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The Arcades Project : A 3D Documentary

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The Arcades Project : A 3d Documentary

This is, initially, a one year project based in the Arcades in the centre of Cardiff. The project will explore the legacy that the Victorian Arcades have left in relation to the new build Arcades of St. Davids 2. Seeking to reflect on the idea of human narrative in relation to these spaces. The project will look at the ways in which architectural structures form the backdrop (stageset?) to our lives and the effect that those spaces have on our story, our perception of ourselves, our history and our memory.

The first year of the project will conclude with a wireless broadcast to be experienced on headphones whilst walking in the city. There will also be a conference in response to the project.

During the course of the project there will be a series of workshops to take part in, a quarterly publication and programme of discussions.

The Arcades project has been developed over the last 2 years (since the conclusion of STAR Radio) and is realised with help, funding & support from g/39 and PaW and in collaboration with the School Of Social Sciences (qualiti), & The Museum Of Cardiff.

Background:

The title “The Arcades Project : A 3d Documentary” refers to the arcades project by Walter Benjamin. Walter Benjamin began working on the Arcades project in 1927 and considered the arcades to be the most important architectural form of the 19th century. He linked the manifestation of the arcades in Paris to a number of major and minor phenomena of that century. This phenomena being the dawning of a new age of consumerism and rise of the new middle classes- the bourgeoisie. The building of the arcades signalled a dynamic shift, a change not only economically but also in terms of philosophy, technology, the way people thought about life, interpersonal relations and social interactions. Benjamin wanted to grasp these changes to record this dramatic shift, which could in fact be seen as an architectural manifestation of the birth of consumerism. He was not however interested in representing the great events of history but instead focused on locating the everyday in the refuse and detritus, the traces of the everyday life of the collective. He worked as a collector finding his evidence in the line of a poem by Baudelaire, a piece of text or a novel by Victor Hugo.

Benjamin’s intention for the project was to create a work that intersected on many levels revealing the vast interrelation and collision of experiential layers that occur at any given location. Any site therefore has multiple pluralities existing in an infinite number of positions. The arcades project took one site and exhaustively explored its meanings, functions and the social relations that occurred within it.

Benjamin saw the arcades and their architecture from the perspective of the individual and the individuals place in the city. He raises the fundamental point that architecture is the stage set for the theatre of the city. It is used toform the individuals perception of the self in the city, frame inter personal relations and also govern ones movements within the city. However Architecture is not benign, it frames the way that the individual behaves, the ways in which one perceives oneself in relation to the world. The subtleties of architecture could therefore be seen as a hinge that both reflects a contemporary society and frames it. Architecture effects the individual both in their behaviour and self perception.

The Arcades Project : A 3d Documentary:

Walter Benjamin’s project documented a significant shift in societal structure. Perhaps today we live in similar times of change. The shape of inner city architecture reflects the nature of a globalised economy which, for example, needs large shop fronts to incorporate chain stores, everything has got bigger in order to accommodate the contemporary market place. Local / global issues have become more complex, more abstract and less human. The narratives present in the nature of global markets seem alien and yet we are more acutely aware of the human and environmental cost of a global market place. Benjamin’s study of the arcades signalled an economic shift at the birth of capitalism whereas the changes happening in our cities today, perhaps, signify another shift, a globalised de- centralised market.

The arcades in Cardiff were designed and built at around the same period as the Paris arcades. They therefore stand as a testimony to that time and this telling the story of a consumer culture and contemporary social structure. The Arcades Project : A 3d Documentary will trace narratives, stories, memories and ideas back throughout the history of the arcades, represent human stories and also look for links with the rest of the world through the individual elements present in this location – for example the goods sold in the shops have as much of a story to tell as the networks of people who use the arcades. These stories will be revealed through a research process.

Arcade Community:

The project will be very heavily located in human conversations, ideas and responses. It will be a place to tell stories, reflect memories and discuss the site.

The research process will work across all 6 Arcades and the Central Market and seek to bring together networks and different aspects of the arcades through participation in events and drawing on local knowledge. This process will make visible both the existing communities of people who work in the arcades and the central market, and also the sub networks of customers and people who use those spaces. For example, I would like to work with Ashtons Fish Market finding out about how they do their trade, where their fish comes from – perhaps documenting that process and their relationship to this business. I would then seek to get to know their regular customers and find out about their relationship to the firm. Perhaps I would work at Ashtons for a week in order to learn about how the company runs. I would seek to employ similar methods of investigation with shops in the arcades, for example, Neales Yard run therapy rooms – perhaps looking at what people get out of alternative therapy, or the craft stall in the Central Marrket – what do people who shop here make? Or the community of people who work in Servini’s in Wyndham Arcade, the history of ‘The bear shop’ taboconists also in Wyndham arcade.I will be based in a space/ office in one of the arcades for the 3 years of the project. This will be a space I use to research, work and interview people.

g/39 will also be used as central point for the arcade community. Events will be run from this space and it will also be used as the starting point for tours, walks and audio walks/ events etc. Using g/39 in this way will frame it as a central communication point for the project.

Documentary:

The nature of documentary, and in particular ideas representation have been a reocurring theme in my work as have ideas of representation, the truth and notions of reality. The project will seek to create a document of the arcades which is at once about the present but also about the visiblity and prescence of history in both the new build arcades and the existing Victorian Arcades.

It is an attempt to find new ways to represent our world or reflect a situation, offer a view or share information through a sense of multiplicity rather than singular voices or threads of knowledge. Is it, however, possible to create a document which is expansive, which represents a situation through multiple views or makes visible threads without a conclusion? Through my work I have sought to address this conceptual problem creating projects whereby the ‘final’ piece is not a conclusion, rather a point of convergence that mediates the voice of the many or the narrative of a collective. In this sense I seek merely to create an arena for discussion.