| Title | M.Id |
| Year | 2001 |
| Location | New Orleans, Louisiana |
| Brief | Urban Reconfiguration |
| Notes | See “T.A.Z. 5.4” project and “T.A.Z. Experiment” installation |
Multiple Identities in urban systems are investigated in New Orleans through social attraction grid systems, spatial grids and urban constructions, and identity-driven cultural dislocations. Following an understanding of Bourbon St. as a magnet for multiple pleasures and lifestyles, a “disjointed space” is proposed – multiple entrances, extended thresholds morphing into gathering spaces, a labyrinth of tunnels above and below, parallel and at angles to the ground, public and private – seemingly endless and void of direction. Within this labyrinth, an intended space; “a monument, which transmutes the fear of the passage of time and anxiety about death into splendour”.
¶ What is proposed is the elimination of types, beliefs, colour and culture through extreme emotional and physical conditions.
¶ To display death as splendour is to experience it. A space to touch death – a body afloat on a deserted lake, an acid-head tiptoeing on the edge of a skyscraper, a speeding car reaching towards the end of a cliff. Look at death in its face and return. Reach the altar and escape the labyrinth, enhancing an understanding of life through the proximity of death. And within this labyrinth, an altar is hidden: where the two meet. Where the drugged washouts catch a glimpse of heaven.
¶ Projections of past failures slowly dying out at the back, giving space to altar. A church. “Where the fine line between reality and virtual dreams exists.”