PORTFOLIO MAXIME GHEYSEN

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 Tarantino, 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, notfortourists.com, Banksy, Bernard Tschumi, Burning Man Festival, Puddingcam, Matthew 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, Macy’s, Superstudio, Jane Birkin, ArchizOom, Côte d’Azur, Mascolori, Red Bull, Office KGDVS, Chris Cunningham, Modeselektor, Gutai, Greg Lynn Form, BMW, Andy Warhol, French, Martin Heidegger, The Sketchup Warehouse, Steven Holl, smosh, Masahiro Mori, Arne Quinze, dandyism, Luc Deleu, Ovation TV, Körperwelten, 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 Architects, Minoru Yoshida, Tim Burton, Eric Owen Moss, Pansy the horse, Soulwax, STEALTHgroup, NL Studio, Ed Banger Records, Berlinde De Bruyckere, Willem Dafoe, Ottmar Hörl, Amy Winehouse, Stanley Tigerman, Dreamcops, Depeche Mode, Alice In Wonderland, snowboarding, Pierre Koenig, Lana Del Rey, Alfred Hitchcock, my friends, organic functionalism, 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.

master project 2012 @ Khouribga, Morocco

#wastelands #phosphate #ghost town #festival #network #scenario #spaces of noninterest

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 brutalizing these spots.

Mining sites are exploited until eventually they become completely paperless because the proportion 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 consist 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, transmigration), 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, elements, 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 monologue in a pragmatic landscape as stage. The spectators are gone.

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

junk space

of modernization, are no longer current architecture, but : 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!”

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

People versus places or people in banished places are behaving as

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 CSI

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

margin of our society, the null space or no man’s land. An interface subcultures of contemporary society, to those who are also banned from the streets, Starbucks, Disneyworld or school parties… mon context: They are degraded to the

connects disposable spaces with standard discharge and

Network

P.O.I.

process system

attractors beacons points XL-elements

PLACE

SCENARIO

decor locus GIS terrain

drama action program event

equilibrium: a contempo‘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’.

The metropolis depicts them as a necessary evil, but demands for rary society should tolerate and sustain this

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...

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 individuals 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 surfeit of information, and (too) much space.

ARRIVAL / BIRTH

Birth / 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 transshipment 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-toshow -off, plane-to-plane-off ‘.

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-ethicists, disillusioned ex-Burning Man’ers, homeland dischargers, PTSD-ers, gamblers, De Sade-copycats, crookers & fakers, extremes, skinny jeans hipsters, body artists, prozac-sufferers, noise-lovers, Generation Z +, the new elite, fetisjists,…

MAINTENANCE

The 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,..).

CEREMONY It 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 ‘operating system’, allowing people to create their own programs for spatial interaction.

DEPARTURE / DEATH Death, the end, the Omega. Departure.

This last phase of the trail indicates the achieved success of ‘cleansing’ the individual ... 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.

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

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

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, (aesthetical) medical treatments, bodymods, dancing, self-development, 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�, entertaining, upcycling, celebrating, wellness, zen, pure, hustling ,...

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

Airports

, airfields, landing strips embody the most important parts of ghost towns’ Elements in a global Network.

They are located in a distant juxtaposition relative to the core of the site, although they decrease huge spaces.

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

generic space

element of a , 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 accessible 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

freedom

custom-technical

(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. exit

international zone

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

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

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

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.

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 information, 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 accelerating the collective intelligence. The creative catalyst was the city: it is not a coincidence, when people migrate to cities in large numbers, creativity and innovation thrives...

bachelor project 2010 @ Doel, Beveren, BE.

#ghost town # housing project #sustainability #xl-elements analysis #orientation #masterplan #fractals

Breaking Ground artefacts

Doel, a village disappearing caused by Antwerp’s port expansion plans. Only three types of 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

Traces of the place.

XL-elements

An analysis results in the demand for a building of the same portainers, nuclear plant, large container vessels and electricty pylons.

context of dematerialized sites. They embody the

scale as its surroundings, a beacon competing with

The program, besides housing, involves maximal use of terrain as a paintball field or other cross track.

dirt track activities, such as a motor-

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.

