foxtongue: (the welsh got you)
WIRED has a really nice new piece (with photos and a video of some of the clock restoration!) on one of my favourite inspiring secret-art collectives, UX, the dreamy Parisian group that specializes in fantastical heritage restorations and interstitial spaces:


A mysterious band of hacker-artists is prowling the network of tunnels below Paris,
secretly refurbishing the city's neglected treasures.

Thirty years ago, in the dead of night, a group of six Parisian teenagers pulled off what would prove to be a fateful theft.

[...] This stealthy undertaking was not an act of robbery or espionage but rather a crucial operation in what would become an association called UX, for “Urban eXperiment.” UX is sort of like an artist’s collective, but far from being avant-garde—confronting audiences by pushing the boundaries of the new—its only audience is itself. More surprising still, its work is often radically conservative, intemperate in its devotion to the old. Through meticulous infiltration, UX members have carried out shocking acts of cultural preservation and repair, with an ethos of “restoring those invisible parts of our patrimony that the government has abandoned or doesn’t have the means to maintain.” The group claims to have conducted 15 such covert restorations, often in centuries-old spaces, all over Paris.

[...] UX’s most sensational caper (to be revealed so far, at least) was completed in 2006. A cadre spent months infiltrating the Pantheon, the grand structure in Paris that houses the remains of France’s most cherished citizens. Eight restorers built their own secret workshop in a storeroom, which they wired for electricity and Internet access and outfitted with armchairs, tools, a fridge, and a hot plate. During the course of a year, they painstakingly restored the Pantheon’s 19th- century clock, which had not chimed since the 1960s. Those in the neighborhood must have been shocked to hear the clock sound for the first time in decades: the hour, the half hour, the quarter hour.

[...] One summer, the group mounted a film festival devoted to the theme of “urban deserts”—the forgotten and underutilized spaces in a city. They naturally decided the ideal venue for such a festival would be in just such an abandoned site. They chose a room beneath the Palais de Chaillot they’d long known of and enjoyed unlimited access to. The building was then home to Paris’ famous Cinèmathèque Franèaise, making it doubly appropriate. They set up a bar, a dining room, a series of salons, and a small screening room that accommodated 20 viewers, and they held festivals there every summer for years. “Every neighborhood cinema should look like that,” Kunstmann says.
foxtongue: (Default)
Inside the Burrard St. Bridge secret stairs.



1973 - 1984

denied looking down from near the top



posse lung
foxtongue: (Default)
http://borndifferent.com/


sharp-flower
Originally uploaded by mohawk.
Kyle and I went climbing over rocks and under fences yesterday evening to finally get at the infamous devastation of Stanley Park. Those dissenters who have been claiming that the destruction is mild and that our city has been stalling out of some mis-matched version of civic pride are incredibly wrong. On our way to the first fence, we saw a few empty gaps in the forest, but nothing lamentable, true. (Minus one especially kind tree that had always been perfect for branch sitting, feet drifting in the water, a book in hand). However, past the second gate, the path was crumpled, so cracked and pried up like flaking nail polish the bent cement looked pliable. There were huge trees thrown in our way and strange waterfalls spraying from broken pipes at the top of the cliffs. In the gathering dark, muttering and whispering as it was, we had to be careful. The Seawall was so changed as to feel like we were exploring another city, one wrecked and left for dead. The ground was crooked, stones dented or missing, randomly flooded. In the end, we had to run from guards before we reached the end. I want to go back, but closer to the day. Next time, I want to try from the other end, camera in hand. I've never seen anything like it.

http://notforsalecampaign.com/
foxtongue: (Default)
Inside of the theatre is a neglected microcosm, thoroughly dreamlike and unexpectedly specific. The foyer is much of what you would expect, rag painted light blue and carrying the dim scent of dropped-rail fluorescents, but farther in, however, are surprises. It's a 300 seat theatre, complete with a balcony with box seats, and though there's a very certain air of shabby mistreatment, everything's quite intact. The heavy velvet curtains still swing with a glorious weight and the stage, as much as we could see of it, seems undamaged.

Unfortunately, the realtor was astonishingly unhelpful on the matter of light-switches, which left significant portions of the building lost in a sinister darkness. Backstage, for example, an immense space, three stories tall. I tried to use my camera flash to see, only to discover a maze of chairs and miscellany piled a decade high, impossible to navigate without a steady light. Under the stage was more darkness, this time obscuring a suite of blank rooms I presume used to serve as the proper backstage area, the green room, and where the old caretaker used to live when it the The New York.

They let him live there in exchange for janitorial services. Silva talked to him in 1986, when we lived in the building adjacent, and discovered that he used to be an architect, but blew his mind out when he took a tab of acid that turned out to be something else entirely. He said to her, "I remember when I used to be smart, but I'm not anymore."

