PORTFOLIO OF MAXIME GHEYSEn °10 02 1987 M.I E : gheysenmaxime@gmail.com II Insta : @maximegh III Pheed : @mxmgheysen IV TWT : @mxmgheysen V Influenced by :

J.D. Salinger, Photoshop, noise, Kowloon, R&Sie, alcohol, fashion, Las Vegas, Olivier De Sagazan, London, tattoos, distopy, MVRDV, The Venice Biennale, Kendall Geers, The Guggenheim, Marlboro Gold, iTunes, Isabella Stewart Gardner, Gilbert & George, Quentin Tar-antino, Rem Koolhaas, Gaspard Noé, nature, Giorgio Moroder, Anselm Kiefer, mathematics, plastic surgery, skinny jeans, UN Studio, motorcycles, Cinema 4D, Fischli und Weiss, cranes, Woody Allen, Bloody Mary, Jacques Derrida, notfortour- ists.com, Banksy, Bernard Tschumi, Burning Man Festival, Puddingcam, Mat- thew Barny, Zaha Hadid, Space Invader, Inception, Supra footwear, Atelier Van Lieshout, post-readymades, Otto Von Schirach, Marchand & Meffre, KDa, Erwin Wurm, Steve Jobs, Mad Men, SANAA, Ma-cy’s, Superstudio, Jane Birkin, ArchizO- om, Côte d’Azur, Mascolori, Red Bull, Office KGDVS, Chris Cunningham, Mode- selektor, Gutai, Greg Lynn Form, BMW, Andy Warhol, French, Martin Heidegger, The Sketchup Warehouse, Steven Holl, smosh, Masahiro Mori, Arne Quinze, dan- dyism, Luc Deleu, Ovation TV, Körper-welten, Diet Coke, The Pirate Bay, Mick Jagger, Eduard François, deephouse, We Live In Public, Coop Himmelb(l)au, Youtube, Stanley Kubrick, Zabou Art, Paul Smith, Gigon & Guyer, Gianbatista Piranesi, Deadwood, Cecil Balmond, Johny Cash, Alberto Perez-Gomez, John F. Kennedy, nodata.tv, Liberace, Diller+Scofidio, Delirious New York, Yes Is More!, YOLO, West8, gin-tonic, stay.com, Pfadfinderei, Prince, Bauhaus, Virgin Prunes, Gordon Matta-Clark, Future Systems, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Arthur Rimbaud, Nicola Benedetti and The Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Foursquare, Tezuka Archi-tects, Minoru Yoshida, Tim Burton, Eric Owen Moss, Pansy the horse, Soulwax, STEALTHgroup, NL Studio, Ed Banger Re- cords, Berlinde De Bruyckere, Willem Dafoe, Ottmar Hörl, Amy Winehouse, Stanley Tigerman, Dreamcops, Depeche Mode, Alice In Wonderland, snowboard- ing, Pierre Koenig, Lana Del Rey, Alfred Hitchcock, my friends, organic func- tionalism, deus, Sidney Lumet, Femmes De Paris, William S. Burroughs, Direct8, Grace Jones, Facebook, Iris Van Herpen, Jean Nouvel, Scarface, Architecture Without Architects, The Generic City, Richard Blanco, Giorgio Di Chirico, D.A.F. de Sade, minimal, ships, Haus-Rucker-Co, Ibos & Vitart, Charles Burns, The Show Must Go On!, Sanford Kwinter, metabolism, NOX, Andrei Tarkovski, Billy Bragg, apple, Foreign Office Architects, The Kinks, Richard Galpin, Alberto Kalach, Lebbeus Woods, Carlo Carrà, Kraftwerk, Titi & The German Kid, Realistic Polka Trash, Exit Through The Giftshop, UKF, Baroque, Jacques Tati, suspenders, Steampunk, Ricki Hall, Barnotes, Barton Perreira, Donna Summer, Elon Musk, Paul Baeten Gronda, italo Disco, David HAmilton, Colatron, folklore imaginaire, INSTAX, LEVis, Charles trees, brian de palma, fabric, glamrock, the soska sisters, jan Hammer, marina abramovic & ulay, anatomy, James Muprhy, rooftops, sunrise, Popeye, Jean-Louis lebris de kerouac, fisticuffs, cork, Murdock London, Raymond frederick Harryhausen, zeppelins, studio Ghibli, Fuhimiko Maki Collective Form Investigations, postmodernism, Dalston, Adultswim.

masterproject 2012

@ Khouribga, Morocco

#wastelands #phosphate #ghost town #festival #network #scenario

#spaces of non-interest

Ore mining on a global scale is processed in ‘open’ mines. They’re excavated from the surface (ie robbery) and injuring the landscape in such a way that the scars are permanently visible. The spatial impact is unseen and the economic exploitation prevails against the sedentary human presence. Similar gold rush creates a wave of migration attracted by economic activities. Side effects cause shelters, camps and barracks changing into real towns and cities. Sure enough it is called ‘transmigration villages’. As quickly as they rise, they relegate into demised ghost towns. A phosphate mine equals a gold mine, equals a supply station (steam) train or a picturesque village in the expansion plans for a world port. An inverse diaspora of adventurers, (workers from mining) companies and entrepreneurs from the juxtaposition of the aforementioned are brutal-izing these spots.

