She ate a little bit, and said anxiously to herself, `Which way? Which way?’, holding her hand on the top of her head to feel which way it was growing, and she was quite surprised to find that she remained the same size: to be sure, this generally happens when one eats cake, but Alice had got so much into the way of expecting nothing but out-of-the-way things to happen, that it seemed quite dull and stupid for life to go on in the common way.

Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll

The inflated landscape demands an atypical slowness, heightening awareness of one’s body in relation to the displacement and resulting disruption of the field. The shifting terrain above and below induce a loss of scale, or rather a loss of consistency of scale. Navigating the foreign landscape, the traveller grows and shrinks in the shifting space, diminishing to miniature and growing so large to the point of bursting through the stratosphere. No paths are preordained, and in any direction one finds provocation and awareness of others, questioning the difference between the sensible and nonsensical. A field of reflections above and below invites the traveller to lose himself in a space where one can never be lost, always in sight of a thousand uncanny versions of his own visage.

Going Away taps into an innate desire for escape, a jealousy of helium’s ability to leave the confines of our atmosphere while we remain bound by gravity. While the dissolution of the perfect spherical shapes illustrates loss, they also speak to the excitement and anticipation of transitioning into a new state of self. The remnants of Going Away will be preserved and compressed in a box to be launched to the cosmos, in pursuit of the helium that has escaped it and to allow for its reconstruction in the future.

Invited to install an exhibition in the sculptural space of the “Orbe New York” at Palais de Tokyo, students from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, during a workshop with the visiting artist Tomas Saraceno, aim to create a temporary installation that distorts and amplifies one’s sense of self within the confines of the exhibition space. This installation re-positions the ever-evolving boundaries between sculpture and architecture as it dares to redefine the spatial relationships between the two.

[LEVEL 1 / ORBE NEW-YORK]

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GOING AWAY ArkAdiusz Piegdon - ClAire kAo - dAvi Weber - diego rodriguez - HArry byron - JAClyn Jung - Jim stoddArt - mondriAn HsieH - sissily HArrell - tAylor miller - tiAnHui sHen - vAHe mArkosiAn

15 - 31 July 2013

The exhibition is presented by Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP). GSAPP is pleased to introduce the inaugural 2013 Paris Atelier “Lighter than Air” with Visiting Artist Tomas Saraceno. The Paris Atelier is hosted at Columbia Global Centers | Europe (Reid Hall, Paris) as a five-year research initiative made possible through the Laboratory for Applied Building Science (LABS) in association with Architect Asaf Gottesman, co-founding partner. The 2013 installation Going Away was constructed under the consultation and expert advice of LABS Director Phillip Anzalone and Architect Michel Serratrice.

The Paris Atelier is an advanced academic program that endeavors to provide a platform to explore the role of the Architect as a Critical Maker - a designer and artist of tangible objects that explore the role of architecture in contemporary culture while engaging the reality of design and construction. The Paris Atelier lecture series addresses economic, cultural, social strategies in relation to production techniques within the art world and their role in museums, galleries, web-based art, auction houses, etc. Through regularly scheduled group and individual critiques with the Visiting Artist and invited guests, each participant is mentored and encouraged to develop a unique exploration while contributing to a collaborative production. Workshop participants also collaborate with industry partners to develop new means of working with computational design, material processes, and assembly of spatial constructions. The focus of the study will be to bring the technical and business skills towards the same goal: defining a new methodology for production and exchange in the space between the worlds of art and architecture.

Paris Atelier 2013 participants:

Arkadiusz Piegdon - Claire Kao - Davi Weber - Diego Rodriguez - Harry Byron - Jaclyn Jung - Jim Stoddart - Mondrian Hsieh - Sissily Harrell - Taylor Miller - Tianhui Shen- Vahe Markosian

Press contact: Dolorès Gonzalezdoloresgonzalez@palaisdetokyo.com— Tél. +33 (0)1 47 23 52 00

Concept Sketch by Sissily Harrell

Press contact: Dolorès Gonzalezdoloresgonzalez@palaisdetokyo.com— Tél. +33 (0)1 47 23 52 00

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