Televator

Still from ‘Televator’, with Kris Delacourt, Nico Dockx and Michelle Naismith, Antwerp, 2003-'04 (nota bene: Nico Dockx holding a Dan Flavin lightwork as a reading lamp, also Ann Veronica Janssens' green pebbles scattered on the floor)

‘Zonder Titel', 'Televator', 'Spectaculation' and 'MuHKA Collection Audit’ etc, with Kris Delacourt, Nico Dockx and Michelle Naismith, 'de Collectie Interventies' program, curated by Bart De Bære and Dieter Rœlstræte, MuHKA, Antwerp, 2003-'04

'MONOPOLIS / Antwerpen', survey exhibition, curated by MuHKA, Extra City and Objectif Exhibitions, Witte de With CHK, Rotterdam, 2005-'06

Televator

Map-reference and compass-point fires off double-ended guns, shooting out upright solarium-ray timber-beams and rafter-eaves. These spotlights photographically develop cinema projections onto shopsoiled, burnt, tarnishing and rusty shadows, stationed on potters’-wheel D.J turntables, staying put there until they bake, electroplate and glaze, when these manhole drain covers have to prepare for vertical take off and landing. One half, low-flying aircraft, fixed upon floating aquatic floor; the other, inlaid into cloudy aerial ceiling as mountain-climbing synchronised-swimmers; both cling on and slide along, using their barnacle and limpet suction-pads; all holding exactly the same position, kept in line by, at same time as the rest.

Around outer boundary limits, faraway distant close-up details reflect and magnify themselves, leaving visible and clear windows behind. As an alternative to load-bearing walls, the guild of carpet-weaving, jeweller and mosaicist silkworms embroider tapestry of blinds and shutters from harp and lyre cord. Every meshed ventilator, sail rigging, mosquito-net and theatre-curtain, stretches taut, slackening loose, seen and passed straight through, except where vision and access are blocked by arched doors and gateways, always on the move, changing place, whenever it suits them.

Bricked-up, somewhere, deep inside cylindrical pilaster intestines, escape-committee insulates cavities and residents’ association tunnels-out; each side, observing reverential and devoted adherence to plans, first set down, very long ago, then handed on, ever since, by generations of ancient secret-passageways.

©, Copyright, Douglas Park, 2003

'Andere Sinema' number 170, edited by Dieter Rœlstræte and Sarah Leisdovich, MuHKA, Antwerp, 2004