Atelier Van Lieshout Atelier Van Lieshout

Jennifer Allen Aaron Betsky Rudi Laermans Wouter Vanstiphout

NAi Publishers, Rotterdam AVL for Dummies

Jennifer Allen

005 Ten Simple Steps # 1 Make It Fit

Welcome to the world of Atelier Van AVL works fit into a set of circum- frame of determinant factors – firmly Lieshout (AVL). Founded in 1995 by stances. Of course, every design into the foreground: Alfa Alfa is visibly Joep van Lieshout, the Rotterdam is contingent upon certain factors. a sports car and a chicken coop while collective has produced a veritable Consider the architect who must Clip-On’s windows bear the traces of cornucopia of works which straddle take account of the client, budget their automobile origin. To give rise to art, design and architecture. Beyond and site, even natural light. However these new forms and functions, the car facile categorizations, AVL’s oeuvre can decisive, these factors often operate was not recycled – reduced to scrap be daunting for both the absolute be- as an invisible frame around the final metal, melted down and then re- ginner and the hardcore aesthete. But product: an autonomous ‘object’. shaped into window frames or chicken whatever your background, expertise While AVL values its own autonomy as wire – but rather maintains traces of and tastes, ‘AVL for Dummies’ lets you an organization, many of its designs its past, as skin holds wrinkles and get a grip on the atelier, which makes are manifestly adaptive and ad hoc. scars. Parasite or host, an AVL work its own designs and fabricates them to In contrast to architecture’s realm can preserve in a legible way the parts boot at its base on the Rotterdam har- of autonomous objects, AVL’s works of other stories, from the personal bour. This easy-to-use essay is organ- function as parasites that latch onto memory of a car crash to the collective ized in ten simple steps, which offer larger architectural hosts, often in history of a car’s design. Paradoxically, an effective guide for understanding an aggressive way that cannot be by making objects that fit into a given AVL’s vast output of over 1000 works, compared to the building extension. set of circumstances, AVL manages to from the discreet Personal I Faecal Take Toilet Unit Museum Boijmans make space for more history. (2004) to the giant BarRectum (2005). Van Beuningen (1998) created for the Far from a variation on ‘form follows To save time, readers can start with Rotterdam museum’s pavilion: shaped function’, AVL’s approach liberates any step and read them in any order like a penis, the unit penetrates a design from a master plan: urban, to understand how the AVL process glass passage leading from the main architectural or even divine. By exten- is manifest in a multitude of gestures: building to the museum’s pavilion. The sion, this approach frees the temporal- starting a farm, setting up a Free State, camouflage print covering the exterior ity of design from duration, which sculpting a Michelangelo, recycling suggests that the toilets are part of a imprisons one form and one function for energy, sexual pleasure or organ military invasion, if not an occupation. together forever. In AVL’s world, form transplants. Another significant ease- Clip-On (1997) a reading and relaxation and function follow fate. A car could of-use feature: each step functions unit installed on an exterior wall of end up as a roof or as a nest without independently while referring to many Utrecht’s Centraal Museum, provides losing its original appearance; there is AVL works so readers decide what another example of a parasitic cohabi- a visible process of adaptation, as an they can read and then leave out what tation: the cube floated down from a object follows its fate and discovers they don’t need to do. Whether you’re crane and latched onto the third floor new uses that were never anticipated an established artist, an aspiring of the museum, like a tick floating in the original design. Again: the architect, a frustrated critic or some- from a tree and firmly lodging itself car must not be reduced to raw and body who’s curious about composting, into a human head. reusable materials to serve different this essay lets you get a handle on the Beyond its parasitism, Clip-On shows ends or to fulfil an unpredicted destiny. AVL basics and use them for yourself how circumstances – including chance – Other AVL works resist any manifesta- with confidence and control. Free from can determine the design and the ap- tion of planning, whether in space or jargon and footnotes, the ten steps pearance of an AVL creation. Clip-On’s in time. Consider AVL’s Favela House are packed with handy insights that skylights take their curious shapes (2001), a free-standing façade inspired readers can put to use right away from automobile floor mats: the by the organic housing structures in real-life situations: adding history remains of Joep’s crashed car, which that have evolved in the São Paulo and mobility to a design; packaging happened to be sitting around the AVL slums. While AVL provides the basic without waste; adapting ready-mades studio when the unit was being built. fibreglass structure, each Favela House such as the female reproductive By deciding to use the floor mats to will be built in an unforeseeable way, system for architecture; playing shape the skylights, AVL made the depending upon the found ‘waste’ with critical truisms about form and fragment of a wreck into the crowning materials that each dweller can collect function, modularity and ecology. element of a new structure; part of a around the building site. Favela House Travelling from classics like La Bais-ô- moving floor into part of a stable roof; never reaches completion but rather Drôme (1995) to the latest SlaveCity protective coverage into translucent expands indefinitely, according to (2005), ‘AVL for Dummies’ maps out illumination. As this chance addition the site’s conditions, the dweller’s a leisurely route through AVL’s world suggests, AVL parasites can become needs and the available materials. By while pointing out the bumps that can hosts for other parasites. While Clip- breaking the firmly-sealed fate of an always show up along the road: city On housed spare auto parts, Alfa Alfa autonomous object – whether a car or planners, inspectors and police. with Chicken Run (1999) fit a chicken a dwelling – AVL takes the inherently coop into the shell of Joep’s old Alfa social dimension of architecture and Romeo; its trunk doubled as a secure design one step further. Both parasites portal for the chickens to lay eggs and and hosts, AVL works need not only for the farmer to collect them with people but also other buildings and ease. AVL places the circumstances objects to survive. Fitting into circum- ‘behind’ every work – the invisible stances, AVL explores the possibilities # 2 Make It Move of cohabitation for designs, whatever AVL aims for mobility in its designs, climbing a one-storey set of stairs, not require a liquor license to serve only an artwork – can break the law and violence. Compostoilet defies their origin. far beyond the demands of packaging since the toilet bowl sits over a 3 m alcohol. A-Portable, an abortion clinic while remaining legal. In the AVL many standard sanitation regulations, Of course, AVL may choose to stick and transportation. This quality is tall collecting container. Even the that was commissioned by the Dutch arsenal, Workshop for Weapons and such as the stipulation that toilets be to a more predictable set of outcomes most evident in the wide range of plants in Pioneer Set will never take activist Dr. Rebecca Gomperts for Bombs is legal only as an artwork, flushable; yet AVL’s compost toilets, by fitting its designs into the spaces AVL works on wheels. While the Alfa root in the ground because they Women on Waves (WOW), exploited which circulates without producing despite their flagrant illegality, pose provided and predefined by others. Romeo behind Alfa Alfa lost its tires in grow in a shallow bed of earth on a the sea as both a legal limit and a legal weapons and bombs, although a sustainable alternative to the fresh There are the many bathroom-and- its radical metamorphosis, Mercedes plastic sheet; the trees of the AVL Tree haven. According to international law, the possibility remains open. The drinking water wasted by the flush kitchen-in-one fibreglass units made with 57mm Canon (1998) kept the tires Planters all flourish in moveable pots. a nation-state’s laws and jurisdiction Compostoilets, which are designed to toilet. Boijmans Toilet Unit – with for private homes, and the fibreglass and gained a canon for luxury-class While avoiding anything subterrane- end 12 nautical miles (just over 22 km) be used at each exhibition stop-over, their doors ajar – take advantage of façade that replaced the garage warfare. These works reinvent the role ous, AVL favours building materials, from shore; for vessels travelling in the pose a more direct challenge to most the museum to disobey building regu- door at the Fons Welters Gallery in of the automobile, but AVL’s vans add such as scaffolding, that can be easily open seas beyond this point, the laws sanitation laws. While enforcing lations that call for toilets to be hidden Amsterdam. While placed in small con- even more creative options: consider assembled and quickly taken apart. from the vessel’s country of origin are various laws, the state protects the from public view by a double set of fined spaces, these units tend to stick Modular House Mobile (1995/1996), The first floors of Compostoilet and in effect on board. Dr. Gomperts saw autonomy of art as a hallmark of doors. Yet