'Don't Trust Architects' at the Calouste Gulbekian Foundation

until April 3 '11

Lisbon

Didier Faustino is presenting a series of new pieces at the Calouste Gulbekian Foundation from 14 January to 3 April '11. Five new installations produced for the exhibition immerse visitors in the permanent confrontation of the body with architecture and architecture with movement, via visual and sound tools implemented by Faustino.

Entitled "Don't Trust Architects", the exhibition presents "Future Will Be a Remake", a game which invites the spectators to reclaim part of the architecture by playing with it, "Trust me", a sound installation about the distortion of messages, "Flatland", a reflection on the borders between fiction and reality, "Instrument for Blank Architecture", a mobile sound device dedicated to mental exploration, and lastly "Exploring Dead Buildings", a video exploring the confines of architectural utopia.

In Flatland, a spectator becomes an actor by projecting himself into the backside of a movie screen using a swing. The other spectators seated in the theater can see the surface of the screen frontside distorted by the swing of the body, as an empirical three-dimensional effect. Flatland questions what is reality and what is fiction, offering the possibility to a spectator to become the main character of his imaginary.

Faustino writes:

Exploring Dead Buildings is a nocturnal exploration of an abandoned building belonging to the “Soviet Republic of Georgia’s Ministry of Transport.” This building erected in 1975 by George Chakhava (1923–2007) and Zurab Jalaghania is an example of realizable utopia directly inspired by Yona Friedman. In this dilapidated space, two operators manipulate an archaic vehicle made from debris found in the building. Focused on this vehicle, a camera records the crossing in a sequence shot, painting a portrait of architecture devoid of its use. Lit only by two battery operated projectors the camera records every last detail of the expedition across the rubble until the battery runs dead therefore causing a progressive loss of bearings, while the module disappears into obscurity looking for signs of prior life. Born from the incapacity of the architect to analyse the building other than by producing its own fiction inside it, this work of art is a tribute to utopia, the last sign of a forgotten architecture."

'Don't Trust Architects' at the Calouste Gulbekian Foundation