How can Human who has forgotten itself maintain a form of benevolence? How can solidarity take place if Human is in the Hybris and believes itself to be almi- ghty? What if human perspective is not associated to general truth?
_
How can Human who has forgotten itself maintain a form of benevolence? How can solidarity take place if Human is in the Hybris and believes itself to be almi- ghty? What if human perspective is not associated to general truth?
_
The studied site is located in the Alt-Hohenschönhausen in Lichtenberg, East Berlin, in the garden of a neighbourhood surrounded by housings, whose height competes with the one of the tree. On the west part of the site, a private collective garden takes place, the intercultural garden, solidarity projet whose main aim is to offer an opportunity for “people from all around the world” (quote chief of the garden) to meet around gardening and other punctual activities. On the east part on the area lays the “Place”. Old foundations delimited by wild herbs, shrubs and trees, the “Place” was supposed to support a sports hall, but the project never came to fruition. It could envy a lot of things to the private garden… its constant liveliness, its greeness, its cleanliess, its peacefulness, feeding a sort of secret garden atmosphere, lacking nothing, organised and wild at the same time…
The Place came as an accident, but it seems to be really considered by the inhabitants of the neighbourhood. It is seen and used as a “free” space, with no specific function. It attracts life, provokes play and frees people to wander around. People, especially children pass through this place, they stay on it for two seconds or few hours, biking, running, dancing, playing with nothing and small cars toys. Movements characterise the Place. Everything on it, and in it, is ephemeral. Once dressed, once naked, once loud, once silent.
The studied site is located in the Alt-Hohenschönhausen in Lichtenberg, East Berlin, in the garden of a neighbourhood surrounded by housings, whose height competes with the one of the tree. On the west part of the site, a private collective garden takes place, the intercultural garden, solidarity projet whose main aim is to offer an opportunity for “people from all around the world” (quote chief of the garden) to meet around gardening and other punctual activities. On the east part on the area lays the “Place”. Old foundations delimited by wild herbs, shrubs and trees, the “Place” was supposed to support a sports hall, but the project never came to fruition. It could envy a lot of things to the private garden… its constant liveliness, its greeness, its cleanliess, its peacefulness, feeding a sort of secret garden atmosphere, lacking nothing, organised and wild at the same time…
The Place came as an accident, but it seems to be really considered by the inhabitants of the neighbourhood. It is seen and used as a “free” space, with no specific function. It attracts life, provokes play and frees people to wander around. People, especially children pass through this place, they stay on it for two seconds or few hours, biking, running, dancing, playing with nothing and small cars toys. Movements characterise the Place. Everything on it, and in it, is ephemeral. Once dressed, once naked, once loud, once silent.
The Place is taken as it is, it and its users doesn’t seem to ask for any specific Human action to add something, or to transform it. What could be the future of the Place ? In the video «Relentless Therapy», someone sees an «abandonned» and «degraded» Place and tries, in her way, to pay attention to it. She would like to «arrange» it by cutting the grass that will grow again. She would like to «cure» it by filling the cracks, that will appear again since the trees are there, as if she wanted it to survive. «Chain Prometheus» video wants itself to be a reaction to «Relentless Therapy». The idea is to highlight the confrontation between Humans who tries to «control» Nature, and Nature that fights for its right. Then we could ask ourselves « what if Human decide not to put its hand on the future of the Place ? », « what if the Place disappears from the action of the unchained Nature ? One still wants the Place to be rescued while one thinks we can not control everything. To illustrate this idea, let’s go back to the Myth of Prometheus from the moment he has been chained up until the day he broke his chains… Should we put the chains back ? The gods are bored on Mount Olympus, they watch an empty world with no life.
The gods decided to ask Prometheus and Epymetheus, brothers Titans, to create that life, from water and earth. Prometheus left that role to his brother who gave a role to every living being but Human, this last has neither a gift nor an appropriate territory. Prometheus realizes that and wants to protect Human because, naked, it is fragile and doomed to disappear. He then steals the Sacred Fire of Olympus from Hephaïstos, the Art from Athena, and gives them to humans. Zeus gets angry against Prometheus who didn’t realise the risk of his action. He chains him on Mount Caucasus. Every day, the Eagle comes to devour Prometheus’ liver, but it regenerates itself every night… Three major ideas emerge from this myth:
The idea of an organized ecosystem, in which each being has its role.
The idea of freedom, by which the human with an unpredestined role is free.
The idea of hybris, excessiveness and arrogance in which Human can enter when it gives itself no limit. Until the end of the 19th century, the vision of progress was to improve the conditions of human life but since the industrial revolution, Pro- metheus «breaks its chains», goes wild and become uncontrollable. Human enters the hybris. «Transcended» by itself, it becomes the mea- sure of all things and thinks that it can control anything. Its perspective becomes universal. The Human forgets that it belongs to an ecosystem and progress becomes its destiny. It disconnects itself more and more from the earth and its will for immortality only grows. The 17th century is an extension of Greek philosophy, with the classical one, that of knowledge. It is thought that the Human being should be master and possessor of nature (Renée Descartes, Discourse of the Method) in the sense that in order to better evolve, it has to know it. If it does not, it destroys it. In this discourse, the idea of transcendence is not given to Humans. As for the ancient Greeks, there would be something superior to them.