this measure is a purely out through their striking colours and Mobile Home for Kröller-Müller (1995) Sportopia are made from scaffolding, A-Portable as a way to let women democracy; by censoring art, a city aesthetic one; neither the sight of the shapes, as Clip-On and the Boijmans and 3M Minimal Multi Mobile (2002). along with the staircases to reach the around the world benefit from liberal risks being labelled oppressive, given toilet bowl, nor the smell of faeces, Toilet Unit are conspicuous additions The trailers – like La Bais-ô-Drôme and upper levels (needless to say, elevators Dutch laws on family planning (the art’s international movement and poses a threat to public health. While to otherwise stately museums. Always Autocrat (1997) – make AVL’s ideal are not part of the AVL programme). Netherlands has the easiest access to visibility. This risk has not saved AVL questioning the law, AVL’s approach to open to collaborative cohabitations, of rest and relaxation mobile. The Shipping containers – which can be abortion as well as the lowest abortion from censorship: In 1998, the mayor mobility implies – and serves – a broad AVL provided Modular Bathroom truck and trailer combinations include transported by sea, truck or train – are rates in the world). Sailing on a Dutch of Rabastens, France banned AVL’s set of moving users whose needs have Units (2004), The Classic Music Room the farm tractor and the wagon of another staple material. Workshop for ship, A-Portable could dock in the exhibition The Good, The Bad and been largely ignored by architecture’s (2003) and Rock Music Room (2003) for AVL Transport Trailer (2001), which Weapons and Bombs (1998), Darkroom harbours of countries where family The Ugly, much to the surprise of the drive for the permanence and for Amsterdam’s Lloyd Hotel, which was shuttled visitors around the Free State (2001), Edutainer (2003), AVL Spital planning is limited and transport local French and international press. Public property: slum dwellers, migrants, refashioned by the architectural team AVL-Ville (2001), and The Good, The (1998) and A-Portable (2001) were women out to international waters; museums collect AVL works, but other refugees, even ravers. MVRDV. Yet there is one restrictive Bad and The Ugly, which could shuttle all originally shipping containers, there, they would be floating on a state authorities confiscate the works, space that many architects tend to part of the Walker Art Center around subsequently refurbished into spaces mobile piece of the Netherlands and taking them permanently or temporar- overlook, but that AVL has mastered to Minneapolis. And if the chickens in for working, living and other activities. could enjoy the rights long granted to ily out of the exhibition circuit. AVL utter perfection: the package. Working Alfa Alfa ever wanted to hit the road, AVL has also explored aquatic archi- Dutch women. M80 Mortar (1999) was confiscated alone in 1994, Joep van Lieshout al- then they could always board the tecture with structures that essentially AVL’s tactical deployment of mobility and destroyed by the Rotterdam ready designed a housing unit in a way Caldenborgh Chicken Coop (2002), treat the sea as a continuously moving – on land or at sea – liberates architec- authorities; Pistolet Poignée Americaine that would facilitate its delivery on a a Chrysler Voyager outfitted with surface. Floating Sculpture (2000) is ture and design from serving a wide (1995) was stopped at the Canadian standard transport truck; the various an electro-hydraulically motorized a traditional Dutch houseboat with range of laws: building codes, zoning border; Survival Knife (1995) was pieces of the unit were prefabricated, chicken run. Other works roll around the distinctly space-age touch of a restrictions, liquor licenses, family impounded by the Amsterdam police. not only for easy assembly but also for on smaller wheels, such as those large blue orb. AVL Suisse (2002) and planning. Yet AVL understands that But the strangest fate belongs to easy transportation to the construction under the wheelbarrow that carries Sonsbeek Raft (2001), both set up on laws are both territorial and temporal; Mercedes with 57mm Canon: Just as site. Good things – and others – come food stuffs to The Feeder (2003) in inflatable pontoons, were open float- structures that stand for no longer the Rotterdam authorities were about in small packages when these are The Technocrat (2003/2004) and Dirt ing structures, which could change than three months – as the ones on to confiscate the car in 2002, Museum prepared by AVL. The Good, The Bad Cart (2002) in The Total Faecal Solution locations by following the current or wheels or water – escape inspection Boijmans Van Beuningen acquired the and The Ugly (1998) triple building unit (2003). Last but not least, there is the motoring upstream. in many cities. Since exemptions work and placed it in the safe haven of was made to fit into a truck trailer, Bonnefanten Cart (2002) made for the AVL’s preference for mobility is not just may be based on time, AVL not only the museum’s permanent collection. which also doubled as The Good Bonnefanten Museum in Maastricht: a signature style but rather another produces easily moveable ‘objects’, For AVL, mobility is not the mere building when the work reached its The high-end wheelchair carries one expression of the atelier’s desire to but also takes advantage of temporary capacity of movement – just add destination at the Walker Art Center visitor in total comfort around the maintain autonomy and to explore situations that will give its creations wheels – but rather a critique of in Minneapolis. Similarly, Pioneer Set museum while expanding upon the design at the edges of the law. In the the most freedom. Above all, AVL architecture’s compliance, if not total (1999) is a made-to-measure farming notion of aesthetic taste with a mini- Netherlands, as in many other coun- exploits the short-term duration of the complicity, with the law and the state. set including everything from the bar on deck. tries, a structure on wheels remains art exhibition, which guarantees that For AVL, staying put is a liability, farmer’s house to the hoe, which all Beyond the wheel – large or small, rub- exempt from the building code and the exhibited artworks will be moved which limits design along with the conveniently fit into a 40-foot shipping ber or steel – there is a form of mobil- the inspectors who enforce its restric- before they must be legally inspected. possibilities for exploring alternatives. container, like a Lego farming set ity inherent to the AVL works that can tions. A3 Mobiel (1998), a large artist AVL’s Compostoilets, which have Permanence, the goal of much archi- fits into its box; once unloaded, the be easily moved from one location to studio trailer, was expressly made for graced exhibitions around the world, tecture, means that the architectural container serves as the barn to store another. To make sure that migration a client who could not get a permit or even BarRectum, which was set up blueprint must also function as a plan hay and animals. Usually, the means is always a swift option, AVL simply from the municipal authorities to build for a week at Art Basel 2005, became and as a legal document. While the of transportation for building materials does away with building foundations. a studio on his property. Once placed possible only because these installa- state justifies laws as protecting the is treated like an obstacle, which, once The living units – from the modest on wheels, the studio was no longer tions were considered to be temporary public – from safety measures against overcome, is forgotten in the final Fisherman’s House (2000) to the vast a building and thus was exempt from guests, passing through each site. Of injury to hygiene measures against building; the package is an ephemeral two-storey Sportopia (2002), from zoning restrictions. Such structures course, the works did not perish but infection – many laws are grounded, element that tends to be discarded. By Utopian Doghouse (2002) to Hall of may indeed look like – and last like – moved on to other exhibitions and not rationally, but morally and some- making transportation and packaging Delights (2001) – have no foundations, architecture, but, from the point of jurisdictions, more like architectural times even aesthetically. AVL’s arsenal into a decisive and lasting element of nor basements. In contrast to most view of the law, they remain vehicles; criminals on the run than tourists. is deadly since all the AVL weapons design, AVL gives many of its creations septic tanks and compost toilets, AVL’s the owner needs a driver’s license, not While many AVL works benefit from an are functional; yet confiscating them is a memory of their travels, just as Alfa sewage works can be installed and a building permit. Other exemptions artificial expiration date, others thrive an attempt, not to eliminate a threat Alfa becomes a chicken coop while used without any digging. Indeed, a occur at sea: a floating restaurant, like in the twilight zone of aesthetics: a to public safety, but rather to maintain recollecting its past life as a car. visit to Compostoilet (2000) involves the one on board Sonsbeek Raft, does parallel world where an artwork – and the state’s monopoly on weaponry # 3 Make It Human # 4 Make It Modular