Mining sites are exploited until eventually they become completely paperless because the propor-tion of remaining fraction and dust is simply much greater compared to the valuable mineral. Slowly, a plundered moonscape of worthless, sometimes even contaminated area, a true ruin of several square kilometers rises. The phosphate mine in Khouribga, in the hinterland of Casablanca is a silent witness of such a story and the decline phase is ongoing. The intrinsic value of these ‘abandoned place (s)’ is correlating the past and is warning the future. Ghost towns mainly con-sist of intriguing, historical artifacts and reflections as a result of unique, mainly economic forces which are subject to dramatic cycles: (the absence of) economic profitability (operating, trans-migration), religion (superstition, war), ethnicity (genocide) and natural disasters (earthquake, eruption, soil) embody the main causes of acceleration, leading to absolute desolation. We should distinguish what’s left and what was.

The research is about “the wounds” evoked by Modernity and has as goal to generate a program,

under the guise of Supermodernity. What survives?

An analysis of 66 ghost towns, radioactively contaminated test sites, weathered war zones and ravaged cities across the whole world, show important similarities, which possibly unfold the next step in the design process. As in a catalogue, these spots are classified according traces, ele-ments, networks and scenarios.

Traces embody the spots, footsteps, places, the GIS-layers, ... Elements embody the

points, beacons in the landscape, attractors, ... Network is about the wider network as a

whole: system, power, religion, railway schemes, ... Scenario tells what the agenda for these three items can imply, the realization of the development of a snapshot, a take. The hybridization of the four items acts as the ultimate merger, escaping from authenticity and creating a space for a program, wading in uncertainty about its exact properties of components.

Few elements of scale remain, called XL-elements or Points Of Interests (POI). Perhaps they’re too big, too heavy or indivisible to be taken, they suffer a lonesome death in an equally dramatic decor: a destroyed or weathered mosque continues to defend its function to the last stone. Electricity pylons rise like cathedrals above an endless landscape, unaware of their role as energy sources to achieve a gold mining town on the horizon. Giant mining vehicles on tracks are rusting along improvised roads around exhausted mines. Everyone remembers the images of the hastily abandoned ferris wheel and bumper stall in the amusement park Prypryat, situated next to the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, after this area freezed into a contaminated no-mans-land for the next 250 (from the radioactive meltdown) year. They are worthless, but they perform a mono-logue in a pragmatic landscape as stage. The spectators are gone.

The comparison between points of convergence and contradiction will demonstrate how products

of modernization, are no longer current architecture, but junk space: what remains after a fast, modern development in economics or interests and what remains after an almost equally rapid repression.

Re-operating with eg. better facilities (mechanical infrastructure, capital injection) seems at a dead end. (sustainabilty eco-terrorism?). Neither we should achieve a fake conversion of these spaces into tourist attractions:

“Ghost Town Chinguetti! City Of Dust!”, Atomic tourism – get your own Geiger Counter! –

and “Highway 50: The loneliest road in America!”

People versus places or people in banished places are behaving as noise, as annoying interfer-

ence, contaminating the sterile tissue of the city. They’re dismissed, they’re “stealth”: invisible on the radar of delusional visitors in a disneyficationed environment.

junkspace, much?

+

The radical display of disturbing activities and their users, who are objectively a social network, clearly works in a different direction with respect to a disturbing familiarity (... almost paradoxical).

Fears and desires play an generative function, and repellent properties of controversial ‘dirty’ activities

are the primary instruments of dissection of the specificity of the context. Like researchers from CSI, architects rummage in garbage and in decomposing corpses until they discover the most authentic and surprising reality, us-

ing the collected “evidence” and intrude a toolbox of design tools, activating a project.

Khouribga’s emptied mine, Wilmarsdonk dock, Calico’s contaminated soil and Agdam’s post-war zone share a com-

mon context: They are degraded to the margin of our society, the null space or no man’s land. An interface

connects disposable spaces with standard discharge and subcultures of contemporary society, to those

who are also banned from the streets, Starbucks, Disneyworld or school parties…

The metropolis depicts them as a necessary evil, but demands for equilibrium: a contempo-

rary society should tolerate and sustain this ‘junk’. Spaces of Desires are Soft Spaces:

these places should allow all forms of radical self-expression. The clandestine

part remains preserved by “Ausgeleich” due to ‘Maintenance’. In short: illegal clinics, brothels, strip clubs, casinos, dive bars, reflection space, whirl places...

A snapshot from this radical freestate is detailed as a closed track, a circuit. the stages are called

Birth/Arrival, Desires, Maintenance, Ceremony and Death/Departure...

Networkprocesssystem

P.O.I.attractors

beaconspoints

XL-elements

PLACEdecor locus

GISterrain

SCENARIOdrama action

programevent

The space of immanence of desire.A charged field, defined as a process of production, screenplay, drama, stage or cycle. Junkspace or non-place acts as a base of programmable absence and contrasts to a surface of stratification, where meaning, topic and sentence obtain a true absolution. Dematerialized sites behave like a body without organs, a place of non-encoded streams.

“Assembled landscapes” are already conceived as a network of ghost towns around the world, connected by roads, aviation, navigation, or Internet. They act as collages in time and space. A landscape of hybridization allows synchronizing threads together into a whole infinitely variable, free to assume different identities. A context that is in constant transformation demands the same continuity from its users.

The repossession from non-place to place indicates harboring individ-uals or understanding the protocol that sends flows in all directions, ending in unformed, unstable matters and nomadic singularities.

People spend a lot of time in supermarkets, in airports, in hotel rooms, along highways and on screens (TV, PC, ATM, smartphone).

This Blitzkrieg in generic places results in a change of consciousness in specific relations to places, rather fleeting impressions. The autonomous perception is fragmented, incoherent due to a sur-feit of information, and (too) much space.

DEPARTURE / DEATHDeath, the end, the Omega. Departure. This last phase of the trail indicates the achieved success of ‘cleansing’ the indi-vidual ... or if he dies. Cleansing, because the peer-pressure’ aspect which addepts in extremis encourages as a reflection and then provides a return flight back to reality. the irregularity of this Anti-Rehab finishes for the individual. Game over for one-armed-banditers.

CEREMONYIt includes the ceremonial consummation of the Desire, a number of indulgences to grant.The process of undergoing an abortion, binge drinking, using drugs, gambling or infecting intentionally with HIV. It exists. It has to exist! Social infrastructure supports a generative space, an ‘oper-ating system’, allowing people to create their own programs for spatial interaction.

MAINTENANCEThe conservation, the crew, Maintenance and utilities... The one that provides an equilibrium, an Ausgeleich showing respect to The Desires.Offenders and convicted criminals are about the only individuals who desire a clean sheet and a social life, after x-years of (solitary) confinement.As a commutation of penalty, they’re used as laborers who ensure utilities that Desires require (e.g. plumbing, sleeping facilities, clean needles,..), the continuous operation of the Birth and Death (‘airport’, accessibility, columbaria,..).

DESIRES“What’s your desire?” Jetset-cocaine addicts, adrenaline junks, squatters, bug chasers, dreamers, nymphomanias, Amy Winehouse, Lady Gaga, Lourdes Louise Ciccones, JD Salinger, nomads, bikers, anarchists, anti-rehab-ers, outcasts, sinners, insomniacs, freaks & geeks, abortion perpetrators, gypsies, anti-ethi-cists, disillusioned ex-Burning Man’ers, homeland dischargers, PTSD-ers, gamblers, De Sade-copycats, crookers & fakers, extremes, skinny jeans hipsters, body artists, prozac-suffer-ers, noise-lovers, Generation Z +, the new elite, fetisjists,…

ARRIVAL / BIRTHBirth / Arrival, ‘giving birth’. Birth, the beginning, the alpha, a new reality. (Incidentally, what makes reality to reality?). Restless nomads board anywhere in the world a plane of “F#ckyou!-Airlines”, destination : a unique freespace, an Utopian state. The process of traveling and arriving with or without trans-shipment feelings, heimat or the aspect of homecoming is a universal factor, similar to rock stars on tour who experience a closed system condition of ‘plane-to-plane-off, show-to-show -off, plane-to-plane-off ‘.

STARTairport, train station, ferry terminal, bus stop, dock, pontoon, heli-pad, landing strip, spaceport, hub, start, buoy, land, mooring-spot, shelter, entrance, parking, torii, gate, opening, ...

S.O.S.transport, logistics, sanitary, hospital, internet, cleaning, sleep, maintanance, emergencies, help, S.O.S., garbage, ...

D.I.Y. harvesting, rites, smoking, sniffing, gambling, drinking, f*cking, (aes-thetical) medical treatments, bodymods, dancing, self-devel-opment, enriching, rushing, chilling, YOLO, using, abusing, creativity, self-awareness, collectivity, community, changing, exchanging, playing, experimenting, kick, relaxing, partying, feeling, tripping, freewheeling, holiday, surviving, “turn on, tune in, drop out”, en-tertaining, upcycling, celebrating, wellness, zen, pure, hustling ,...

R.I.P.the end, sober, real, logic, cremation, routine, departure hall, cemetary, cryomation, leaving, homecoming, stopping, ...

@casino, lunapark, brothel, night club, fight club, pub, dive bar, gentlemen’s club, event space, playground, race track, plaza, cocainefarm, beach, ...

Airports, airfields, landing strips embody the most important parts of ghost towns’ Ele-ments in a global Network. They are located in a distant juxtaposition relative to the core of the site, although they de-crease huge spaces.

Once the ultimate expressions of neutrality, they are now among the most characteristic

element of a generic space, the strongest transport of differentiation: they weave landscape and time seamlessly together and their autonomy of interconnections turns airfields

into modern cathedrals in an expansive system.

These connections are responsible for the approach of Khouribga. The airport terminal as a generic element is an important link in the autonomous existence of his site. She becomes ac-cessible and acquires meaning and reference.

Furthermore, a unique, global treaty implies that airports contain some ‘free zones’:

It concerns the transit zones and terminals where there is a custom-technical freedom (duty-free zones) and where one is subject to international law, and not by laws of the country in which the airport is located. In other words, where a melting pot of passengers

and passers-by share a common motherland: none.

Customs or border control acts as abrupt exit between the international zone and the actual country of final destination, in which individuals are vulnerable again to national laws.

A snapshot of an up-to-date generated Khouribga 2.0 acts as a autonomous freespace : it is not meant as ‘built’ and has no predefined meaning.

It is non-architecture, an open-source field of vectors.

Khouribga becomes a wasteland, where sectarians of ‘The Temple Of Abortion” can undergo surgery. Anywhere else these are contro-versial treatments.

This is a festival where one can litterally be drugged to death.

the vulnerability of the interface: the typical human environment diverges and implies a shift in public space.

The gradient between both is embedded in an unstable intangibility.

One never knows who’s ‘eyes’ are watching. Like the Internet, it implies a culture of perpetual actualization. It involves tracking and sharing streams of infinite in-formation, not creating information. Every moment is about renewing and checking, as if there should be something more extreme, an endless bombardment ...

Yes, there is always something to share ...

The community of information is leading to the birth of new thought patterns. Ideas, freed from constraints of time and space, are connected by an invisible, wireless metabrain (internet), colliding and exploding into new ideas and accel-erating the collective intelligence. The creative catalyst was the city: it is not a coincidence, when people migrate to cities in large numbers, creativity and innova-tion thrives...

bachelor project 2010

@ Doel, Beveren, BE.

#ghost town # housing project#sustainability #xl-ele-ments analysis #orien-

tation #masterplan #fractals

Breaking GroundDoel, a village disappearing caused by Antwerp’s port expansion plans. Only three types of artefacts remain: liveable houses (smallest %), semi ruins and ruins (largest %). unfolding them, means deconstructing space and revealing a whole new program, based on a absolute

and orientationless design process, so in case of a total demolition of the village, the design can put elsewhere...

The strict, geophysical characteristics of spaces are important elements in (the) only context of dematerialized sites. They embody the

Traces of the place.

An XL-elements analysis results in the demand for a building of the same scale as its surroundings, a beacon competing with portainers, nuclear plant, large container vessels and electricty pylons.

The program, besides housing, involves maximal use of terrain as a paintball field or other dirt track activities, such as a motor-cross track.

A new kind of tiling, a fractal, developed. The pattern also revealed the fact that complexity is born out of deep simplicity, only 3

tile shapes provided an endless articulation. A fractal is self-similar at all scales.

cluster 360 units = 4x10x9 = 4x9x10 = 10x9x4

typology: XL 2x4 SLPR (180 m2) = 360 m2 L 2x3 SLPR (140 m2) = 280 m2 M 3x2 SLPR ( 90 m2) = 270 m2 S 3x1 SLPR ( 70 m2) = 210 m2 = 1120 m2 1120 x 4 = 4480 m2 4480 x 9 = 40320 m2

“Comfort space” 70 m2 / pp“self-sufficience space” 140 m2 / pp“no man’s land village grid” 36480 m2

1/3 private space vs. 2/3 public space

1/3 x 40320 = 13440 m2

2/3 x 40320 = 26880 m2

700 90 140 180

LOFTS 3

square metres

#

25 % circulatie 25 % circulatie25 % circulatie 25 % circulatie

CLUSTER 10 UNITS

exchangeable VOLUME

SELF SUFFICIENCY greeN

comfort green

140

180210

2 x 3 slpk 2x4 slpk3x 2 slpk3x1 slpk

LOFTS 1 LOFTS 2 LOFTS 4

open space 360

xl-element Analysis

1 unit

180 u

nits

120 u

nits

30 units

2 unit

s

5 unit

s

10 u

nits

20 u

nits

45 unit

s

90 u

nits

14m

18m

35m

54m

72m

120m

130m

172m

NORTHNORTH WESTSOUTHEAST

NORTH NORTHWEST SOUTH EAST

S-UNITS70m2

L-UNITS140m2

circulation V

terraces

appartments /circulation H

appartments /skin /stacking

Roller store (insulated)gutter

vapor barrier 0,25mmSchücko PyroStop door Rf1/2htriple plaster board planking Rf2h

1250 12501150 700 590 520

590 2850 1150

3740

820 7702060 545 545720

UCO Ghent 2006 - 2010

This is a reconversion of a high-rise office build-ing to an apartment building.

A fresh look and a concept of double-height units, with stacked gardens and connected by a bright and secure central corridor, demands for precise detailing.

A concrete structure, specific fire regulations and HVAC are the main conceirns to renovate an existing and out of date situation.

INSIDE

OUTSIDE

original project 2006

original project 2009

redesigned project 2009

deformations

deformations

deformations

isometric view

isometric view

isometric view

1 - GDT Typ Sedumteppich 60mm (extensive, self-draining living roof) 2 - coppersheet 0.3mm (root-protection) 3 - Bauder XPS 120 mm (tapered insulation 2%, 2 layers) 4 - BauderTHERM DS 2 (moisture barrier)5 - bearing reinforced concrete slab 300mm

1 - prefab parquet floor system 9mm2 - Fermacell (heat-conductive plate) 40mm3 - Fermacell (prefab floor heating system : cassette) 45mm4 - moisture barrier 0.25mm5 - acoustic insulation (anti-noise) 70mm6 - leveling 45mm7 - bearing reinforced concrete slab 300mm 6 - Knauf F30 (suspended ceiling), acoustic insulation

1 - Fermacell (prefab floor heating system : cassette) 45mm2 - moisture barrier 0.25mm3 - acoustic insulation (anti-noise) 70mm4 - leveling 45mm5 - bearing reinforced concrete slab 300mm

1 - Knauf AW (lightweight wall, Rf2h) - insulation mineral wool2 - windbreaker 0.25mm3 - isolated void (HEB 300 stiffening)4 - vapor barrier 0.25mm - sd 105 - Knauf BW (lightweight wall, Rf2h) - insulation mineral wool

MAIN STRUCTURAL PRINCIPLES The structural system of the high-rise building must resist both gravity (vertical plane) and lateral loads (hori-zontal plane), due to phenomena such as wind. As the height of the building increases, the lateral loads gradually dominate the structural design.

Since the original design project, the load bearing concrete core and columns (1st situation left page) combined with cantilevered floors, changed in an eccentric concrete core combined with the existing column grid (2nd situation left page). The concrete core is provided in the multi-storey structure to house lifts, stairwells and service ducts.

The idea of an open plan scheme was illogic and difficult to combine with realistic structural needs. The torsional stability of the high-rise structure was before provided by the torsional rigidity of the core. Since the core moved, there is a total lack of stiffness on the opposite side.

A second circulation core is added to the building (fire –evacuation route) (3rd situation left page). This main purpose of a bracing system is to provide the lateral sta-bility of the entire structure. It has to resist, therefore, all lateral loading due to external forces. In the longest span direction, the rigidity is assured with 2 double concrete shear walls. Such walls serve a second important function of compartmenting the structure to limit the spread of fire.

In the short span direction is another supplementary bracing system present. Braced-bays are located such that they have minimum impact on the structural layout (steel frame), but taking into account the manner in which the frame is to be erected, the distribution of horizontal forces and the location of any movement joints in the structure.

In fact, they comprise a cross arrangement. Steel frames can be used combined with concrete columns and/or walls, leading to composite structures, which may be called also ‘dual structures’.

The advantage of triangulated systems is that the bracing elements are subjected only to tension (‘cross’) Conse-quently, the members are relatively light providing a very stiff overall structural response and very light, solid tie-bars or flats can be used.

The efficiency of the framed system depends upon the rigidity of the connections and the amount of bracing. Stiffening can be achieved by use of a solid core, shear walls or/and diagonal bracing. As more bracing is incorpo-rated into the spatial frame, the range of efficient height is increased. The upper limit is in the range of 60 floors.

Botanical Name Height (cm) Color Flowering

Sedum ewersii 10-15 pink white 8-9

Sedum floriferum 10-15 gold yellow 7-8

Seum katschmat. 10-15 yellow 6-7

Sedum telephium 40 red 7-9

INSIDE

OUTSIDE

OUTSIDE

reconstructing imaginary space

2011

@ my mind

#mind #childhood #memo-ry #manual #voids #WW2 #grandparents #airplanes

#playtime

“The Method Of Loci” is about reconstructing.

Just like an archeologist you dig, drill, destroy, ruin, research, reconstruct, and deconstruct spaces you capture in your memory. What are the characteristics of human experiences? At what level does it occure? At what level does it take shape?All levels of observation of this multiple process are autonomous; in this multiprocessing reality it is never possible to have a vision of oneself, which is exhaustive; each vision is always from a single point of view and cannot be reduced to another.

Reality is a Multiverse.

What was behind that door, at the end of

the corridor?I tried to reconstruct a cockloft at my grandparents’ house where I use to play a lot when I was a young child. I’ve got raised in a small apartment, so a giant house in a vast garden, with lots of space to play, hide and discover, was an environment who attracted me more then anything else. My grandfather was an adept of all sorts of electronics, World War II and he was collecting almost anything: The ceilings were fully packed with wires, screws, bolts, battle tank parts, radio’s, model trains, model planes, transistors, strange tools, (early) computer parts. Everything was manically organized, like it was almost symmetrically set up. A narrow pathway forced you to find your way in this exhausting atmosphere of information and techniques.

The most important connotation is the experience of the form, the organization, the smell, etc: this is the belly of a military transport aircraft.

This was a Lockheed C-130 Hercules: the insulation of the overhead compartments is the same in the cockloft. The structure of the “fuselages” match! The view through small round windows is on the same height of the ones you see from an airplane.

A obliged mental reconstruction is a process of adjusting spaces, of connecting wires, of welding parts, of building anything up, starting from scratch…Or you do need a manual. Or you just make one yourself.

Impresses from original model airplane parts are recreated in gypsum, whereby the cockloft central space’ overhead compartment is fully re-

constructed. Surfaces who didn’t gain attention from a infantile mind, and thus are “impossible” to recreate cannot be built. A true milestone

was the door at the end of the pathway, where one was not allowed to go. “Too dangerous”. I never knew what was behind that door. All

models are built around that particular door… A small video screen on the spot where the door is, focuses on what could have been “behind the scene”.

DRIVE THIS SHIP TO NOWHERE

Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark - Dazzle ShipsIggy Pop - I’m Sick Of You

Link Wray & His Ray Men - Rumble

The monolithic whole represents a kind of con-tinuity similar to Courbet’s “L’origine Du Monde” whereby an outside surface smoothly becomes an inside concave surface. The ultimate model where time and space collide is a called ‘‘a Klein Bottle”. It’s conceived as a non-orientable sur-face, a two-dimensional manifold in which no-tions of left and right cannot be consistently defined. Also, it has no boundaries. An outside surface becomes an inside surface and the other way around. This refers to the reconstruction of a space, embedded in the memory of itself.

“How would a chair look like, if your knees were bending in the opposite di-rection ?”

Obstruction as a feverish imagination of beauty and horror... ...Towards a posthuman rigidity.

Starting with the idea to use your own body as an obstacle, I « fit » myself into a 1 cubic meter for 10hrs/day. Each side measures 1 meter, the diagonal in one plane is V2 (1,4142 m). The spatial diagonal is the longest possible distance in the cube and measures V3 (1,7302 m). Nevertheless these measurements are too small to fit my entire length of 1,7950 m. Even the given diagonal lengths are impossible to achieve as a comfortable position. So the set-up exists of one who is unable to stretch or stand for 10 hours…

Very soon, discomforts as stiffness, red joints and paresthesia-like feelings in arms and legs are taking the upper hand. All physical pains are strengthened with the lack of food, drinks or a toilet. I made an up-to-date “chart of pain” (next page) where I tried to analyze the most painful position, which I experienced at 20h31: the candle pose. The shoulders are resting flat on the ground, elbows are providing some support, legs are partially stretched up. It stresses the spine a lot.

The ultimate goal is trying to predict and achieve body modifications, or any solution starting from the human body itself, leading to any architectural or evolutional model and analyzing suffered sores from strangling, pinching, hitting, tying or hanging. There isn’t any kind of orthopedic treatments involved: the analysis is forcing the observer to think and create something far from pillows, fauteuils or any “externally achieved” support. Pelvises are the only parts of the skeleton who differ from man and woman and are the main engine for walking, kneeling, bending, etc...

Results are leading to the concept of the transfiguration of the human body and mind, towards a concept of Posthuman-ity. Litteraly, the body is becoming more « fleshy », rigid, stiff and immobile. A cyborg-like concept to create new, universal bones was worth a brainstorm, and it evokes a shift in human looks, elegance, proportions, and that where the mind evolves towards a superior and independent life form...(?)

The mind is operating an avatar, who images the personality in our living space : the internet, social media, an IP-adress, a hoax.

1

1

V2

V2

1V31

1

1

V3

V2

1 m x 1m x 1m = 1 m3V2 = 1,414 mV3 = 1,732 mMaxime = 1,79 m

obstructionproject 2012

@ ghent, BE@Saint-claude, fr.

