A.I.R extension #08

This extension is a lecture-performance Katleen Vermeir & Ronny Heiremans did at Intercollege, Nicosia in collaboration with Peter Swinnen, architect (51N4E). This extension explores the format of a ‘lecture’ to represent the artists’ domestic space. The lecture presents a scenario that unfolds on a screen in front of the audience. The presence of the public and the space where the lecture takes place are integrated in the scenario. It describes the architect Peter Swinnen (51N4E), who is driving his car towards the artists' Brussels loft while listening to an interview on the radio. The audience is listening in on a guided tour by Le Corbusier in his apartment in Paris. After Peter has arrived at the artists' home the scenario describes his path through the apartment. Simultaneously the audience is hearing his footsteps taking him from place to place. At a certain point, mingling fiction and reality, Peter dials a number on his mobile phone after which the phone is picked up in the lecture hall in Nicosia by Katleen Vermeir & Ronny Heiremans. After the discussion with the architect the scenario refers once more to Le Corbusier, this time talking about signing a building, giving it artistic protection and value.

excerpt of the lecture:

RH: To continue about this subversive point of view: in preparation for our next extension we work together with a notary. We want to offer shares on our private house, sell 49% of our house in shares. The notary said that this is not possible legally and she said our bank will also make trouble. She explained the bank has our property deed, as an insurance for the money we own them. They can use it to get back their money. And she said also the insurance will make trouble, because in the scenario of many owners, who is accountable?

She thought about it for a while and came up with 'Beveks'. This is a way to invest money in real estate, but is usually used for office and apartment blocks, but not for private apartments. She looks now for legal possibilities and for ways to protect us from what we want. If we sell 49 % of the house, we make a separation between naked property and fruits of usage. In this way you can keep 51% of your house and have a lot of money on top of this to do other things with.

For people who are interested in buying such shares, it is an interesting investment, and for people who live in such a house it could be an interesting kind of social housing project.

PS: For me this is very subversive, I am now inside your house and it is like a paradise here. It is such a nice place, there is for example a great view from the roof garden, in a way for me this place means perfect happiness. You have everything and for me it is subversive because you take it now apart. The idea of opening up this perfect happiness, dismantle it to be able to do other things with the money it could bring. In a way you chase yourself from paradise. When Katleen told me some time ago that this house could be an art project I was very surprised. For me I think it can become a pastiche when artists try to transform art into a living space, because it can never compete with the real thing which is architecture. But in this case when the house becomes a base for extensions it can be a piece of art, but for me not the house itself can be art.

KV: It is funny to hear from you that we chase ourselves from paradise... It reminds me of Gordon Matta-Clark who received very emotional reactions when he was cutting open houses. But then those houses were already ready for demolition. So in a way the houses were already de-humanised and it was not that destructive or subversive anymore. But in this house and in this proposition we are eating away our own house...

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A.I.R extension #08
in collaboraton with Peter Swinnen (51N4E)
for a lecture series curated by Alessandra Swiny and Christodoulos Panayiotou, Intercollege, Nicosia (CY)
Co-produced by Ltd.Ed.vzw, Intercollege