The distinction between the human Boijmans Van Beuningen, which having sex but also expand the body’s a Dutch general practitioner. Built exploring the abject (compost toilets), AVL explores all the manifestations of body and its built surroundings penetrated the museum building while borders. Whatever one’s preferences according to the doctor’s orders, The pleasure (sex equipment) and even the modular: from repeatable standard dissolves in the AVL oeuvre. Humans transforming the glans into a doorway; and orientation, penetration of one Practice (2003) has no sharp corners, human exploitation (slave camps). units to interchangeable parts. Joep are not just the ultimate users whose the two testicles into the men’s and body by another – the sensation of skin nor angles – just like the body – and Finally, there are the endless humanoid van Lieshout began to make modular needs determine a design; the human the women’s room. In SlaveCity touching skin – is overshadowed by thereby acts as a smooth interface figures, from the early AVL Men (1999) works based on standard units when body is itself a design. This approach (2005-2006), the model of a brothel for Accessories (2002): a wooden storage between the doctor and the patient. to the later Burghers (2003), which he was still toiling alone. Around 1988, is exemplified by the watercolour women slaves magnifies one single frame with plugs, gloves, clamps, By intimately fusing the body with express the ends of anthropocentrism. the artist discovered by chance that Self-Portrait (2002), which depicts sperm, billions of times over, into the dildos, leashes, muzzles and many its surroundings, AVL dethrones the AVL Men – whether the big pitiful AVL Rotterdam sidewalk paving stones Joep van Lieshout, slumped over a form of a gigantic fight club: hundreds more tools. human being as the ultimate user Man (2000) or the human-sized AVL were about the same size as two table, from the classic perspectives of male slaves battle it out in the Beyond basic needs and functions, for every design, be it interior or Man (1999) – were made in the image beer crates; he stacked the forms used in an architectural blueprint for sperm’s tail, only to reach the stadium the human body has a capacity for architectural. The claim may sound of the ideal employee. While these together, like building blocks, to make a building: We see the artist from in the head where they must catch the physical exertion. AVL’s quest for total paradoxical, yet AVL’s intense focus on geomemetrically shaped fibreglass fig- perfectly fitting configurations. The above, at various side angles and fancy of female slave spectators. self-sufficiency – manifest in survivalist the body – along with its needs, func- ures do not eat, nor complain, they are establishment of AVL allowed for a through a cross-section showing his Since the body can be architecture, living units like Autocrat and the Free tions, capacities and resources – has lacking hands and feet with which to broader exploration of the modular interior structure of bones, organs anatomy, sculpture and device, it’s State AVL-Ville – puts the emphasis on a profound levelling effect: The body work, and they have no genitalia. The construction, although the results and veins instead of support beams, often hard to tell where the body manual labour and manual leisure. The becomes just one more cog in a much best AVL worker is absolutely useless have been just as surprising as the air ducts and electrical wiring. For parts end and where the built parts realm of leisure includes the weight- larger system. The active proximity of for both production and reproduction. combination of paving stones and beer AVL, both the body’s interior and its begin. Early AVL works expressed lifting and exercise area in Sportopia, many AVL works – from the farmer’s Pitiful Man (2002), the first human-like crates. Who expected that the com- exterior can double as blueprints for a this desire for a total fusion between which also offers an antidote to the rake to the sadist’s clamp – seems to sculpture after the standard AVL mon bed – readily available in double, wide range of works, which get under the biological and the architectural by assembly line. While the factory alien- eliminate the distance that would Man, takes this dystopian vision even king- and queen-size – could become a the skin. After making freestanding enveloping the body like a second skin. ates workers with specialized repeti- allow the human subject to emerge as further, albeit with softer white fibre- modular construction? AVL’s Modular anatomical sculptures – the magnified Installations such as Study Skull (1996) tive tasks, the AVL weights ‘perform’ the unchallenged master of its servile glass edges that make the face look Multi-Woman Bed dwarfs existing Womb (2003), Liver (2003) or Kidney hermetically sealed off the studious the same kind of specialized and surroundings. As the master and the like a landscape buried in a snowdrift. beds by offering sleeping spaces for Bladder Combination (2003) – AVL individual from the world while the repetitive tasks on the various muscles slave depend on each other for their Burghers – the textile figures in Pile of up to an unlimited number. The core enlarged certain body parts even more cramped Tampa Skull (1998) – with the of the worker, who immediately identities and roles, it’s not clear if the Burghers (2003), silently haunting The design of the bed can be expanded not to produce (almost) anatomically living amenities packed into the small- enjoys – and gets to keep – the fruits compost toilets are used by humans, Technocrat – are superfluous, non- only lengthwise but also vertically; correct spaces, which can be occupied est space possible, like brains inside a of his or her efforts. Like a dynamic or if the toilets are using humans to re- functional white citizens, who come in Modular Multi-Woman Bed comes as and used by people. For example, the skull – created a claustrophobic living anatomical drawing, the weights make alize their goal of producing compost. clumps like unpackaged bulk goods; a double-decker and as a three-storey impenetrable sculpture Womb swelled space. Later AVL works tend to mani- the muscles inside the body visible by As the watercolour Self-Portrait As organized in sets of one thousand, the bunk bed. The upper level for rest and into the crawl-in Wombhouse (2004). fest this bio-architectural fusion, not stimulating them from the outside. Seen By An Architect demonstrates, Burghers consume booze from The relaxation in Sportopia holds AVL’s This facility unit comes with all the by enclosing, but by extending the hu- The realm of hard labour runs from even the originator of a design can end Alcoholator, provide faeces for The largest bed to date with room for core functions of a house and can be man body, especially its many orifices. the idyllic existence in Pioneer Set up as the blueprint for another build- Total Faecal Solution or snooze away thirty snoozers, although its size has placed inside any set of walls to make Funnel Man (2005) has a generous (with hoes, rakes and pitchforks for ing while slaving away at the drawing in Big Bunk Bed (2004). Funnel Man been determined by scaffolding units. a complete living unit. Along with funnel mouth for handy liquid feeding farming) to apocalyptic imprisonment board. The watercolour Artist’s Dream and Arschmänner are close relatives Beyond super-sized beds, another heating and ventilation, Wombhouse in The Alcoholator (2004) section in The Disciplinator (2003) (where (2001) adds another dimension to this who take the evolution of man and novel manifestation of the modular appropriately adds a cosy bed to the of The Technocrat; Arschmänner inmates must use metal files to reduce bio-architectural vision: As the artist machine one step further. When can be found in the penal installation uterus, along with a minibar to one (2004) have tubes hooked up to their logs to sawdust). Like AVL beds and sketches on the drawing board, his the fibreglass figures are engaged The Disciplinator: AVL treats architec- ovary and a toilet to the other, which anuses, which are connected to The toilets, these hand tools stay close to designs are being built at the same in activities – from Bad Man Trio ture, time and the body as standard also sprouts a cyst-like showerhead. Total Faecal Solution for the efficient the skin and involve the entire body; time, just beyond the studio. Far from (Kicking, Hitting, Fisting) (2002) to the units that fit together, despite their The female torso determined the recycling of faeces. These installations compare the rake with the tractor, or an artistic will to power, this dream three Scientists (prehistoric, modern, radical material differences. All the outline of the Bodytables (2005-2006) plug directly into the body, like a cord files with a shredder, activated by a depicts an absolutely immediate rela- depressed) (2002) – they remain anony- elements in this macabre prison are while a giant 3-D version of the torso into an electrical outlet, and harness button. SlaveCity breaks away from tion between the body’s movements mous faces without any distinguishing intended to be used 24 hours every – clad in a bikini – materialized in The the body’s energy potential by trans- this intimate proximity with CallCenter – the hand drawing on a piece paper – features. Even the figures inspired by day by a slave force of 72 inmates: BikiniBar (2006), an activity centre for forming its by-products into resources. (2005), where slaves outfitted with and an architectural construction on art and religion – Pietà (2004), Jezus 24 sleep, 24 work, 24 recover by eating the elderly. The human digestive tract Compostoilet, while less intrusive, is headsets are deprived of the possibility a piece of land; the dream realizes (2005) or the Michelangelo series and showering. Since all the facilities – from the tongue to the anus – grew essentially an elongated anus funnel, of even holding a telephone receiver. the wish that even a large complex (2002), showing Michelangelo vomit- are always occupied, there is no extra into the 16-m-long walk-in BarRectum which sucks faeces from the rear end While slavery is usually associated of buildings might be handcrafted; ing on a table, lying splayed on the space, nor time, for the prisoners; they with plenty of brown seating cushions through the curved ring of the toilet with hard physical labour, AVL finds the body’s gestures are architecture. ground, hanging on the wall – become fit the space and the time, just as the for guests. Even The Brain (2002), a seat into the compost canister below. slave labour in the socialized tasks of SlaveCity, whose vast operations run generic. In contrast to the historical beer crates fit the paving stones. sculpted model, was enlarged again Beyond treating human waste, AVL the service economy, which reduces without a boss, suggests that there is figure on a pedestal in a public park or AVL has explored more traditional and then hollowed out to become adds an intimate touch with instal- the possibilities for physical exertion. no privileged position of power out- even the sculpted nude in a museum, standard units, which duplicate them- the three kiosks The Heads (2005). lations for eating (Hall of Delights), CallCenters radical reduction of the side a system; even when architecture AVL figures are indistinct and inter- selves like cells. This self-reproduction Of course, the male genitalia remain sleeping (Modular Multi-Woman Bed, body’s forces – only to speaking and sustains gross inequalities between changeable, like so many nuts and can continue endlessly; the resulting an AVL favourite: from the early 1998), working out (Sportopia) and to listening – reflects the fate of the individuals, every single person still bolts in a larger construction. multiples fit nicely together in stacks freestanding Bioprick (1992), which bathing (Outdoor Shower, 2001). slaves, who are eventually killed off remains a cog in the machine. By blur- or clusters, depending on their shape. inspired deviations like The Pitiful Above all, AVL has divided and special- so their organs can be extracted for ring the role of the master in relation Mini Capsule Side Entrance (2002) One (1996) and Pricktree (1997), to ized sexual activities, beyond the dif- transplants to non-slaves. Long before to the designer, the user and the slave, – a no-frills sleeping unit, reminiscent Prick Medical Model (2002), the first ferences of gender. Sportopia’s ground SlaveCity’s macabre organ trade, AVL works question the assumption of Japanese hotel capsules, albeit for AVL medical model in the series of floor comes with a sex area, including AVL explored how medicine passes that design and architecture are social two guests – comes as a six-pack, anatomical sculptures and instal- a faecal corner, a cage, a Turkish Chair the border of the skin. In addition to goods that always serve the best inter- which can be set up in any combina- lations. A super-size version of the and SM equipment. AVL’s installa- AVL Spital and A-Portable, AVL also ests of humankind. AVL dives into the tion: 1x6, 2x3, 3x2 and so on. The bar penis materialized in the Toilet Unit tions not only multiply the ways of designed examination rooms for ‘hidden’ history of both practices by grip on each capsule’s façade doubles # 5 Make It Grow (Or Shrink) as an exterior ladder, so the users can can be removed and reattached to a often serves to create new ‘layouts’ After the modular world, the world oeuvre, the prefixes ‘mini’ and ‘maxi’ in a nation-state, from sanitation to climb up a stack of Mini Capsules, just side opening, thus making the trailer with several bodies. The watercolour of metamorphoses is not far behind. regularly appear to mark yet another education. While the installations may as they might ascend a hotel through into an L-shaped living unit. While series Untitled (2002) shows a playful Many AVL installations appear to changing scale. The humble versions stand alone, they gain a new meaning the stairs or the elevator. Mini Capsule shipping containers are made to be pair and a threesome exploring the grow in a chain reaction, with one part of the Mini Capsule (2002) gave rise to and interdependency in AVL-Ville. Front Entrance (2002) – which stands stacked, AVL likes to transform them many possibilities for connecting. One setting off another with a completely Maxi Capsule Luxus (2002), a luxurious AVL-Ville Money (2001) is not just a slightly above the ground on four into massive outlets. Hall of Delights man enjoys fellatio from a woman as different shape, function, material. self-supporting hotel unit whose plush signature currency but was designed legs – can be grouped together in a was constructed from joined shipping he cooks and fists a man. The cook’s Floating Sculpture begins as a tradi- red interior holds a couch, a spacious to be used for purchasing alcohol in cluster formation only, just as the Mini containers; some walls were cut to left hand is attached to the handle of tional Dutch wooden boathouse, only bed, storage areas, an entertainment the Free State (and to bypass Dutch Capsule Front Entrance Square (2002). hold different plugs, like a secluded a frying pan, frying a brain; his right to culminate in a conspicuous blue centre and, of course, a well-stocked liquor-licensing laws). AVL Transport In SlaveCity, A Lone Star Brothel dinnette. The watercolour Collision hand is hooked into the other man’s fibreglass bulb; the golden wooden minibar. Mini Sportopia (2002), Mini Trailer (2001) shuttled visitors back and (Mini Modular Brothel 1 unit 1x1x1) (2001) imagines the modularity of asshole; and his penis is plugged into Utopian Doghouse sports a curious Disciplinator (2004), Mini Biogas forth between downtown Rotterdam (2005) is designed for the shortest interchangeable industrial parts like the woman’s mouth. As the modularity red fibreglass growth with a brain-like Installation (2004), Mini Alcoholator and the Free State in the harbour. stays with the fewest frills but for the organic hybrids of plant grafting: of the interchangeable parts dictates, texture. Even when AVL sticks to a one (2003) and Mini Technocrat (2003) are AVL Constitution (2001) is not a mere many more guests and hosts. While a van, a Mercedes and a compact car this layout and its connections could colour and material, the construction the diminutive doubles of Sportopia, accessory, but was drawn up in consul- creating such core designs that are cut and welded together so their always change, given the multiple seems to be caught in a process of The Disciplinator, Biogas Installation, tation with a lawyer as a legitimate bill function like Lego, AVL envelops interior spaces are linked into the one combinations: fist to anus, vagina to radical transmutation. Alesco Interior Alcoholator and The Technocrat. of rights and obligations. Some works other structures with scaffolding to expansive space of a chicken coop. penis, mouth to anus, penis to mouth, Design for Daros (2001) – a reception Exploring the vocabulary of com- in AVL-Ville predate the Free State’s make them modular. Compostoilet AVL’s method allows for flexibility foot to hand, fingertip to nipple. area built into the staircase at the mercial brands, AVL miniaturized declaration of independence. The fully – with its unique and irregular shape – while destroying the finality of a exhibition space Daros Collection in Total Faecal Solution with Personal functional field hospital AVL Spital can never fit with another toilet; yet design. Even the design of a shipping Zurich – appears to have morphed into I Faecal. While more mobile, Personal became part of the health care system once set inside a one-storey frame of container can take on another form a doorway and a secret crawl (and I Faecal was primarily constructed within the AVL-Ville territory. Pioneer scaffolding, Compostoilet can grow of modularity. While AVL has created crawling) space, with unexplainable because Total Faecal Solution – which Set put down some temporary roots into a row of two, three, four or more surprising standard units with beds, bulges and bumps. While Tampa Skull transforms human faeces into biogas – to produce food for the Free State, toilets, by simply joining the frames. the atelier has come up with some is cast in a harmonious shade of blue, requires one thousand people in order its citizens and tourist visitors in the Scaffolding acts as a universal adaptor unexpected plugs and outlets. The its shape recalls the irregular curves to function. Since AVL could not find Hall of Delights restaurant. Workshop that allows incompatible shapes to watercolour Love, Hope & Belief (2001) of a crawling caterpillar; each curve enough volunteers, a tinier solution for Weapons and Bombs – originally match each other in a modular fashion takes an utterly modern modular reflects the shape of one isolated simply had to found. Personal I Faecal, designed for a lone freedom fighter – and to fit into other structures. Thanks approach to the traditional symbol living facility, from the kitchen to the which processes the faeces from two became part of the AVL-Ville national to scaffolding, Compostoilets could for hope (an anchor), belief (a cross) bedroom. Trailers, which beg to be humans, demonstrates how Total defence system: a powerful symbol of easily adorn other AVL structures on and love (a heart). In AVL’s version, connected with other vehicles and Faecal Solution might actually work. the Free State’s desire