R&Sie(n)
fragment of "thebuildingwhichneverdies", 2010

2 components, each consisting of 5 of lamps, made out of afterglowing glass
Co-Commissioned by Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary


R&Sie(n)’s installation – a foam structure of 12 x 2 meters, carrying 50 units of afterglowing glass – is a scale 1 fragment of the design of thebuildingwhichneverdies. The “chandeliers” populating all surface of the building afterglow as a signal of the mutation of our environment. Their phosphorescence components (“Isobiot®opic” oxide pigment) are working as UV sensor and indicate by night the intensity of UV which affected the zone by day, including people and all species. This way they reveal the solar activity and its degree of dangerousness and the evolution of the Ozone concentration in the stratosphere.
thebuildingwhichneverdies  is a research laboratory of light intended to analyze human beings’ physiological and ocular adaptation to the dark, in order to be able to reduce urban light pollution. A nocturnal observatory pivoting on itself, this lab is aimed at the moon when it’s above the horizon, to take advantage of the one-lux minimum moonlight and even amplify it. At night this lab restores the light intensity of daytime by discharging the UV sensor units located on the exterior surfaces.

Meeting someone means facing the unknown, the strange, or even confronting your own repulsion at negotiating unfamiliar surroundings. It’s neither comfortable nor pleasing. It means crossing a heterotopic space where the passage itself is the only way to define yourself in relation to what’s already there. This involves consideration of risk and a determination of whether or not to go through with it. Meeting doesn’t mean plunging into a masked carnival, or huddling in a dark room, as if in a ceremony meant exclusively for a sum of individualities. It means daring to risk the unknown together.
“I remember the inaccessible zone and the room where wishes are granted in the Tarkovsky movie Stalker; a place you enter after crossing a territory where the gods clashed with humanity – we still don’t know who won that battle. The truth is unstable. Nothing can be discerned but sweat and silence, like climbers roped together, seeking to transgress the forbidden. The fence simultaneously protects those who are still there, about whom we know nothing, and those who dare venture in without knowing how to make use of what they may find there. At the end of the journey, amid the humid dilapidation, looms this Room of Wishes, where architecture is precisely the meeting point…”
R&Sie(n)’s installation is something similar, touching something which could simultaneously intrigue, attract and repulse you. The meeting point is not pretending to be safety.
 

François Roche: *1961 in Paris, France