A new kind of tiling, a

“Comfort space” “self-sufficience space” “no man’s land village grid”

70 m2 / pp 140 m2 / pp 36480 m2

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

cluster 360 units = 4x10x9 = 4x9x10 = 10x9x4 typology: XL 2x4 SLPR

L 2x3 SLPR

M 3x2 SLPR

S 3x1 SLPR

1120 x 4

4480 x 9

(180 m2) (140 m2) ( 90 m2) ( 70 m2)

= = = =

360 280 270 210

m2 m2 m2 m2

= 1120 m2

= 4480 m2 = 40320 m2

1/3 x 40320 = 13440 m2 2/3 x 40320 = 26880 m2

open space

CLUSTER 10 UNITS

#

360

210 180

140 exchangeable VOLUME

SELF SUFFICIENCY greeN

25 % circulatie comfort green

0

25 % circulatie

3x1 slpk

3x 2 slpk

LOFTS 1

LOFTS 2

70

90

25 % circulatie

25 % circulatie

2 x 3 slpk

2x4 slpk

LOFTS 4

LOFTS 3

140

180

square metres

5 units

1 unit 2 units

10 units 20 units

xl-element Analysis

30 units

14m

45 units

18m

90 units

120 units

35m

130m 120m 180 units

54m

172m

72m

NORTH

EAST

SOUTH

WEST

NORTH

WEST

SOUTH

EAST

NORTH

L-UNITS 140m2

S-UNITS 70m2

terraces

circulation V

appartments /circulation H

appartments /skin /stacking

UCO Ghent 2006 - 2010 This is a reconversion of a high-rise office building 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. original project 2006

deformations

isometric view

Roller store (insulated) gutter

1250

700

1250

1150

vapor barrier 0,25mm Sch端cko PyroStop door Rf1/2h triple plaster board planking Rf2h

590 520

original project 2009

deformations

isometric view

OUTSIDE

1150

2850

590

redesigned project 2009

deformations

isometric view

3740

820

2060

770

545

720

545

INSIDE

OUTSIDE 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 6

1 2 3 4 5

-

-

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

prefab parquet floor system 9mm Fermacell (heat-conductive plate) 40mm Fermacell (prefab floor heating system : cassette) 45mm moisture barrier 0.25mm acoustic insulation (anti-noise) 70mm leveling 45mm bearing reinforced concrete slab 300mm Knauf F30 (suspended ceiling), acoustic insulation Botanical Name

Height (cm) Color

Sedum ewersii

10-15

pink white

8-9

Sedum floriferum

10-15

gold yellow

7-8

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.

Flowering

Seum katschmat.

10-15

yellow

6-7

Sedum telephium

40

red

7-9

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.

INSIDE

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

1 2 3 4 5

-

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

1 2 3 4 5

-

Knauf AW (lightweight wall, Rf2h) - insulation mineral wool windbreaker 0.25mm isolated void (HEB 300 stiffening) vapor barrier 0.25mm - sd 10 Knauf BW (lightweight wall, Rf2h) - insulation mineral wool

OUTSIDE

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 stability 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’) Consequently, the members are relatively light providing a very stiff overall structural response and very light, solid tiebars 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 incorporated into the spatial frame, the range of efficient height is increased. The upper limit is in the range of 60 floors.

reconstructing imaginary space 2011 @ my mind #mind #childhood #memory #manual #voids #WW2 #grandparents #airplanes #playtime

“The Method Of Loci” is about reconstructing. memory

Just like an archeologist you dig, drill, destroy, ruin, research, reconstruct, and deconstruct spaces you capture in your .

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.

Lockheed C-130 Hercules

This was a : 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.

mental reconstruction

A obliged 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 reconstructed. 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

Sick Of You Iggy Pop - I’m

Link Wray & His Ray Men - Rum ble

Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark - Dazzle Ships

The monolithic whole represents a kind of continuity 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 surface, a two-dimensional manifold in which notions 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.

1

V3

1

V3

1

V2

1 V2

V2

1 m x 1m x 1m = 1 m3 V2 = 1,414 m V3 = 1,732 m Maxime = 1,79 m “How would a chair look like, if your knees were bending in the opposite direction ?”

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…

obstruction project 2012

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.

@ ghent, BE @Saint-claude, fr.

The ultimate goal is trying to predict and achieve , 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...

#body #imperfections #beauty #horror #posthumanism #pain #avatars #evolution #uncanny

body modifications

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.