to fight for its land (AVL Franchise Unit (2002)), at the anchor, cross and heart have been vessels, offer more possibilities for By contrast, Sportopia shrunk into existence as the totally self-sufficient sea (AVL Suisse (2002)) and moving in replaced, respectively, by a bottle of novel expansions. The Good, The Mini Sportopia for a much simpler total work of art. between (Darkroom (2001)). wine, a woman and a pig; moreover, Bad and The Ugly evolved into an reason: to fit the massive installation The Technocrat forms another total Of course, scaffolding realizes the these three symbols are interchange- immense trailer-home triptych, over into a smaller space (the scaffolding system for one thousand burghers to modularity of interchangeable parts, able with the three verbs. One may 20 m long, with an aluminium, a frame facilitated the down-sizing eat, drink and produce biogas with which can fit together in a variety of hope for wine, believe in women and wooden and a fibreglass section for process). AVL-Ville led to the spin-off their waste. In addition to Pile of ways. While working with standard love a pig; or hope, believe and love ethical, unethical and unspeakable AVL Franchise Unit; this more compact Burghers, The Technocrat complex units that can be easily repeated these symbols in any other combina- activities. Used shipping containers and flexible version included all of includes three major parts, each and joined, AVL has also penetrated tion. Of course, the body offers may get a new extension and a the major features of the original Free marked by a particular style and these units to make them function many modular opportunities since new life in AVL’s hands. Workshop State – from the constitution to the en- function: The Feeder, which nourishes like an electrical outlet: a gigantic AVL continually crosses the border for Weapons and Bombs starts as a ergy plant – and could be set up at any the burghers; The Alcoholator, which freestanding outlet capable of holding between the anatomical and the refurbished shipping container (the location in the world, like the fast-food keeps them happy with booze, flowing many different plugs. Consider Mobile architectural. While the watercolour freedom fighter’s workshop), mutates outlet in an international chain. As all day long; and Total Faecal Solution, Home for Kröller-Müller. The Master Modular AVL Man (1998) creates a new into a muddy green fibreglass cube these examples suggest, AVL’s small which transforms their faeces into Unit forms the central block while the simplified standard, the watercolour (the office for writing manifestos) and large are not just different sizes, biogas. The Feeder breaks down into Slaves are custom-made extensions, Exploded View Organs (2003) shows and then ends in a fat sphere on two but can bring together vastly different yet another set of subparts: Cleaning which can be clicked or screwed the major parts of a human body and supporting legs (the bedroom). pairs: the humble and the luxurious; Equipment, Cooker, Large Sinks, into the openings in the walls of the how they fit together, like the pieces of Beyond metamorphosis, AVL exploits the experimental and the actual; the Steam Boiler, Storage Unit for Liquids, Master Unit. Each Slave Unit has a a toy construction. Both the chest and changes in scale. Prick Medical Model, ready-made and the tailor-made; the Washing Machine for Tuberous specific function – bedroom, sanitary genital areas on the body have two itself an enlargement, comes in a head office and the franchise. Plants; there is even a Water Tower space, kitchen, office – and can be different optional plugs: breasts for the full range of sizes: Penis XL (2003, AVL’s works also tend to grow into (all 2003). Total Faecal Solution takes easily moved from one of the Master chest and either a vagina or a penis measuring 350 x 175 x 205 cm); total systems. In contrast to the on various forms, providing a wide Unit’s openings to another, despite for the genitalia. Just as the Slave Penis M (2003, 260 x 80 x 123 cm); expanding container or trailer, these range of answers for making human their vastly different shapes. Here, units plug into the Master core, the and Penis S (2003, 70 x 180 x 90 cm). works may exist as autonomous waste into a valuable energy resource. modularity allows for rapid changes in anatomical signs of gender difference Unlike clothing, the penis does not units, which come to be linked, not Large Biodigester, Biodigester, Septic the physical layout of the living space can be plugged into the body. AVL’s come in extra-small. All of the AVL just physically, but also functionally Tank and Autocomposter (all 2003) and how the entire space is used; like SM tools – in Accessories (2002), the sculptures and installations inspired and even symbolically. Once placed are staples for biogas production. the master’s relation to the slave, the Mini Sadist (2002) or the sex area of by the human anatomy have been together, the works have the cumula- Older works such as Dirt Cart (2002) design is never final. Even AVL trailers Sportopia – are designed to be used vastly enlarged, from Wombhouse tive impact of a Gesamtkunstwerk. or newer works like Vacuum Tank are modular: La Bais-ô-Drôme has an in a modular way and thus can be at- to BarRectum; most of the organ AVL-Ville is such a system; the (2004) can be added to the Total Faecal extendable section, which slides out of tached to any one of the body’s orifices sculptures are built on a scale of 1:1, Free State is composed of several Solution. The solution also emerges in the back of the trailer; this extension and surfaces. AVL’s modular body 5:1 and 10:1. Throughout the AVL installations, which reflect services an array of toilet units: Compostoilet, # 6 Make It in Fibreglass # 7 Make It Visible

Il Primitivo (2003) or the toilet triptych Apart from the wheel, fibreglass is surface. The material harmoniously deserve further consideration. In their Visibility is central to the AVL oeuvre. uses a tarp to conceal an illegal living Mirror Toilet, Urinal Female and Urinal the most constant material in AVL’s unites the malleability of paint, formal continuity, these units would Processes that usually remain hidden space under a common transport Male (all 2003). True to its name, oeuvre. Fibreglass has been used to which can cover any surface, and of seem to contradict the principle (bodily, organic, technological and trailer). Il Primitivo is a simple construction of create a wealth of freestanding works: sculpture, which can take any form. behind the many AVL works built with architectural) all become evident. AVL strictly avoids all displays of wood and steel; by contrast, the toilet from humanoid figures to study tables, The finishing process – similar to heterogeneous and random materials. Apart from the fibreglass forms, there modesty, restraint and prudery, espe- triptych is a high-tech creation, which from toilets to trailers, from a grave polishing – tends to make hard corners Compare Toilet Unit Museum Boijmans are no ‘black boxes’ in AVL’s designs, cially in relation to bodily activities: is designed to separate faeces from monument to a totem pole, from into soft edges: a trade-mark of AVL Van Beuningen, which combine all the not even for their ultimate human from defecating to having sex. The urine – the first step in biogas produc- assholes to chairs for sitting them designs. Like skin, fibreglass forms a amenities of a women’s and men’s users. The body is treated with the watercolour Recycling (2001) combines tion. While men and women enjoy down at a grand feast table. Size does watertight seal, which accounts for its bathroom into one single mint-green same transparency as a blueprint or both options with a threesome mas- their own custom-made urinals, they not seem to pose any obstacle to AVL’s wide use in AVL’s sanitation, bath and interior form in fibreglass, with the a design. The silkscreen Machine Gun turbating while engaging in faecal sex. share Mirror Toilet, which is outfitted explorations: The sculpture Victory kitchen units. Unlike skin, fibreglass diversity of Alfa Alfa with Chicken Exploded View (1998) undoes the Another watercolour, Vomiting Trio with a surveillance camera to ensure Light Pole (2005) measures over 11 m is far more durable and solid: the Run, the Alfa Romeo coupled with a classic Sten gun into its components (2003) explores the bodily abject with that each user, whatever the gender, while Dirt Cart come in under 2 m. perfect medium for an outdoor public chicken coop. Moreover, the solidity of while the watercolour Exploded View three men throwing up into a large uses the amenity for shitting only. Shape is no obstacle either; consider sculpture like Germination (2001), a fibreglass as a final form would appear (2003) takes apart a male-female body. funnel fitted to another man’s mouth. AVL’s latest total system is SlaveCity, the variations between the smoothed survivalist life in the Autocrat, a slum too static with respect to AVL’s drive The design for the Lone Star Brothel The watercolour Hanging Man (2002) the labour camp where inmates are cubes Clip-On, the curves and twists dwelling like Favela or for hitting the for flexibility and mobility. Of all AVL in SlaveCity is a cross-section that shows the extremities of pain with a forced to work in telemarketing at in Wombhouse and BarRectum, the road in 3M Minimal Multi Mobile. works, the fibreglass units are the cuts into one room of the building man suspended by various body parts, CallCenter, only to be deprived of their facilities built onto the red box Maxi Finally, the material has the advantage most built, the most architectural in a and into one body sitting on a bed including the penis, while the SM organs for transplants to non-slaves. Capsule Luxus or the playground of of being light; Bioprick weighs little traditional sense, because they cannot in the room. The watercolour Maxi paraphernalia in Sportopia bring such Made for 200,000 slaves, SlaveCity Satellite des Sens (2003). While most in relation to its super size because be easily taken apart and because the Capsule Luxus (2002) even takes a extremes within practical reach. Often, includes models for 18 nine-storey of the fibreglass works have smoothly- its yellow surface hides nothing more shapes and the colours endure. But, peek inside the minibar to show its an array of weapons adds an accessory buildings, an educational centre, a rounded surfaces, AVL may decide than a Styrofoam phallus. in contrast to the building made with stock of wine, champagne, liquor and of violence to otherwise happy do- self-sustaining energy plant, brothels, to dive fully into the intricate details. Fibreglass is the realm where AVL a host of different materials – wood, beer, along with the indispensable mestic scenes: the axe lying on the red a spa, a lake, a public living area with The generic Bioprick evolves into the explores the full spectrum of colours. steel, brick, cement – into an enduring tool for all drinking: a bottle opener. carpet in Maxi Capsule Luxus (2002), a range of welfare state services and a didactic Prick Medical Model; the blank There are the muted creamy tones form, AVL’s fibreglass works evidently Magnification is another AVL method the machine gun on the bed-for-six calculation centre for number crunch- blockhead of the AVL Man eventually in orange, yellow and green; intense end up as one material with one set for visibility, most evident in the mod- in Bedroom (1999), the Kalashnikov ing and statistics, which bring it all gives way to the facial features in The mineral-like blues, reds and oranges; of properties and, often, in one solid els, drawings, sculptures and installa- leaning against the counter in the together. Business Plan of SlaveCity Heads or the cross-section anatomical muddy military shades of grey, green colour. By uniting different elements tions based on the human anatomy: watercolour Kitchen (1998), and the (2005) – a gigantic Excel sheet – gives view of The Brain, which shows the and brown; neon-like pale mints – from the sink to the toilet – the outside (the sculpture Man with Prick hammer in Butcher Equipment (1997). a financial overview of all of the nerves connecting to the eyes, nose, along with pure white and black. fibreglass units mimic the human skin, (2002)), inside (the watercolour Male Life is pushed to the edge of extinction SlaveCity elements while allowing ears and tongue. Most AVL fibreglass works come albeit turned inside-out. Just as the Reproductive Organ Cross Section in the installation The Disciplinator and for totally interactive calculations: While often freestanding and hermetic, in one solid opaque colour; excep- skin contains many bodily functions (2002)), isolated organs (the sculpture the plans for SlaveCity, which openly what happens to profits if the life fibreglass also becomes an integral tions to the monochrome standard and fluids in the same body – from Liver, 2003) and isolated systems display the possibilities for human ex- expediency of the slaves is increased part in many AVL installations and include the anatomical sculptures, eating to defecating – AVL’s fibreglass (Wombhouse, an adult live-in version ploitation and degradation. AVL’s drive by five years? How much extra food constructions since the material which are naturalistically-shaded or epidermis creates one smooth continu- of the female reproductive system). for visibility tends to blur the very and land for producing the food will is used in combination with other come in different artificial colours to ous surface where all of these bodily- Openings – flaps, doors, scaffolding distinction between life and death: be needed? What will be the impact elements: wood (Floating Sculpture, distinguish various parts in the human related processes might take place. If (or no walls at all) – constitute yet from an absolute border (and taboo) on the energy plant if there is an 2000), metal (Workshop for Weapons design. AVL has also left fibreglass AVL compromises on flexibility and another tried and true AVL method. into one step in a greater process. The increase in the number of guards and and Bombs, 1998), an entire truck in its natural semi-transparent shade mobility with fibreglass, it is to reflect The survival trailer Autocrat and the processes of decay and decomposition prostitutes working in the compound? (Modular House Mobile, 1995-1996). for windows. Consider the bulging the original unity of the body, even vehicle 3M Minimal Multi Mobile are that are usually hidden are unveiled in Whatever the AVL system – from the The fibreglass parts may be autono- portals that let in light while gently inside the womb. In general, diverse outfitted with flaps: large sections of their full splendour, especially those liberatory to the macabre – there are mous, like the massive Septic Tank for protruding out of the façade of the materials are used to set apart, if not the fibreglass walls that open up, like hidden underground. AVL’s refusal to links between the parts, beyond the treating black water in the Total Faecal Gallery Fons Welters, and the skylights to segregate, bodily functions; the a kiosk, to reveal activity spaces inside dig foundations takes on a new mean- mere fact of expansion. A version of Solution, or dependent, like the little in the Clip-On. While adding windows bathroom counter acts as a ‘border’ to the core cube. The bathroom doors of ing in the Compostoilet; its collecting the Biodigester can be found in AVL- Slave appendages that attach onto to architectural installations, AVL has separate the toilet bowl and the sink the Toilet Unit Museum Boijmans Van canister comes with a window for Ville, The Technocrat and SlaveCity, the Master Unit in Mobile Home for also created massive stained-fibreglass – along with their activities – from the Beuningen remain ajar, unless they are observing the composting process in albeit in an ever-expanding form to Kröller-Müller. In contrast to the wheel windows for existing buildings, from counter top. In AVL’s world, there is closed and locked by a user. Sportopia all its stages and with a trap door for match each system’s growth: from the or even scaffolding, fibreglass takes Façade for ‘De Kriekelaar’ (2003) for a no border but a continuous surface of – and its diminutive offspring Mini removing the fertile results. Denying 30 employee-denizens of AVL-Ville to on the most final form in AVL’s oeuvre. community centre to Recreation Space fibreglass, where all bodily fluids and Sportopia and Bonnefantopia – shun the subterfuge of the subterranean, The Technocrat’s 1000 burghers, to The fibreglass Compostoilet may be Façade (2000) for a prison. The stained- all fluids contacting the body might traditional divisions between each Total Faecal Solution shows the SlaveCity’s 200,000 population – and joined with other compost toilets or fibreglass – combining a wide range of flow, meet and evolve. activity area (sports, sex, relaxation) by transformational steps for black and growing. constructions – like AVL Franchise Unit colours and finishes, from transparent using bare scaffolding instead of solid grey water: from the toilet and the or Sonsbeek Raft – but Compostoilet to opaque – features groups of human walls. While the toilet and shower are sink, through the Septic Tank and Reed remains an unalterable unit, with its figures, fused on the surface of the enclosed in Sportopia, Sonsbeek Raft Filters, to purified water. Although bowl and long canister cast forever. window, just as the sinks and bathtubs proudly displays its Compostoilet in an the fibreglass tanks are opaque, the The fibreglass forms often appear are joined into one unit in the Modular open scaffolding frame, without any move from waste water to drinking as pre-fabricated wholes, like plastic Bathroom Units which AVL created for seclusion, on the end of the boat. For water becomes a complete process shapes that have been cast by a die. the Lloyd Hotel in Amsterdam. AVL, concealment is an option, either – with a definitive beginning and a In fact, the fibreglass is melted onto AVL’s fibreglass units – where diverse to strike a contrast (the camouflage final end – instead of waste water an existing shape – a wooden table, elements, such as the sink, the coun- exterior of the Toilet Unit against the disappearing into underground pipes a trailer wall, Styrofoam – and then ter, the door, the garbage bin and the museum’s brick and glass façade) or to and magically re-emerging as drinking sanded down to create a uniform toilet become one single surface – get around the law (Ideal Caravan, 2005) water from the tap. BarRectum reveals # 8 Don’t Over-Design It # 9 Make It Ecological a similarly total process, albeit hidden stained and painted. The traces of the In the realm of design, AVL practices another AVL construction constant and peoples – whether Dutch wooden The benevolent ‘green thumb’ of the under the skin: the entire digestive production process lie on the surface moderation. ‘No design’ could be the offers a strong contrast to the rainbow shoes or Inuit soapstone carvings – ecological movement takes on some system from the tip of the tongue to like the pages of a manual. AVL works atelier’s motto, which is manifest in of fibreglass