An OddOne Production for MU with Designs by HEYHEYHEY and sound by Croonstreet
Filmed, directed and produced by Chico Serra: Morrinho Babylon Circus Part 4. www.morrinho.com
Project: The Great Babylon Circus; Curator: Lukas Feireiss in collaboration with MU Eindhoven; Curatorial Assistent: Elvia Pyburn-Wilk; Graphic design: HeyHeyHey Creative; Participating artists: Mounir Fatmi (France), Project Morrinho (Brazil), Speedism (Belgium/Germany), Tomorrow's Thoughts Today (Australia/Great Britain)Venue: MU, Eindhoven; Date: 24.06.2011 – 02.10.2011
"Come, let us go down and confound their speech" Genesis 11:5-8
The Great Babylon Circus, curated by Lukas Feireiss in collaboration with MU Eindhoven, brings together cutting-edge creatives from the field of art, architecture, and design to engage in the continuation of the never-ending design of the Tower of Babel. The Tower of Babel is one of the primordial metaphors of architecture and construction, as well as of the multiplication and confrontation of diverse languages and styles. The tower also symbolizes the ultimate hubris of human creation – the ambition to build something larger than life itself.
With this central element in mind, the exhibition choreographs ambitious experimental artistic positions from around the globe with a joyful sense of the spectacular. In a collaborative effort, stimulating performances, spatial installations, and visuals from micro to macro-scale are presented in this arena, reaching out as a source of inspiration for creatives across all disciplines. The list of participating artists includes Brazilian social and cultural collective Project Morrinho, Belgium-German art collective Speedism, Moroccan artist Mounir Fatmi, and London-based think tank Tomorrow's Thoughts Today. The collaboration of these four creative practices will unite around the mythic Tower of Babel theme, presenting us with new angles from which to view this legendary subject, and arguing for its social, political, and cultural relevance as figure in today's world.
Tomorrow's Thoughts Today: Landscapes of Unnatural History (2011)
For this exhibition the Australian London-based architecture think tank and artistic practice Tomorrow’s Thoughts Today
has created an alternative garden of Eden or robot zoo on mossy highlands buzzing with strange creatures.
Gazing over this curated landscape, the researchers’ working hypothesis is that the distinction between the products
and byproducts of modernity have disappeared, and it is this disappearance that defines our new urban territories.
They may be hopeful inventions or unexpected by-products, wondrous possibilities or dark cautionary tales.
Here we gaze out across the near future population of our augmented wilderness.
Mounir Fatmi: The Wall (2011)
Moroccan-French artist Mounir Fatmi's free-standing wall installation made from literally thousands of video cassette tapes
unfurling their insides onto the exhibition floor. His work can be read as a subtle reference to both the wall as architecture’s
most basic and constitutional element, and a critique of contemporary society’s visual media overkill.
Speedism: Gravity's Grave (2011)
The large banner prints of dazzling chromatic density and intensity, ironically references
architectural history, ranging from images of Corinthian columns to Berthold Lubetkin’s penguin pool at the London Zoo
all the way to Le Corbusier’s signature glasses.
Project Morrinho: Morrinho Babylon Circus (2011)
The members of the social and cultural collective Project Morrinho are continuously re-building models of their home,
the Pereira da Silva favela in Rio de Janeiro. The structure arises in various iterations from earth, cement,
and individually-colored bricks, forming miniature hillsides in different contexts worldwide.
This seemingly endless Babylonic construction directly mirrors the informal building practices genuine to Rio’s favelas,
which in turn reflects the strangely-paradoxical state of constant construction and deconstruction depicted in Pieter Breugel
the Elder’s 1563 paintings of the Tower of Babel.
The MU installation was conceived by four members of the collective, in collaboration
with participants from various workshop-style events held at the venue during the week preceding the exhibition.
All Designs by HEYHEYHEY