Plants, screens, video, aluminum queue

 

Jonas Vansteenkiste’ explores Disneyland as a functioning scripted space. A theme park as exploration of liminality in the in the real world. In anthropology, liminality (from the Latin word limen meaning “a threshold”), is the quality of ambiguity or disorientation that occurs in the middle stage of rites, when participants no longer hold their pre-ritual status but have not yet begun the transition to the status they will hold when the rite is complete. During a rite’s liminal stage, participants “stand at the threshold” between their previous way of structuring and a new one. 

 

Fragments of a strategy proposes Disneyland and theme park  as liminal space , requiring a rite to enter, where conditions are different and one has passed a threshold to enter. The script of the theme park space is designed and constructed to make participants cross physically and mentally into several worlds, states of mind and even emotions. The theme park imposes an alternate reality that activates real emotions and experiences. 

The installation shows a constructed environment with plants, screens and a que. As a audience you can choose to look or step into the installation both activate a deferent perspective of experience.

The installation also reference to "Un Jardin d'Hiver" from Marcel Broodthaers. In the final years of his life, created immersive installations that he called “décors.”

These included several winter gardens filled with palm trees. They conjure up Europe’s colonial exploits, which formed the foundation of many art and natural history museums. And they also evoke 19th century ideas about domesticating nature.

 

The video's present two moving images from the theme park at different sites. The juxtaposing images reflect on adventure and artificial landscape, fantasy and narrative. It investigates the thresholds between these spaces as a new image is proposed that is simultaneously familiar and uncanny. 

 

 

special thx to Elle Van Uden & Noel Kelly

 

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