Intensive Care
RAAAF was gevraagd een statement te maken over de stedelijke ontwikkeling van Istanbul. Toen we in december 2012 op locatie onderzoek deden, voelden we de spanning in Istanbul oplopen. Onze installatie Intensive Care reageert hierop en maakt de precaire situatie op het Taksimplein voelbaar voor de miljoenen voorbijgangers in het hart van de stad. Het voorstel dateert van 29 maart 2013 (twee maanden voor de Gezi-protesten), en was reeds geaccepteerd door het curatorial team van de Istanbul kunstbiënnale. De realiteit op het Taksim plein haalde ons echter in waardoor we ons moesten aanpassen en besloten een kleinere versie van de lichtinstallatie te maken in Antrepo 3, de hoofdexpositiezaal van de biënnale. Het representeert het kernidee van de reusachtige lichtinstallatie die RAAAF wilde maken in een modernistisch icoon van het seculiere Turkije: Atatürk Cultural Center.
In het hart van de stad weerspiegelt Atatürk Cultural Center de precaire situatie in Istanbul. Zowel de vrijheid van meningsuiting – die voor de deur wordt gevierd op Taksim plein – als het gebouw zelf zijn voortdurend onderwerp van discussie. Het ademhalingsritme van een patiënt op de Intensive Care is vertaald naar een frequentie van langzaam pulserend licht dat wordt geprojecteerd door de gevel. Hoe de 'patiënt' er precies voor staat is onduidelijk: die lijkt zich te bewegen op het grensvlak van leven en dood.
>>> Interview by Art 21 - New York
Opdrachtgever: Istanbul Biennial, Fulya Erdemci
Team: Ronald & Erik Rietveld, David Habets
Lichttechnicus: Frank Hulsebosch
Status: tentoonstelling 2013
Recencies
Istanbul Art Bienniale 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