SONGLINE – IDEA: PROGRESS

The idea of progress has been intertwined, since the 19th century, to the quest of the american colonizers towards the west. The coincidence of that movement, with an astounding economical growth and technological development, has made possible the perception of progress as a linear, one-way path.

In the field of architecture, progress has been made visible through the replacement of ancient building techniques by others that make use of industrially transformed materials, such as reinforced concrete, plastics or steel, and which have made possible the high-rise sprawl.

The U turn, so to speak, and the resulting impact against the WTC on September 11, of two airplanes on their way to the west, symbolically attacked the linear narrative behind the idea of progress. The present demonstration of the fragilities of the capitalist model, as well as the expectation brought about by the change in the US presidency, makes it interesting to engage in a critical westward trip.

The voyage that we propose is related to an existing commitment that the office Plano B has in May, to coordinate a rammed earth workshop in El Rito, New Mexico. To that workshop we propose to add another 5 along a defined (but not definitive) route: NY, Chicago, Washington, Auburn, El Rito, and San Francisco.

At each workshop words from a secret sentence will be constructed taken from the book "Pessimism: Philosophy, Ethic, Spirit" by Joshua Foa Dienstag. The sentence we have chosen to build, proposes an alternative perception of the idea of progress. Without denying that the concept of progress is intrinsic to a technology driven civilization, the sentence appeals nevertheless for a reduction in the expectation that progress might provide hope for an imperfect, biological and finite species.

The words will be constructed with the materials, the techniques and the volunteers available at each time. The words will be recorded in some medium, posted on an internet blog in their correct relative position in the sentence, but in the random sequence in which they are produced.

This is the blog where the disclosure of the sentence will take place.

PROGRESS

Now, this was a complex construction! It took us one entire day in Chicago taking pictures and a lot of hours of Photoshop to come up with the word progress.

To make this long story short: we wanted to make visible the word progress in a way that would oppose a straightforward reading of the word. This was achieved using a backward calligraphy reflected in the sculpture Cloud Gate by Anish Kapoor, placed in the Millenium Park in downtown Chicago.

The writing was done with 3 sheets of colorful wrapping paper fixed to cardboard. Together the 3 boards would fill 2 concrete modules in the plaza floor. These 3 pieces were moved into the various positions to make big letters. Pictures were taken at each position and then composed using digital software.

In a literal sense the letters were never exposed as in the image. It took an artificial device to make them visible. The way we made the word plays not only with the idea of progress but also with the idea of process, meaning, space, direction and time.

We even had to make a plan for it: