Project
Andrew Norman Wilson, Lauren Carter, and Ilie Paun Capriel
mylar, wood, metal, Roomba robotic vacuum, computer, projector, power unit, Cabrini-Green remnants
2009
A recognized tendency in modernism is the application of abstract functions to local conditions – the creation of oppressive and alienating systems that overlook bottom-up dynamics in pursuit of a crystallized utopic vision. Chicago’s Cabrini-Green Housing Projects upheld this tendency in what was an uprooting or deterritorialization of an entire community, in order to reconfigure it for a particular efficency of management and rehabilitation. Influenced by European modernists like Le Corbusier, and following the example set by New York, the Chicago Housing Authority used federal money to replace a complex fabric of tenement housing with high-rise residential towers. After over half a century, Cabrini-Green has left a complicated legacy.
Our project interrogates the Cabrini-Green housing projects as a model of modernity and public housing in the 20th century, and introduces an additional critique of this model in an exhibition consisting predominantly of affirmative interpretations and representations. The use of a Roomba robotic vacuum alludes to the Chicago Housing Authority’s systematic removal of these structures and their inhabitants as the production of gentrified space ensues. We first attached a video camera to the Roomba in order to capture footage as the vacuum mapped and then cleaned various spaces in and around Cabrini-Green. This process afforded us roving visual traces determined by the relation between proprietary algorithms and the physical space, as well as material remnants vacuumed from the site’s surfaces.
The roomba was then brought into the Learning Modern exhibition. The material remnants of Cabrini-Green remained inside, but the camera had been replaced by a projector throwing the imagery onto mylar panels of a scaled down and abstracted model of the building. This presents the viewer with a roving projection of roving imagery, both determined by the same proprietary algorithms, yet differing physical space. The projection shifts in focus, scale, angle, and position, leaving the viewer to negotiate these changes. The mylar panels leave one-inch gaps, leaking the projection into the surrounding space as well as offering a view inside the model, where the apparatus can be seen – a projector and mac mini computer fastened to the Roomba, all connected to power via an extension cord coming from the ceiling.
In addition to situating a problematic in the Learning Modern exhibition, this project also functions as a document for the remaining Cabrini-Green housing projects, which are currently in the process of being demolished. Yet the camera, constantly in motion, and the projection, also constantly in motion, present limited glimpses of Cabrini-Green’s interior to the viewer, suggesting not only a mis-learning of modernity, as the Chicago Housing Authority uproots and deterritorializes an entire community once again, but also our own relationship to Cabrini-Green as outsiders. Viewers are not brought closer to an understanding of Cabrini-Green as a matter of public concern, and offered questions as opposed to answers. Any attempt to represent the community that once inhabited the tower is inherently flawed, and we recognize our extremely limited agency.
project from Andrew Norman Wilson on Vimeo.
