Focussing the aspect of the transient within the idea of the informal, Parasite Architecture relates it to questions of migration and cultural diversity. Beyond the literal sense of "weak" structures, it combines various architectural approaches. In many places around the world, Shahram Entekhabi created informal extensions to existing architectures (e.g. museum architectures) or constructed independent temporary spaces. However, these informal architectures are always constructed in public space (as part of the Caution performances that are documented on video) and they are always made from caution tape - suggesting ideas about safety zones and no go areas and indicating aspects of exclusivity and inclusivity in public space. The works deal with the dual concept of performance and public space and time.
Parasire
Architecture
As part of his
solo exhibition in the Gallery of Contemporary Art Bunkier Sztuki, Kraków/Poland
in 2006, Shahram Entekhabi created an informal extension of the Bunkier
Museum which feeds off the existing space and
also offers another perspective on the notion of mass migration and the
perceived existence of migrants.
12m x 12m x 12m enclosed space
materials: 300m wire, 30m of wood, 4000m of caution tape .
freshAZAN,
combines informal
architecture with live art practice, being both transitory in nature
yet having transformational
qualities at the same time.
The proposed para-architecture constructed out of scaffolding and caution
tape resembling a minaret (a tall thin tower) will host the alternative
azan by performers
appearing within the structure. Sited in the middle of busy pedestrian pathways
of Birmingham city centre, nestled between the church, street market and shopping
malls, the para-architecture will imitate its surrounding spaces to reflect
meaning back into itself. It is fake, it doesn’t have a function
and yet by its sheer size and visibility it will significantly gain
power.
By citing this unfamiliar object within a market visited by people from many
cultural backgrounds, it becomes a point of convergence for collective social
and intellectual activity (it becomes a symbolic mosque). It morphs into the
familiar, as it communicates with them in a variety of languages, and repeats
and chants like the vendors vying for attention. It seduces people to congregate
like shopping malls do, yet there are no heavy bags to carry or empty wallets,
but pure social exchanges.
The artists will work with a team of local architecture/art students to develop
the design and construct the structure. The structure will be erected in view
of passers by. Every morning it will rise and every evening it will collapse,
to start all over again the next day. All day long the artists will continue
to engage in giving form and shape to the fragile structure with caution tape,
taking breaks in between whilst the azan emits intermittently in different languages.
The same team of students with instant (polaroid) cameras will get passers by
to pose against the backdrop of the structure, akin to the tourists in front
of the Taj Mahal. Each member of the audience will be given their instant photo
as a souvenir, while one copy will be kept for the gallery installation.
The Hayat includes various costumes That Entekhabi used in different performances thematized various migrant masculinities: the guerilla fighter, the orthodox Muslim and so forth. A couple of steel lockers contain the different costumes and accessories, while one is empty in order to indicate that the story is not complete, the mirror and light bulbs create the atmosphere of a look room as if the viewer can try on the different styles himself.
In the par-architectures series Caution-Place, is the abstractive-sculptures build during the performance series like “Attenzione’ or “Caution” developed in a useable architectures building made of the caution taps. This Par-architectures/public-spaces give a temporary platform for different performances uses by myself, other artists, and public.
Shahre Farang (Farsi for “chequered world”) is the name for a particular version of peep boxes in the Middle East that were in use for long centuries and up to the 1960s. The boxes offered the possibility to view an exhibition of pictures in the inside through a small hole and were usually travelled from village to village by the show-man. The box could be made out of metal in the shape of an oriental castle with several holes. It contained a set of pictures which the show-man could move in the inside of the box by pulling the string. Common subjects included tales from A Thousand and One Nights. The presentation was usually accompanied with a “talk show” that explained what was happening…
In his installation “Shahre Farang”, Shahram Entekhabi rebuilt the traditional peep box in a contemporary version.
Caution
Caution responds to performance art. Here, the man
reappears on the prestigious oval lawn in front of the library, where
students
walk by to go to classes.
A normal day on an American campus. The tiny figure walking the middle
of the path opposite the high viewing point, strikes as slightly out of
place: the gap is put in place, visually. It is also put in place in the
performance, as he walks faster than others, as if he had a purpose.
He begins to unroll red-and-white European caution tape, routinely used
to block of areas that represent a danger for the public. He knots the
end of
that tape to a tree. With fierce determination – or is it resigned repetition? – he
screens off an area. First, between trees, so as to block off the busiest path
that leads to the center of campus. Repetition, constituting a dense sculptural
wall of bright colors, establishes the hallmark of the series as video installation.
Then, he begins a somewhat longer walk over the lawn to the other side of the
oval. He attached the tape to a tree there, then returns.
Color, sculpture, and performance vie for attention as the kick-off media,
measured against video’s power to make surface stick on the retina. Some
of the images ask how it is that space can get overruled by intervention. When
the people behind the tape lose their visibility, or their faces, for example,
one can wonder how abstract art – here, blocks of bright red and clear
white – takes over figuration as if it had always been lodged at the
latter’s heart. Or, whether the walking man is the sculpture or the tape
waving in the wind. One wonders, too, about the blandness of the public space
before, and its new look after the intervention.
Attenzione
here Entekhabi transfers these ideas about confrontation within his sculptures and para-architectural installations (Caution, 2001-06). These sculptures/ informal architectures are always constructed in public-spaces and always made from caution tapes suggesting ideas about safety zones and no go areas and importantly who is permitted and not within the public space. These works deal with the dual concept of performance and public space and time.
