Gareth Proskourine-Barnett
The Spaceship Ziggurat and the Ripped Concrete
Summary
This is a story about a building.
It was a building that was once made of concrete.
It is a building that has now been demolished.
There were no explosions, fireworks or light shows, just a slow and brutal deconstruction, an unspectacular spectacle.
It is a site of absence. But in the absence there remains possibility. The possibility of regeneration.
This is a story about the future. This is also a story about the past. It is the future in the past and the past in the future, a future future in the past and a past future in the future.
This is a story about movement and mutation. It is about stable and unstable spaces. It is about dislocation. It is a forensic fictioning.
Additional info
This practice-led research project applies a forensic fictioning to the debris of the Birmingham Central Library, reimagining the site as a regenerative pirate spaceship to reclaim Brutalist architecture as an alien other (or xeno).
The physical and ideological destruction of Britain’s Brutalist legacy erases any trace of the buildings utopian ambitions. In an era defined by post-progressive politics and ideological austerity, a willingness to speculate on radical alternatives to the way we preserve Brutalism is needed now more than ever if we are to resist what the collective Laboria Cuboniks refers to as “these puritanical politics of shame—which fetishise oppression as if it were a blessing”. Art historical practices regard Brutalism as an architectural vernacular, this approach fails to acknowledge that it was originally conceived of as a methodology. As a result, there exists a gap in knowledge in the way contemporary documentary practices – applied as a performative action - can engage with sites - such as the Birmingham Central Library - as speculative devices.
This research-project re-appropriates web-based platforms and technologies to define a new documentary vocabulary, exploring how the archaeological possibilities of cyberspace allow us to re-imagine our relationship to sites that have been lost or forgotten and questioning how the distortion and dislocation of Brutalism, experienced via these new technologies, impacts our ability to speculate on the ‘other/xeno’ political and narrative possibilities of place.
Informed by Jane Rendell’s theory of ‘Critical Spatial Practice’ and by applying a materialist reading of the Internet as a Heterotopic space, this research responds to Owen Hatherley’s provocation in Militant Modernism- “what would it mean to look for the future’s remnants?” Through this research project, Brutalism – once the embodiment of technological progress – is (re)located and (re)experienced within the virtual, combining Media Archaeology with New Materialisms to reimagine the Birmingham Central Library as a narrative device through which to challenge hegemonic structures, examining the possibilities for re-radicalising spatial practice and revealing a multi-temporal experience of place and to engage with accelerationist speculations.
-
Gareth is a designer, researcher and educator based in Birmingham, UK. His work applies design fictions to speculate on unstable landscapes and the way materials embody histories. Alongside his practice Gareth makes books as Tombstone Press and runs The Reading Room, an independent library and project space based in Stirchley, Birmingham. He is a Senior Lecturer at Birmingham City University where he teaches onto the BA Art & Design course. Gareth is also a visiting tutor at the Royal College of Art where he contributes to the MA Visual Communication programme.
The Birmingham Central Library
This building is the Birmingham Central Library. It was completed in 1974 and designed by the architect John Madin. It is - or it was - considered an impressive example of Brutalist Architecture. The library embraced an urban ideology of a brave new world, one dominated by the car. At the time it resonated with the city’s legacy of progress, innovation and construction - its worth noting that Birmingham’s motto is Forward. The Central Library was the centre point for this age of renewal, forming part of an ambitious post-war utopian redesign of the civic centre that was to remain only semi completed due to imposed budget cuts.
The library and its surrounding structures have now been demolished and a new commercial development is under construction, expected to transform the public realm. The library was not an old building, it was just 42 years old. It was not in a state of disrepair and yet it has been demolished. What does this tell us? Perhaps it tells us that Brutalist Architecture is dead.
But what if the Birmingham Central Library didn’t die? What if it was able to move? What if it was able to find new territories to occupy? What if it was not longer limited by or confined to its raw materials? Where might we search for traces of its regeneration and what futures might it reveal?
The Regenerative Landscape
A speculative fiction written whilst on residency at Plan8t in Changsha, China. Set in a post-capitalist future, the book was based around the eight chapters in Buckminster Fuller’s 1969 text ‘Operating Manual For Spaceship Earth’ but written from the perspective of a digitised concrete fragment with an artificial intelligence that uploads itself into a buildings operating system.
-
Common Ground
Whilst on residency at The New Art Gallery Walsall in 2019, I began an investigation into the possibilities of the .obj file and the potential of new technologies on sculpture. Working in collaboration with creative coder Ben Neal, I developed a live feed where a rotating concrete fragment was subject to a stream of oil - the flow of liquid determined by the value of oil on the futures market in real time. The exhibition also included CNC machined polythene blocks and a series of digitally manipulated and 3D printed fragments. The work continues an ongoing investigation into ideas around the echo, the unseen, absence and an aesthetics of disappearance; informed by my research into automation, post capitalism and the politics of space.
-
On The Subject Of Precarity
The term precarity – a state of perpetual instability – seems to be especially pertinent within the current moment. Informed by a widespread sense of collective societal anxiety, the exhibition explores the perception of precarity in the entanglement of past, present and imagined futures.
The work explores shifting architectures through a focus on materiality, the significance of the fragment, and a fluctuating relationship to place; the exhibition uses the tangible to make visible political and environmental concerns. Whilst considering precarity in a broader sense, the exhibition is also a reflection on its imminent locale.
-
www.concrete.rip
An open-access archive of concrete fragments from the now demolished Birmingham Central Library. 3D scans of the concrete debris have been made available as mutant copies to download, reuse and repurpose, creating the opportunity to rethink our relationship to concrete and Brutalist utopias. This archive was launched at RE - F O R M Design Biennale in Denmark alongside an exhibition of 3D printed replica concrete debris.
-