I didn't brave many of those rooms, only the ones easiest to find lights in, as stepping so blindly into the darkness felt as perilous as it very likely was. I might have been the first person to explore them in years.

Upstairs was far more promising to investigate. The booth, though ridiculously cluttered with celluloid heaps of Bollywood spools, oddly shaped reel tins, and strange burlap covered boxes marked AIRMAIL MUMBAI, is entirely in working order. The equipment looks to be possibly from the fourties, which is modestly intimidating, but the bulb's been replaced recently enough to alleviate worries about sudden burnout. (What an annoying bill that would be. Ouch.) All in all, it looks to be perfect. (Even down to the fact that the bolt on the booth door is a screwdriver.)

My only concerns will likely be dealt with once I get my hands on both the floor-plans and the current owner's financial records form the last three months. That will let me A. find the damned lights, and B. finish a proper business plan to interest financers with.

In the meanwhile, this is the rough-draft of my blurb that I'm going to want everyone to whore around - if you have any suggestions to improve it, please don't hesitate to tell me:


Built in 1910, the Raja Theatre has recently come up for sale. When it was the New York - before it spent a decade as a Bollywood house - the theatre was a fabulous venue known for hosting an astonishing number of fantastic shows, diverse and interesting, such as Neil Young when he toured with Sonic Youth and Krispin Hellion Glover. It is my hope to buy the building and re-open it as the Heart of the World, a multi-arts cultural venue that recaptures and surpasses its previous glory.

Heart of the World is to be an art house repertory, showing everything from original work, (support your artists, people!), to old films where the copyright's run out, and double-bills like Marc Caro nights, (Amélie, Delicatessen, City of the Lost Children), everyone's favourite director they never knew the name of. It will also be available for both acoustic and amplified concerts, plays, short performances, and coffee house cabaret evenings. The stage is quite big, and once we dig it out from the decade high pile of uprooted chairs and miscellaneous boxes, it will be beautiful again. I'd also like to have podcasts of performances available on-line for download and use the foyer as a small art gallery of paintings and photography from artists both local and international.

I am attempting to find investors, and if you want to help, please contact me at Foxtongue@shaw.ca with your name and your specialties. Even if you think you've got nothing to offer, I'm sure we can find a place for you. Every bit of help is appreciated and work, depending on category, will be paid in shares.

If you think you could help with financing, either by a small donation or by a larger contribution, here's my plan:

An investor, which could be you or someone you know, buys the theatre outright under contract with me that I eventually pay them the full amount, but that I only end up owning a controlling share, just over half the property. I take care of the taxes, the etceteras, and I make the venue work. I run the place and ultimately we are both in the enviable position of making money with a good thing. The investor is guaranteed to make a profit no matter what happens - even if I default, they still own a considerable asset, one that will be worth more by then from all the work I'll have put in.

Basically the investor gets all their money back, I get the controlling share, and we both get a really awesome venue that not only enriches Vancouver culturally and opens space to artists, but which promises to provide a steady income.
foxtongue: (purple)

super sexe
Originally uploaded by Foxtongue.
Architecture to stretch out in without scraping my fingers on roughly green glass walls. There are no mountains to hem people in here, no ocean to swallow their gaze completely to the exclusion of culture. I blend in. In Vancouver, I stand out in the street as something odd to look at. It's like a weight lifted, all those people looking elsewhere. I don't feel like a bare gallery of this hat, these clothes. Instead, beautiful pieces of public graffiti sprayed onto the brick skin of buildings a century old reach out to me and remove weight from my shoulders.

My trip to Toronto is confirmed: I leave on Monday, Dec 19, at 6.15 on train #69.
I return to Montreal on Friday Dec 23.

I'm living with James at Sherbrooke and St. Laurant. It reminds me of the first time I lived in Toronto, when my apartment was at Queen and Spadina. There's a similar sense of being exactly in the right place downtown to properly chase dragons. It's like Sigur Ros is playing underneath every creaking step I take on snow, lending me magic and grandeur. Tkch, tkch, tkch. Everything is dusted white. I don't pad around here. It's impossible. My feet are encased in big clunky shoes. My feet are clumsy. My feet are walking somewhere they've never been. Every curb is a cliff leading down to some improbable country where I'm glad I don't know the language.

Yesterday, like the day before, I walked for hours. I haven't done anything yet, but I've seen.

Profile

foxtongue: (Default)
foxtongue

April 2012

S M T W T F S
123 4 5 6 7
891011121314
15161718192021
22232425262728
2930     

Syndicate

RSS Atom

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Aug. 14th, 2025 11:00 pm
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios