kiosk newsletter oct2009

ISSUE No.2QiQiHaer Lu.

KIOSK Koeln - Liverpool - Shanghai

October 2009

NEWS- The internal website is now ready >http://kiosk.amspacesh.com

- First public introduction of KIOSK by Gabriel Gonzalez, 16th Oct at Petcha Kucha in Shanghai

- The Old Barber’s Shop in Liverpool has been renamed ‘The Lost Soul and Strangers Service Station’ see photo on front page.

- One night stand at am-space, see flyer at the end of the newsletter

Contents1. Anticipating QiQiHaer Lu Petra Johnson2. In QiQiHaer Lu Petra Johnson3. In place of QiQiHaer Lu Xu Zhifeng4. Video-streaming Philip Courtenay (5. One night stand at am-space)

The story so far: In April 2009 Cologne City approached me (Petra Johnson) and asked if I would be interested to write a concept in response to a brief issued by Liverpool City that asked to link Liverpool and Cologne in a way that can be represented in Shanghai during the EXPO in 2010. I send out e-mails to friends and some replied. Within two weeks, Alexandre Ouairy, Dirk Specht, Martin Rumori and I had worked out a KIOSK concept embracing sound, retailing, and architecture. That same month Philip Courtenay from e-space lab joined us and added video-streaming.In May etopia hosted a presentation of the concept to invited participants in Shanghai. The values all participants shared were to offer Westerners unmediated access to China and to work with the potential that offers itself to every individual when he/she encounters another culture. The offices at etopia are just round the corner from QiQiHaer Lu, a street that became a potential location for a kiosk. During the summer kiosks were found in Cologne and Liverpool and – unexpectedly - in Weimar. This issue describes the search for a location in Shanghai. The next issue of this newsletter – in anticipation of the experimental one night stand at amspace – will investigate branding, retailing, art works and the role of objects in the 21st century. Please send contributions to Sabine Mueller: [email protected]

Shanghai Issue No. 2 - October 2009

The landscape of QiQiHaer Luby Petra Johnson

The lure of the landscape of QiQi-Haer Lu lies in its approachability, its accessibility, its life that enve-lopes the passer-by in a cloak of emotional certainty and warmth.Anyone who has grown up in the 1950’s in a European town will rec-ognise features and with that rec-ognition comes a question: What is it that has gone? Why did it go? Can it be reconstructed? In the quote ‘First, local knowledge is made to disappear by simply not seeing it, by negating its very ex-istence’ Vandanya Shiva refers to a phenomenon in the so-called de-veloping countries. In this article, I am appropriating her quote on behalf of the so-called developed world and a past, which failed to make itself visible in time.What I wish to discover is: what is it that has preserved a tangible sense of continuity in streets like QiQiHaer Lu during times of in-tense and immense changes. And what is it that one could identify as its landmarks: the structures, institutions and facilities that pro-vide this continuity.I proceed with the assumption that QiQiHaer Lu is a work of art and it is as such that I explore its presence in the world at large and its relationship to my life.As an immediate encounter with the inhabitants of QiQiHaer Lu is

approaching and with it a sense of trepidation growing, I built a weft out of a dialogue with delibera-tions on the American landscape by John Brinckerhoff Jackson. This dialogue weaves the net that will bounce off the observations, ex-periences and reflections yet to be made. Brinckerhoff Jackson’s writings in ‘Discovering Vernacu-lar Landscape’ (1) is an attempt to make visible what is not seen, albeit in a different culture and a culture that is his own. I, by con-trast, am looking at a landscape of a continent that is not my place of origin. I am looking at those aspects that satisfy human needs underneath the cultural cloak in order to find what maintains an environment conducive to their nourishment.‘Landscape’, Jackson writes, ‘is a compound and its components hark back to that ancient Indo-Eu-ropean idiom, brought out of Asia by migrating peoples thousands of years ago.’ (2) Land referred to plowed field in Gothic meaning. The word land in all the various definitions it has acquired since, continues to mean in essence ‘a space defined by people’. (3) Dur-ing the Dark Ages the word scape could refer to an organisation or system of things. Hence Jackson argues, in its original meaning

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the word landscape referred to ‘a composition of man-made spaces’ .(4) It has no aesthetic associa-tions, nor indeed emotional ones. A landscape is a collective work and, Jackson asserts, it is a space created to speed up or to slow down the process of nature.

QiQihaer Lu is a street, a word that is not traced in Jackson’s text. Road, to which he devotes a whole chapter, is relatively new in the English language. Introduced during Shakespearian times and meaning a journey on horseback, it derives from the Greek hodos, which means road and journey. A road supposes a margin, an other place.In ancient Greece every road end-ed not only in a sacred place but also in an agora, a town where people gathered. Jackson writes, ‘ If, as the Greeks believed, the gods in their wandering made the first roads, then it is an act of piety to follow in their footsteps……..and the best of all roads are those which foster movement toward a desirable social goal.’ (5)In the (European) middle ages a hierarchy of spaces arranged into a system of three concentric zones was dominant: Allmende (woods and wasteland); Gewan-nen (area of cultivation) and the

enclosed village. For the Germans, the forest was a place of sacrifice – the Gothic term March (mar-gin, merge, murky) meant both boundary and forest. In English, the word forest when it first ap-peared (9th century) referred to land outside the common law. It is a space where anyone who choos-es to dwell, does so at the cost of separation from his fellow men.

Different societies have found dif-fering ways of organising space. At this moment in time, societies appear to loose all differentia-tion, giving at once rise to a fear of sameness and simultaneously offering the potential to each and everyone to design their own un-derstanding and organisation of space.

A fundamental question in ap-proaching a space is visibility. His-torically to the ancient Greeks the visible signified what was perma-nent and the invisible that which was not. In ancient German an ex-change with the invisible consist-ed in helping, protecting and lov-ing the little people - elves, nixes and goblins – for that which was taken from the forest. In contemporary society, to an architect buildings will be very visible; sociologists, engineers,

Issue No. 2 - October 2009

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economists and politicians will see something else. Whilst an economist and politician sees the landscape as a territory or domain, the inhabitant sees a habitat that shaped him or her, that was not only there before him/her but will also outlive him/her. The latter is the visibility, I wish to forefront and articulate.

Landscape is a word that, I am told, does not have an obvious equiva-lent in the Chinese language. There are many descriptions that hover around the Western ex-pression. One of which feng jing is translated as view in the wind, another is shan shui, the word for mountains and water.

I trust that whatever will happen, the work of art called QiQiHaer Lu will inspire, pleasure, confuse and inform and last but not least lead into avenues and across moun-tains none of us could manage on our own.

1.Brinckerhoff Jackson, J.: Discovering the vernacular landscape, Yale University Press, hb, 19842.Brinckerhoff Jackson p.53.Brinckerhoff Jackson p.74.Brinckerhoff Jackson p.75.Brinckerhoff Jackson p.27


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In QiQiHaer Luby Petra Johnson

Friday, 4th September

The taxi stops at my side, a woman with crutches, not by the able bod-ied men who could have jumped in. It takes me a while to place my body in the backseat, the driver waits patiently. It pains me that there is a popular perception of China as cruel, fu-elled by the unreflected collussion of idealistic people operating in different value systems. The shad-ow side of doing good, of mean-ing well tends to keep a discreet distance so it can grow silently, unquestioned. I too am an idealist, my strategy is to keep polishing its mirror. The taxi driver drops me off at QiQiHaer Lu, careful to drive to the precise stop, jumps out with a relish and opens the door for me, hands me my crutches, gestures to tell me I need not hurry.Xu Zhifeng joins me and we walk down the first block, between a shoemaker and a registry office on the one side and a kindergar-ten on the other. One of the in-habitants has turned her part of the pavement into a patio, she and her neighbours sit under the shade of succulent climbers. I step onto the street so as not to walk through their gathering. The cy-clists swerve gently to make way for me, I remember I am in China

and it would have been ok to go through her garden.We walk along the second block where back in December 08 we had met a woman mixing con-crete for her house. She was go-ing to open a flowershop and so we called her the flowershop lady. She showed us round the interior shell of the house, described her plans and pointed out the house number 666, a lucky number in China. She was full of vitality. I walk to the end of the block pass-ing a sulky woman behind a ciga-rette counter throwing a banana skin on the street. It is the second time that I have missed the flow-ershop. Now that it is no longer a hollow shell but adorned with a bright sign, it seems to require a special effort to notice. We turn back, inside the shop is a differ-ent woman. Our flowershop lady we discover is the landlady. After some knocking and shouting by the saleslady she appears dressed in a cute neglige. Once again her vitality is an inspiration – she talks about inviting me for a meal, her hands stroke across the fridge door, it contains a fresh crab from Ningbo, where she was born. She talks about having a guest room she could let out to a foreigner. She would make an excellent B&B hostess and I am already making


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In QiQiHaer Luby Petra Johnson

a mental booking. We exchange telephone numbers.Back on QiQiHaer Lu we head for the main road and pass the patio again. I negotiate my body and crutches between three chairs and flowerpots and see my mo-mentary flash of delight reflected in the glances the creators of this shady retreat return to me.