01 05 08 17 24 31 42 55

05 16 30 39 48

elbows-back squat : vertebrae lower back hurt elbows-back : tibia R hypohemia flat sit Lshoulder hurts elbows-back Rleg Rfoot hypohemia flat sit : elbows hurt legged : elbows hurt legged : groin hurts

kneeled-elbows : knees & elbows hurts squat : toes Rfoot spasm sideways : Rleg hurts Rfeet spasm squat : vertebrae lower back hurts flat sit : Rfoot Lfoot hypohemia

00 legged 46 legged : dorsum R hurts 56 kneeled : knees hurts

14h00

08 19 22 28 40 57

15h00

16h00

07 17 33 39 47 02 06 22 23 40 48

legged : Rdorsum hurts legged : Ltibia spasm flat sit : back hurts “straight up, bent over”: trying to stretch legged : hungry

sideways : still thursty sideways back : Larm, Lfoot hypohemia cheated : drank coke, so I stood up kneeled kneeled : knees hurt flat sit : Rleg hypohemia

legged : Rleg spasm. Thirsty sideways : Rdorsum hurts “straight up, bent over”: trying to stretch legged : lower back hurts squat : Ltoes spasm flat sit : back hurts

17h00

18h00

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02 squat : Ltoes spasm 09 legged : dorsums hurt 15 sideways : Rshoulder hurts 18 sideways : hungry 26 flat sit : spine hurts, tired 34 sideways : Rside hurts 48 squat : stifness all over, hungry, thirsty, toilet

08 11 15 22 31

flat sit : stiffness lower back kneeled : tibia’s hypohemia, knees hurt sideways : Ldorsum hurts sideways : Rleg, Rfoot hypohemia candle pose : legs, feet hypohemia, blood pressure rises, vertebrae hurt 33 flat sit : neck hurts 44 sideways : Rarm hypohemia 51 “straight up, bent over”: trying to stretch

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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 tingling 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 accelerated.

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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 the universe. This is something the humanists have yet to accept.

progress of human society is geared towards the transformation of the human species as we currently know it.

All technological

Surf or die. You can’t control a wave, but you can ride it.

machines

In the posthuman era, machines will no longer be .

We now realise that human knowledge, creativity and intelligence are ultimately

limited.

emerging

Complex machines are an form of life.

A complex machine is a machine whose workings we do not fully understand or control.

develop to be more like humans, so humans develop to

As computers likecomputers more.

Discontinuity produces aesthetically stimulating experiences, continuity produces aesthetically neutral experiences.

Discontinuity is the basis of all creation, but discontinuity is meaningless without continuity.

Discontinuity is the basis of all less without continuity.

creation, but discontinuity is meaning-

Consciousness is not exclusively restricted to the brain. organ

Consciousness is the function of an organism, not an .

To say that conscious thought is not exclusively a function of the brain does 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.

(mind) and the environment (reality) cannot be

Consciousness separated; they are continuous.

There is nothing cannot be fixed.

external to a human, because the extent of a human

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

logical. Logic is an idealised, self-referential system developed by human imagination. Since there rently limited by the fact that they are

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.

predictable

Currently the output of computers is . The posthuman era begins in full when the output of computers is unpredictable.

hermetically sealed.

They are limited by the complexity of the calculations our machines can perform. They are only sensitive to a finite number of stimuli, and the quotient of randomness intruding upon them is Most artificial intelligence machines are

relatively small.

antagonistic relationship with their surroundings. Posthumans, on the other hand, regard their own being as embodied in an extended technological

Humanists saw themselves as distinct beings in an

world.

ICH

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

HYPERDENS(c)ITY 2011 @ wherever. #clash between cultures #usa #ISLAM #disneyworld #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 direction, due to a lack of instruments for centuries... value? incorrect mystification ? check!

Hadj ? existence?

A REnnaissance takes shape !

1 ! proximity Mosque

??

2 ! astronomical localization

??

3 ! Mecca, the Qa’aba

The Qa’aba is the house of All muslims

0째

270째

90째

180째

Ride the water rollercoaster in such a way that our Muslim brothers and sisters participate in the woedoe, the obliged pre-praying 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 !

unwrapped

Woedoe, Wet & Wild !!

orientation by the sun

Thrillseeker ?

the concentration city project 2007 @ short stories of J.G. Ballard #sci-fi #endless #kowloon #darkness #scale #massivity #numbers

trace project 2009 @ Ghent, BE

#performance #privacy #public spaces #spaces of non-interest #rape space #crimes #xxx

“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 leftover 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 getaway route in a neighbourhood, for example pursuers (cops, molesters).

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…

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

An Urban Conflict.

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

Speed, entice.

[together with @matsdekock]

screenshots

GOLGOTHA 2009 @ Ghent, BE

What Is God? He’s Length, Height and Depth (Saint-Bernard De Chairvaux / 1090-1153)

#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

performance project 2009 @ zeebrugge, be #manifesto #superstudio #life without objects #grid #pattern #video #escape #drilling

copyright Maxime Gheysen

HARVE STING TIME

all images & text copyright Maxime Gheysen