works. Toilets – whether are produced, not to be used, but to unexpected shades in AVL’s oeuvre. the anus. can always become doubly useful: the blank faces of the AVL Man or the sole Compostoilet or the triptych be sold as souvenirs. AVL, faced with However environmentally friendly, AVL’s visibility is removed from the Sportopia’s barbells can be used for the rudimentary toilet Il Primitivo. To Mirror Toilet, Urinal Female, Urinal both the omnipresence of design and AVL’s works are primarily driven by the spectacle and its incumbent sensa- weight lifting or for learning how to quell the urge to design, AVL reduces Male – tend to be encased in plain the obsolescence of crafts, attempts to atelier’s desire for self-sufficiency from tionalism. Many works seem to have make barbells at home. an object to the absolute essentials. wooden shelters. A similarly rough revitalize handwork while avoiding a the state and mass organizational been made to shock their viewer, due AVL’s self-explanatory visibility – a 3M Minimal Multi Mobile has been finish can be found in the inmate nostalgic or even a reactionary return systems. Why not save the planet at to their explicit nature. Yet the focus combination between ‘Just Do It’ and made in the most straightforward way facilities in The Disciplinator and the to the past. When AVL renews crafts the same time? Of course, the two remains on an active or a potential ‘Do-It-Yourself’ – provides a corrective possible: the plain box is mounted Big Bunk Bed (2004) for 1000 burghers from earlier times, these objects are goals are often completely compatible; process, not on a spectacle to be pas- to the spectacle of commodity fetish- on four wheels, without any extra in The Technocrat. But plain wood explicitly made to be used – often in a AVL’s recycling installations, from sively observed. Sportopia offers the ism. In Marx’s diagnosis, the fetish automobile parts or accessories. 3M also graces far more luxurious and specific environment – so they cannot the lone Compostoilet to Total Faecal tools for experiencing SM, not images table dances of its own accord, mes- might be the first minimalist vehicle, lascivious slumber facilities: all ver- become decorations, nor souvenirs. Solution, liberate the atelier from of SM sexual relations; the camera in merizing consumers into purchasing it yet even the bare minimum – a driver’s sions of the Modular Multi-Woman Fisherman’s House is a good example. being reliant on public sewage treat- Mirror Toilet is there to deter users while making the labour that went into seat – is missing; the driver and any Bed, the communal bed that covers Unlike a lifestyle designed to be lived ment systems while doing away with from urinating and thereby destroying its production magically vanish before passengers must bring along their own the second floor of Sportopia and even out anywhere with the right clothes the wasteful flush toilet. AVL’s early the composting facility; even Joepie de their eyes. As an atelier, AVL does not chairs. Beyond objects large and small, the more diminuitive six-pack bed in and accessories, Fisherman’s House forays into self-sufficiency – mobile Poepie (2002), a video featuring scenes remember the narratives of individual AVL takes other creations back to their the Bedroom (1999). An unfinished evolved from a particular practice and trailer units like Autocrat for life in the from scatalogical porn videos, unveils labourers; yet since many products basics. The watercolour drawing series look dominates the model Lone place. Such structures were originally backwoods – are autonomous from the the action of shitting, not the mere openly display how they were made Ursoup (2003-2004) shows a scientist Star Brothel for SlaveCity just as built along the Zuiderzee until the state but dependent upon the sur- sight of shit. With its focus on reveal- – much like a didactic illustration – pouring all the chemical ingredients easily as other work places. Consider 1950s and used by Dutch fishermen rounding ecosystems for dealing with ing processes, AVL gives visibility both labour becomes a gift, from one group of the human body – calcium, sulpher, Clubhouse 8 (2002), the installation for drying and smoking fish as well as waste and finding resources of food a didactic and a democratic dimension. of labourers to another, who can iron, and so forth – into a blender, created for the offices of the Dutch for temporary rest and shelter from and energy. Despite their mobility, Viewers can see how something always make the work for themselves. which suggests that a human might insurance company Interpolis, which the elements. Underscoring its own many AVL installations are ecologically works and see how it has been made Unlike commodity fetishism, AVL’s be produced with the same ease as also boasts a bare steel staircase site-specific functionality, Fisherman’s site-specific; greener solutions arise (so they can make it for themselves); visibility replaces the alienation of a milkshake. But the shining star of frame around several activities House found a home at the shore from the need to survive in a particular all viewers can eventually become labour with a gratis transfer of practi- simplicity remains AVL Constitution, centres: library, dining area, internet near the atelier’s compound on the habitat, relatively isolated from the users or even creators. This double cal know-how. In many cases, one which governed AVL-Ville. Written in café. Prototype Shaker Table and Chair shores of the Rotterdam harbour. Bad state and from the market. Recycling imperative – see how it works and needs merely to see the work, not collaboration with the Dutch lawyer (1998) in The Good, The Bad and The Furniture (2004) is another example of human waste into compost, biogas or see how it’s made – marks the book to purchase it, in order to make it for Gerard Spong when AVL declared Ugly, the sex facilities in the Sportopia AVL’s critical use of craft. AVL chose to drinking water solves two problems: Atelier van Lieshout. A Manual (1997); oneself. Beyond the gift, AVL’s visibility itself a Free State, AVL Constitution family, the farmer’s tools in Pioneer make them by using traditional meth- eliminating a perpetual toxin while this publication presents not only the serves to highlight the labours of the has only 12 laws, including the right Set all come in plain wood. ods at the atelier instead of creating producing a constant source of energy. obligatory images and descriptions of human body, which are at the heart to freedom of artistic expression and AVL may also take the opposite ap- a prototype that might be produced As composting would suggest, farm- works but also the detailed instruc- of many installations. Unlike the table the right to an education. Yet unlike proach: not arresting the production in a far-away factory. For each piece ing is yet another path to autonomy tions for making them at home. Along made by one worker (or 21 workers) the charter and rights of a democratic process but rather extending this proc- of Bad Furniture, the designer and that AVL has given a green touch with with directions for using fibreglass, and then sold, these bodily tasks are nation-state, AVL Constitution knows ess in the most intensive and laborious the fabricator are one and the same. installations that serve the independ- A Manual included instructions for not easily subject to division and no exceptions – a clause that allowed way. The handwork of craft is another The steel support bars were forged ent farmer, whether environmentalist, the entire process of cooking pork specialization, let alone to exchange. for yet another reduction: The absolute method that allows AVL to control the by hand while beeswax was used to freedom fighter or pioneer. Indeed, sausages: from slaughtering the pig on No one can sleep, defecate or eat nature of the constitution eliminated spread of design, which can be made give them their intense black shade. Pioneer Set – as a one-person set to the farm to stuffing the sausage skin in for you. Modular Multi-Woman Bed, the need for police, lawyers, judges anywhere, for anyone and for any func- The wood was shaped and shaded manage agriculture and livestock – the kitchen, with every step illustrated Compostoilet and the restaurant in and government to reinforce, interpret tion. In contrast to design’s omnipres- by hand, including the transparent avoids the environmental degradation by drawings and photographs. Like Hall of Delights – serving a meal made or mediate the laws in AVL-Ville. ence, craft is the organic product of a fibreglass protective surface; the use of mega-farming, such as pesticides AVL works, A Manual treats illustra- with the produce of Pioneer Set – all Often AVL restrains design by simply continuity between the craftsperson, of an unconventional material such and over-production. But there are tion as a manifestation of education, pay visible homage to the inalienable arresting the production process: skills and materials, often taken from as fibreglass links the crafts of the also some surprising results when as a lesson that must be highly legible labours of each individual body. nipping design in the bud before it the immediate surroundings. Design past to the present. Bad Furniture is ecology meets self-sufficiency. Since and easily reproducible. Yet AVL’s has a chance to blossom and spread belongs to time through the historical not a design that could have been AVL makes its own weapons – for didactic-democratic visibility does not through pollination. Many AVL works period of a style (whether an original manufactured and was handcrafted defence