Kites
Flying kites can bring a sun and sea atmosphere to the grimmest and windiest of urban public spaces.
In a counter-offensive against the rhetoric of cities as dull and unattractive places, ‘Kites’ hijacks the imagery of holiday and dolce far niente from the beach and brings it to an urban context. The activity attracts other users of urban public space with similar ideas to gradually occupy the public space, to show that cities easily measure up to beaches as places for leisureliness.
‘Kites’ is a strategy, more than a tool. The kites flown are the ones that are for sale in most sports shops. It just takes an urban eye to see how the wind whirls around buildings, and an urban conviction that this can be done in cities. Flying kites happens to work best on monumental sites where huge esplanades are border by enormous buildings. This unintentionally gives flying kites a slightly insurgent touch.
Exquisite sites for flying kites in Brussels are the sité administrative and the European institutions, in London Canary Wharf and the Mall; proposals for other sites are always welcome.
Ongoing projects:
L-Atlas
Precare
Generalized Empowerment
Krax
Micronomics
Cartografie
Bouillot
Publications:
Bunker Souple Repertorium 1998 & 2000: available at Citymine(d) offices.
Generalized Empowerment. Uneven Development and Urban Interventions, 2006. Download here.
MapRAC. Plannen voor het RijksAdministratief Centrum. La Cité Administrative de l'Etat en cartes & en question, 2004: available at Citymine(d) offices.
Micronomics scanning: DVD online soon.
Networkbook for Urban P/Arts. 42 initiatives capturing London's Public Space, 2004: available at Citymin(e)d offices.
Towards. Cartes Subjectives d'interventions Urbaines à Bruxelles // Subjectieve Kaarten van Stedelijke Internventies in Brussel: available at Citymine(d) offices.