A generally accepted definition of terrorism is; “The use or threat of violence in service of a political aim, to ultimately change the system”. Architects are not the ones who are carrying machine guns or smuggle suicide bombs into an underground network. The connection is not violence. Nevertheless, the project shows similarities. First and most important of which is the unavoidable confrontation with authority. It’s also planned, calculated and systematic in nature where the outcome can only be predicted within limits. Secondly, the acts of terrorism is always concerned beyond the immediate target, like architectural terrorism. This kind of terrorism is not aiming, primarily, to hold or control territory or exercise any sovereignty. It creates a counter force (counter-condition) where there is none. It is aggressive in its speed and determinate character. Showing the condition of space and confronting this condition means operating at the borderline of duality. The introduction of a counterforce to unravel the conditioning of public space by authority forms the project’s objective. The project was undertaken as graduation project at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Amsterdam.
The project consisted out of 5 chapters and totaled 8 films:
Chapter #1’ “Misuse”: Within ‘public/collective spaces’ small legal interventions are made that aim to misuse the space in order to show the encoded behavior within them. Assumptions are confronted and by doing so the conditioning becomes visible. Chapter #2; “Conditioning by authority”: A generated confrontation with a representative of authority stipulates precisly the attitude of the system which comes in action to eliminate every indeterminable, yet legal, element. Here, authority controls, conditions and preserves the ‘public domain’. Chapter #3; “Becoming authority”: As a representative of authority, in a purchased uniform, spaces are generated in the Amsterdam Metro system. The obedience and docility power of authoirty becomes visible by the public’s action in these spaces. The intervention introduces also new spatial condition. Chapter #4; “Reclaiming”: Borders are means to generate control over territory. When borders are less apparent or physical, conditioning of space generates control. By reclaiming a public ‘no-mans-land’ which authority clearly defined, the tension of defining borders is outlined. Chapter #5; “Architectural terrorism”: By using the means of authority an extreme condition can be introduced and maintained. Some sort of armistice is forced upon authority. By becoming authority on the spot itself the action can be executed. Although the action is temporary, the existence of this extreme condition over a set period of time can not be questioned.