#body #imperfections #beau-ty #horror #posthumanism #pain #avatars #evolution

#uncanny

14h00 15h00 16h00 17h00 18h00 19h00 20h00 21h00 22h00

00 legged46 legged : dorsum R hurts 56 kneeled : knees hurts

05 kneeled-elbows : knees & elbows hurts16 squat : toes Rfoot spasm30 sideways : Rleg hurts Rfeet spasm39 squat : vertebrae lower back hurts48 flat sit : Rfoot Lfoot hypohemia

01 elbows-back05 squat : vertebrae lower back hurt08 elbows-back : tibia R hypohemia17 flat sit Lshoulder hurts24 elbows-back Rleg Rfoot hypohemia31 flat sit : elbows hurt42 legged : elbows hurt55 legged : groin hurts

08 legged : Rleg spasm. Thirsty19 sideways : Rdorsum hurts22 “straight up, bent over”: trying to stretch28 legged : lower back hurts40 squat : Ltoes spasm57 flat sit : back hurts

02 sideways : still thursty06 sideways back : Larm, Lfoot hypohemia22 cheated : drank coke, so I stood up23 kneeled40 kneeled : knees hurt48 flat sit : Rleg hypohemia

07 legged : Rdorsum hurts17 legged : Ltibia spasm33 flat sit : back hurts39 “straight up, bent over”: trying to stretch47 legged : hungry

08 flat sit : stiffness lower back11 kneeled : tibia’s hypohemia, knees hurt15 sideways : Ldorsum hurts22 sideways : Rleg, Rfoot hypohemia31 candle pose : legs, feet hypohemia, blood pressure rises, vertebrae hurt33 flat sit : neck hurts44 sideways : Rarm hypohemia51 “straight up, bent over”: trying to stretch

02 squat : Ltoes spasm09 legged : dorsums hurt15 sideways : Rshoulder hurts18 sideways : hungry26 flat sit : spine hurts, tired34 sideways : Rside hurts48 squat : stifness all over, hungry, thirsty, toilet

The pain suffered from spine, dorsum, coccyx, sacrum, elbows and knees are translated in a wrapped model around the body: a straitjacket. Every “suit” and its parts are custom built.

The experience from the most painful position (Candle pose) around the person: a wire at the height of the vertebrae is tin-gling nerves. A steel plate presses the dorsum towards a floor or any hard surface. A right-handed person pinches his right arm to his back. The left arm is in a cul-sleeved chest. The whole is hung inverted so that the sense of hypohemie is accel-erated.

Human likeness : positive and negative connotations . There is a “gap” on both direct sides of a Healthy Person, which indicates there is a mental state of projection that splits the boundaries between Reality and Unreality and raises a disturbing ambiguity, causing a slip between waking and dreaming. Exactly in those spots, humanoids and cyborgs appear: they’re very close to the state of mind of a healthy person, they can think, make decisions and anticipate... and that is evoking a dangerous situation of intimidation...

+ +

_ _

It is now clear that humans are no longer the most important things in theuniverse. This is something the humanists have yet to accept.

All technological progress of human society is geared towards the

transformation of the human species as we currently know it.Surf or die. You can’t control a wave, but you can ride it.

In the posthuman era, machines will no longer be machines.We now realise that human knowledge, creativity and intelligence are

ultimately limited.Complex machines are an emerging form of life.A complex machine is a machine whose workings we do not fullyunderstand or control.

As computers develop to be more like humans, so humans develop to likecomputers more.

Discontinuity produces aesthetically stimulating expe-riences, continuity produces aesthetically neutral experiences.Discontinuity is the basis of all creation, but discontinuity is meaningless without continuity.

Discontinuity is the basis of all creation, but discontinuity is meaning-less without continuity.

Consciousness is not exclusively restricted to the brain.

Consciousness is the function of an organism, not an organ.To say that conscious thought is not exclusively a function of the braindoes not deny that the brain has a significant part to play.

Human bodies have no boundaries.

No finite division can be drawn between the environment, the body and the brain. The human is identifiable, but not definable.

Consciousness (mind) and the environment (reality) cannot be separated;they are continuous.

There is nothing external to a human, because the extent of a humancannot be fixed.

We already have machines that can learn. However, their abilities are cur-

rently limited by the fact that they are logical. Logic is an idealised,

self-referential system developed by human imagination. Since there are few things less logical in behaviour than humans, any machine that is restricted to using logic as its base will never display human characteristics.

Currently the output of computers is predictable. The posthuman erabegins in full when the output of computers is unpredictable.

Most artificial intelligence machines are hermetically sealed.

They are limited by the complexity of the calculations our ma-

chines can perform. They are only sensitive to a finite number of stimuli, and the quotient of randomness intruding upon them is relatively small.

