Intensive Care
RAAAF was asked to make a statement about the urban development in Istanbul. In December 2012, when doing research for our contribution to the Istanbul Art Biennial, we could feel the tension rising in the city of Istanbul. RAAAF’s proposal for the installation “Intensive Care” was a response to this. It dates from March 29, 2013 (two months before the Gezi protests) and was invited by the curatorial team of the Biennial. Later that spring, reality on Taksim Square outran us and therefore we decided to adapt and make a small version of the light installation in Antrepo 3, the main exhibition space of the biennial. It expresses the core idea of the colossal light-installation that RAAAF wanted to make in a modernist landmark of the secular Turkey: Atatürk Cultural Center.
In the heart of the city, Atatürk Cultural Center reflects the precarious situation in Istanbul. Both the building itself and the freedom of speech – which manifests itself right at the front door, at Taksim Square – are continuously subject of debate. The light that comes from deep inside the building has a rhythm that is based on the breathing of a patient hospitalized at the Intensive Care. The status of the “patient” is unclear: seemingly roaming the twilight zone between life and death.
>>> Interview by Art 21 - New York
Client: Istanbul Biennial, Fulya Erdemci
Team: Ronald & Erik Rietveld, David Habets
Lighting technician: Frank Hulsebosch
Status: exhibition 2013
Quotes from reviews
Istanbul Art Biennial 2013
— The New York Times
"One project that was unthinkable after the Gezi uprising was by Erik and Ronald Rietveld, brothers who form the Dutch collective RAAAF. They initially proposed an installation in which thousands of tiny lights would flicker like fireflies on the facade of the Ataturk Cultural Center, a landmark in the center of Taksim Square. But after the building became festooned with protest banners during the Gezi Park demonstrations, Biennial organizers never got a response from the Turkish Culture Ministry about their request […]. Instead, the brothers’ installation, “Intensive Care,” features a small dark room in which lights play against a tiny scale model of the building.''
— Financial Times
''Also memorable was “Intensive Care” by RAAAF, a Dutch studio that had originally intended to install its work, a light that responds to human presence, in the Atatürk Cultural Centre in Taksim. Deprived of that chance, Rietveld simply scaled down its model and put it in a pitch-black space within Antrepo. After the cacophony of ideas outside, the quiet, poetic provocation of that flashing square stilled the mind and opened the imagination.''
— The Süddeutsche Zeitung
''Starting at the Atatürk Cultural Center, the Amsterdam artist group RAAAF wanted to cast a softly glowing band of light across the city's main traffic hub, where ground is being cleared for a grand building project, whether shopping mall, mega mosque or baroque opera house. Rarely has there been a better moment for critical contemporary art.'
— The Huffington Post
"Originally, curator Fulya Erdemci felt presenting art outside to a broader public would have highlighted the city's physical and social transformation, which has been often traumatic. But the protests forced the organisers to withdraw inside just a few months before the opening. Many artists had to quickly re-contextualise their work, while others had to scrap theirs altogether and present something new. Dutch brothers Erik and Ronald Rietveld's light installation projected onto the Ataturk Cultural Centre, an iconic concert venue overlooking Gezi Park, became the intimate yet just as powerful Intensive Care. A miniature rendering of the building's façade throbs with light like a life-support machine. The piece asks the question of whether the venue will survive the wrecking ball after conflicting government statements about its fate of the building - a controversial cultural landmark that was draped in banners by outlawed political groups during the protests."
— The Guide Istanbul
''RAAAF' s piece is also directly influenced by the protests, as their proposed installation Intensive Care was due to be projected onto the Atatürk Cultural Center. Yet when this became the heart of the summer’s demonstrations, a giant billboard for so many mixed messages, it could no longer be realized. Instead a replica of the building sits at the end of a long dark room, lit up by pulsating light that the artists told us “flashes to express the feelings of the precarious situation, speeding up into increasing chaos.”
>>> Istanbul Biennial website