All Along the Watchtower

All Along the Watchtower

Wheel
Building
Map
Bag
High tech gadget
Construction site

"All Along the Watchtower" consists of a mobile foldable tower as a viewing point and non-permanent residence to interact with the cityscape and people. In a constant performance the two group members assemble the artwork onsite, remain for a while and then dismantle it again to take it to a new site (transported on a special handcart). Once put up, the entire construction is self-supporting due to the tension between tension belts and its own weight.
With the tower packed on the handcart and pulled around, the performance is reminiscent of nomadic behavior. The process of achieving balance in architectural and sculptural ways (from constructing to folding together the sculpture) interacts with other movements in the city. As a fixed tower it adds an abstract architectural piece to the cityscape. Its three-dimensional, skeletal structure sets up a kaleidoscopic image of a sculptural nature in the urban surrounding. Scirocco Plot refers back to construction methods of architecture models of the nineteen-sixties and seventies by Buckminster Fuller, David George Emmerich and Kenneth Snelson, who developed the utopian idea of a light, but stable architecture. Tensegrity as a term for a special balance between tension and pressure was used to build geometric achitectural rooms.
"Scirocco Plot" continues today to use construction methods with tension and pressure and performs an architectural sculpture as a moving abstract model. Their geneneral approach is to reflect on the situation of being bounded to the imperfect reality and its idealistic society utopias behind. "All Along the Watchtower" tells about the constructing, using and deconstructing of an ephemeral sculpture. Scirocco Plot attempts to awaken interest in the idea of inventing travelling role models for a globally transient century. They have started this performance once at "Art in Unusual Places" 2008 in Vilnius - European Capital of Culture 2009 and will continue its path to different international cities. Like nomadic people with specialized technical equipment Scirocco Plot travels and reminds utopian ideas of other generations who developed alternative architecture methods to allow people to be in permanent motion and cultivate new society models. The tower is, on a practical level, a device for gaining a better view, an artwork to be gazed at, and a point for establishing contacts. Questions of balance are demonstrated in the transition states from the constructed to the repacked tower and vica versa.
"All Along the Watchtower" is a utopian journey that reflects on time and space. Its paradoxical twist is that despite using sophisticated nomadic devices there is no escape from reality. Every single movement of this experimental trip demonstrates the limitations of everyday life ... being them of social or human nature.

Actors:

Scirocco Plot (Julia Steinmann and Daniela Fromberg)

Location: Vilnius, Lithuania 20-21 September 2008

Other Tools: lookout tower

Walking