Humanists saw themselves as distinct beings in an antagonisticrelationship with their surroundings. Posthumans, on the other hand,

regard their own being as embodied in an extended technological world.

ICH

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMFca1ZoDGc

HYPERDENS(c)ITY2011

@ wherever.

#clash between cultures #usa #ISLAM #disney-

world #amusement #hadj #antropology #event

architecture

Buena Vista Lake District (Site Disney World 111 sq. km)

Mina Hadj Camping site (tent city 110 sq. KM)

Qibla : the sacred direction

a gap exists between the strict praying direction and the assumed praying direc-tion, due to a lack of in-struments for centuries...

value? incorrect

mystification ? check!

Hadj ? existence?

A REn-nais-sance takes shape !

??

??

2 ! astronomical localization

3 ! Mecca, the Qa’aba

1 ! proximity Mosque

The Qa’aba is the house of All muslims

0°

180°

90°270°

Woedoe, Wet & Wild !!Ride the water rollercoaster in such a way that our Muslim brothers and sisters par-ticipate in the woedoe, the obliged pre-pray-ing cleaning ritual. Splash them as hard as you can, helping them get the uppermost step of holiness. In Fact, the water ride ‘loops’ around the Five Prayer locations lighted by the sun on the corresponding prayer times. Also check your Pocket Qibla Locator. You will love this Water Mosque !

orientation by the sununwrapped

Woedoe, Wet & Wild !!Ride the water rollercoaster in such a way that our Muslim brothers and sisters par-ticipate in the woedoe, the obliged pre-pray-ing cleaning ritual. Splash them as hard as you can, helping them get the uppermost step of holiness. In Fact, the water ride ‘loops’ around the Five Prayer locations lighted by the sun on the corresponding prayer times. Also check your Pocket Qibla Locator. You will love this Water Mosque !

orientation by the sununwrapped

Thrillseeker ?

the con-centration cityproject 2007

@ short stories of J.G. Ballard

#sci-fi #endless #kowloon #darkness #scale

#massivity #numbers

Built up from scaffolding, wrapped with red-white tape.

The dynamics of corridors contrast the static nature of the ‘places’. The created spots (in the leftovers of the zigzag motion) provide space for intimacy: desired or undesired intimacy (sexuality, rape spaces, using drugs, hiding, dumping rubbish).

Those features arise as a result of the absence of a program.

Sounds attract the attention of passers-by. Does this cause all kinds of voyeurism? If you don’t want to cross the taped barriers, you don’t have to. Another resemblance to actual situations…

Built up with projected xxx-footage, completely edited with mosaic-like filters and distorted moans. Webcams monitor the visitor and project him in the center of the movie clips.

[together with @matsdekock]

“De Site” is a open community center near Ghent. It’s situated on contaminated ground and is a junkspace in the center of a vicarious neighbourhood…

The course is designed as a corridor, a left-over space. It is set up along an axial route that resembles a suggestion of an escape, related to a crime. A zigzag motion is a get-away route in a neighbourhood, for example pursuers (cops, molesters).

A city pattern allows crime or - from the authoritarian standpoint - prevent it.An Urban Conflict.

Speed, entice.

traceproject 2009

@ Ghent, BE

#performance #privacy #public spaces

#spaces of non-interest #rape space #crimes

#xxx

screenshots

What Is God?

He’s Length, Height and Depth

(Saint-Bernard De Chairvaux / 1090-1153)

GOLGOTHA 2009

@ Ghent, BE

#program #religion #urban tissue # urban scarfs #reclaim the streets

#underground #gothic

The narrative theme of stained-glass windows : one of the church’s many treasures, as the biblical ‘Golgotha’ by Sir Anthony Van Dyck (1630). Golgotha is the place where Jesus Christ was crucified. Transposed in time and space, the painting is a silent witness of the instability of the Roman-Catholic religion, and a global change or fragmentation of the cultus. One is finding an excuse to desecrate religious buildings, churches and chapels. Althus churches become null-objects, reclaimed spaces where the urban tissue dismantles powerful relicts of a cult. Fragmentation is imperative: boundaries blur, faith and recognition are changing into discontinuity in a surviving urban tissue. Formal austerity and the induced left-over spaces accelerate the deconstruction of the place.

Tumult and change, churning cycles of invention and destruction - these forces generate the pulse of urban life. Great cities are organic, spontaneous, heterogeneous, and untidy hubs of social interaction. In

2010, we will inspect the daily course of city life and the future prospect of civilization.

Burning man Festival 2010

RECLAIM THE STREETS !!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtaTI9NCQw8

perfor-mance

project 2009

@ zeebrugge, be

#manifesto #superstudio #life without objects #grid

#pattern #video #escape #drilling

copyright Maxime Gheysen

all images & text copyright Maxime Gheysen

HARVESTING TIME