P.S. Reasons for seeking another street: Communications with the flowershop lady slowed down af-ter she begun to consult her hus-band. B6 pointed out that he did not hear Shanghaihua when pass-ing through. We decided to seek for a street where Shanghaihua dominates the soundscape.


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In Place of QiQi-Haer Luby Xu Zhifeng

Shanghai Location Hunting

How does a city grow? From where, a village by the water, a boat; and then roads, a horse, a train and a car. I can’t remember… I arrived by bus, walked or rather ran away from the main road, beneath the North South elevated artery. A door saved me. I stepped into an old lane, found myself walking through people’s living rooms. The inhabitants don’t mind a pass-ing stranger.

Walled city, pre-colonial ShanghaiTown centre, People’s SquareCBD economical zone, Lujiazui2010 World Expo site

The lane that rescued me is called Hou De Li, which literally means “Thick Moral Lane”, and as many of the other “Li” continues to har-bour the Old Shanghai life style. Hou De Li is close to the centre of Shangai: to its South East is People’s Park, to the North West is the Main Railway Station, Suzhou Creek sleeps North of it, and Nan-bei Gaojia fly-over borders it on the Western side. Hou De Li has become very isolated or rather sunken under the skyscrapers of the Metropolis. >


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Stepping out of the Metro station Xinzha Road, you arrive at the bottom of high rises, where hori-zontal and vertical meet, and only the lanes retain streets scaled to protect the human shape.

1. Nan Bei Elevated Road.2. Hou De LI3. Metro Station4. Suzhou River5. People’s Park

1.2.

3. 4.

5.


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Hou De Li Community.

XinChang Road fascinates me. It has been affected by the new high-rise apartment block com-munity. Exploring it from North to South one can experience the three sections it has been divided into: New+New, New+Old and Old+Old. The sections are demar-cated by Shanhaiguan Road and Qindao Road.

Both of the T corners have enough space to install the Kiosk.The more interesting one is at the North end of Xinchang Road where it meets Xinzha Road, there’s a pavement island.>


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Questions:

How does communication devel-op between people from different backgrounds?

Can art stand with the traffic?

Who are local people, who are global people?

What could be the future of Xinchang Road?

Which is the most popular part?

What is its nightlife?

The soundscape?

What sets it apart from other neighbourhoods in Shanghai, in China, in the world?


Liverpool

Video-streamingby Philip Courtenay

Hi everyone from e-space lab. We are doing a bit of work on using livestream http://www.livestream.com/which has some features that will suit the Kiosk project beau-tifully, and something that, as far as I can see, is free. This is a big plus for e-space lab , be-cause we are interested in con-nections between people that are accessible, and therefore sustainable. It is simple one-click streaming from camera or desktop (even videophones). It is interactive and easily con-nected to Twitter, and we can mix multiple camera, graphics and YouTube. I have no idea as of yet what the capacity for archiving the live feeds, but it looks like what you broadcast is archived automatically. We can also upload video that is automatically shown in any se-quence or looping we choose when camera input is inactive. I have asked Hangfeng if he can connect to it in Shanghai and it is open and available at the moment.

I am getting my head round it and when ready lets set up a test project and see what hap-pens.


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On Night Stand at am space(Flyer)

An inquiry into the disruption of creativity part 2

initiated by Petra Johnson and hosted by Lam and Jam at am space in Shanghai, an inquiry….. part 2 invites you to become part of an international network of en-quirers by bringing a work that gave you joy in the making. In placing your work inside a frame that becomes visible for one eve-ning only, we open an explorative space that will be reflected on through informal discussions. Size limitation max 30 x 30 x 30cm ap-prox. December 27th, 18.00 – 22.00 o’clock, at am space, 6 XiangShan Lu, ShanghaiDrop off from 17.00 o’clock

This exhibition is the second part of four artist-led one night stands initiated by Petra Johnson.

part 1 which locations harbour disruption

took place in April 2009 in London and was made possible by the generosity of Jay Brown, director of Lijiang Studio, the audacity of Pierre d’Alancaisez, inaugurator of Waterside Project Space and the finely tuned skills in making visible locations of joy of artists Ernesto Salmeron, Greta Mendez, Will Cruickshank, Petra Johnson, Anna Boggon and Fanny Aboulk-er. part 3 where disruptions hide and part 4 who the disruptor is and who the disruptedare planned for May & October 2010

if you are interested please con-firm [email protected]

Artwork: Anna Boggon


kiosk newsletter oct2009

Documents

qiqihaer lu petra johnson2

qiqihaer lu petra johnson3

liverpool city

kiosk concept

kiosk koeln liverpool

night stand

cologne city

public introduction