public art > INFOGON
INFOGON
Infogon
The Infogon project began with a transference between three sites: the exhibition hall, a lawn space outside the museum complex, and a desolate section of a working class neighborhood in another section of the city. The exhibition hall space was used to show documentation of the exterior interventions while the exterior interventions directed one to the exhibition hall.
Outside the museum, a snarl of confusing orange safety signage and fencing was constructed to set the expectation of the viewer entering the museum of the museum as a site of construction.
Outside the museum, a snarl of confusing orange safety signage and fencing was constructed to set the expectation of the viewer entering the museum of the museum as a site of construction.
appropriating territory
A site for the main intervention was chosen in Chelas, a low income section of the city, where a large urban wasteland created by an roadworks project divided the neighborhood.
Territory was appropriated using the official signage of red and white barrier tape.
Territory was appropriated using the official signage of red and white barrier tape.
construction
It was decided to create an information kiosk within which information could be displayed-- specifically, the Lisbon City Hall's official urban plan of the area. In order to make the intervention stand out from the normative formal language of construction sites, it was decided to make the structure octagonal and with a domed roof.
The project existed on two levels of spectatorship-- people crossing the empty desert area, and the hundreds of residents in the surrounding high rise apartments able to observe the structure and its construction.
The project existed on two levels of spectatorship-- people crossing the empty desert area, and the hundreds of residents in the surrounding high rise apartments able to observe the structure and its construction.
signage
Signage was installed directing the public back to the institutional project space, with the aim of creating circulation between the sites.
documents
The completed structure. Inside the official city master plan of the area was posted, along with portfolio images of of previous Orange Work interventions, so that a degree of transparency to the authors would be revealed to interested parties. Some walls of the infogon were left intentionally blank, in the hope that a community bulletin board situation might arise.
The infogon amidst the weekend flea market.
display
Meanwhile, at the museum site, an ambiguous construction site situation was created to display the orange work archive as well as documentation and maps to the Infogon.
sign of the author
Metal sign at exhibition hall site in format of Portuguese contractor work site permit.
digestion
After approximately ten weeks, the Infogon structure was eventually torn down and completely removed by area residents for salvage-- digestion of the intervention into the city organism.