28 march 2010

29 march 2010

30 march 2010

31 march 2010

1 april 2010

2 april 2010

3 april 2010

4 april 2010

5 april 2010

6 april 2010

7 april 2010

: 8 april 2010

9 april 2010

10 april 2010 performance in west ham

11 april 2010

12 april 2010

13 april 2010

14 april 2010

15 april 2010 performance in town centre (London)

16 april 2010

17 april 2010

18 april 2010

19 april 2010

20 april 2010

21 april 2010

22 april 2010

23 april 2010 performance in east ham

memory of the Golden Age

Webmaster — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 11:19:33 +0000

mixed media on canvas 2010

photo on canvas 2010

It is a project about the documentary, history, artistic, cultural and social structure, touching on the economics, as well.

mixed media on canvas 2010

photo on canvas 2010

mixed media on canvas 2010

Agenda – project (performance)

Webmaster — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 09:54:56 +0000

Together with Alexandru Bounegru

This is a social project that raises awareness on the individual chased by the consumerist society, while questioning its functioning principles.

Impreuna cu Alexandru Bounegru

Este un proiect social care încearca sa atraga atentia individului urmarit de societatea de consum, punand în discutie principiile de functionare ale acesteia.

focAR group – Caile Dobrogei – Constanta

[Show as slideshow]

[View with PicLens]

Alexandru Bounegru – documentation

[Show as slideshow]

[View with PicLens]