and for hunting – pacifism always come with an explicit set of – from Favela House to Sonsbeek or a revived design style); craft belongs instead for a nostalgic touch; rather and vegetarianism are two hues of instructions. Many works do not need Raft – have a crude and raw, if not to time essentially by manifesting an the handiwork itself was the blueprint green that are missing from the a set of instructions because their incomplete and underdeveloped, incalculable amount of handwork that that determined the ultimate appear- atelier’s eco palette. More contrasts mode of production is obvious. There appearance. Sportopia and its has gone into making it. Much like the ance of the furniture. Sport Nouveau occur in the realm of energy produc- is no mystery behind Alfa Alfa with offspring – Mini Sportopia and tree branch gradually smoothed by (2003-2004) – the progeny of Bad tion; compare the watercolour plan Chicken Run: take an old car, remove Bonnefantopia – look like buildings in the sea into a piece of driftwood, the Furniture, albeit for body building – for the heavy-duty industrial Blast the wheels, add some chicken wire. No progress at a construction site, due to crafted creation is both repetitive and exaggerates the organic fusion Furnace (1998) with the gentler Energy guide is required to mimic the scaffold- their scaffolding structures. By using unique, its surface openly displaying between craftsperson, materials, skill Plant of AVL-Ville, which uses renew- ing structure in Sportopia, let alone scaffolding, AVL foils design, not once, traces of a prolonged encounter with a and site. After shaping the steel and able resources, efficient incinerators the barbells in the exercise area, which but twice: the prefabricated material natural organic force. In an age domi- wood into an exercise facility, the and hot water storage, all housed in have been made out of scaffolding has already been designed; when used nated by design and its industrial mass craftsperson can use a similar physical a recycled shipping container. tubes set into poured concrete. Other as a structural support, scaffolding productions, craft has been reduced force to shape his or her own body The primacy of self-sufficiency accounts AVL works have a raw appearance; eliminates the necessity to design to yet another historical design style, with a total workout. for AVL’s interest in the living practices wood creations, from tools to beds, walls along with the possibility of which carries the nostalgic promise of of closed communities and individual remain unfinished instead of being decorating them. Unfinished wood is authenticity. The crafts of indigenous outsiders. Despite their great differ- # 10 Make It Exceptional ences, these practitioners all combined and as consumers of alcohol (locally absolutely no waste. No garbage. AVL tends to resist generalizations relative autonomy of art in democratic exception, many of AVL’s works are autonomy with a high degree of produced with organic methods and No pollution. Everything can be used because the works are filled with ex- states where artists enjoy a greater unexpected and wondrous hybrids, if ecological efficiency, due to the com- without artificial preservatives). again and again. Every element has ceptions. Expansive live-in installations degree in freedom of expression. not curious rarities that could occur munity’s relative isolation. Prototype Ultimately, AVL-Ville realized the a generative value – an afterlife – like the restaurant Hall of Delights The strategy is simple and ingenious: only outside of the norm. Shaker Table and Chair, as the name atelier’s dream of self-sufficiency, whether a car or a kidney. After all, suggest an architectural oeuvre, if not producing canons, guns or alcohol is The most striking exceptions can suggests, are inspired by the economi- minus the detention centre. Some what has not been recycled by AVL? an interactive one, but these classifica- illegal without the state’s permission, be found in AVL’s explorations of cal craftsmanship of the Shakers, the proposals are better on paper. Some of the atelier’s most opulent tions do not explain the traditional but artists may create these items as community life. Like Dante, AVL has religious agricultural communities Prison designs, models and installa- installations began as someone figurative sculptures of AVL Men, art, which is generally assumed to thoroughly explored both heaven that sprang up across the USA in tions are the most contentious part of else’s trash. La Bais-ô-Drôme was an Michelangelo and Jezus. Even the term have more symbolic value than real (AVL-Ville) and hell (SlaveCity). Joep the late eighteenth century, only to AVL’s exploration of self-sufficiency. abandoned old trailer – missing some Gesamtkunstwerk seems incapable of use (although the police have not van Lieshout denied that AVL-Ville dwindle through their strict vow of After proposing the profitable prison walls – which was plucked from the capturing the many facets of a living always been convinced by AVL’s explo- was a utopian undertaking because celibacy. Shakers might well object for Almere in 1998, AVL took this street and then lovingly converted open-air museum like AVL-Ville. While sive approach to aesthetics). Beyond utopia is never realized but continually to comparisons between their simple unlikely vision one gruesome step into a sleek caravan. 3M Minimal Multi confounding traditional media, AVL’s relying on the autonomy of aesthetics, postponed to an idyllic future. Yet the furniture and the plain Modular Multi- forward with the installation The Mobile used to be a delivery truck in works do not create a unified impres- AVL takes advantage of every excep- Free State certainly looks like paradise Woman Bed, although these frugal Disciplinator, which seems to be its former life. AVL Spital, Workshop sion in terms of ideology, politics or tion to the rule, especially in the realm when compared with SlaveCity and individuals would likely appreciate modelled on a concentration camp. Far for Weapons and Bombs, Workshop even purpose. Pioneer Set may appear of state and municipal regulations. In the other penal colonies that are that the AVL copy-cat table and chair from commending the Nazi’s murder- for Alcohol and Medicines, Pioneer Set as a nostalgic desire to go back to relation to architecture, AVL’s works implied by The Disciplinator and The were made with wood that had been ous efficiency, The Disciplinator shows Container, AVL Canteen, Darkroom, nature and to live off the land, except constitute a negative reading of the Technocrat. However contradictory, salvaged from the interior of a used how horror can accompany a search Hall of Delights and A-Portable all the set comes in a shipping container, law because these installations are AVL’s many manifestations of com- shipping container. With his feminist for efficient solutions; rationality can began as shipping containers, which the ultimate tool of globalized trade. often the result of what has not been munity life all thrive in the exceptional sympathies, Charles Fourier (1772- easily work against human beings. The were salvaged from a rusty fate. While The Technocrat looks beautiful and included in the building code. While space created in relation to the law of 1837) might have also objected to Disciplinator also marries total efficacy an old Alfa Romeo found a second operates ecologically, but the installa- AVL occasionally breaks the law (for an officially recognized nation-state. Modular Multi-Woman Bed, but AVL’s with total futility: the facilities are used life as Alfa Alfa with Chicken Run, the tion facilitates human exploitation and example, by building without a proper Like the Free State – or even the other sex-friendly installations could exhaustively, just like the prisoners, car’s engine became Generator 80 KW slothfulness. The Disciplinator runs on permit), the atelier is more likely to isolated communities of the Shakers well have found a home in the utopian only to produce worthless sawdust. (1999). Old metal tubes have found a super-efficient production schedule, produce constructions that are simply and the Phalanstères – a penal colony socialist’s vision of class-sexual-com- The Technocrat is not a prison, yet the their way into guns and canons, just as only to churn out useless sawdust, not explicitly prohibited. Familiar maintains an autonomous outsider munal life in the Phalanstères, which installation offers another marriage of fruit juices have fermented into alco- while SlaveCity shrewdly follows the examples include mobile structures status with respect to the nation-state. were eventually built in the USA in the efficiency and futility: burghers drink hol. Even the livestock that populated rationality of profit-making, all the (Mobile Home for Kröller-Müller) and Taken out of civil society, prisoners mid-nineteenth century. Favela House alcohol all day and produce shit for Pioneer Set in AVL-Ville ended up, not better to harvest the slaves’ organs temporary ones (BarRectum), which are literally forced to live according comes from the impromptu architec- biogas; the collective existence of this only as meals, but also as the stuffed more effectively. And Sport Nouveau fall outside of the law because they to a more oppressive set of rules, to tural practices of the contemporary spreading consumer class is measured sculptural series Animal Farm (2001). may be as finely crafted as a traditional are not treated as permanent build- which law-abiding citizens are not São Paulo slums, where ‘garbage’ is only by its circulation of toxins. By AVL’s recycling is so fanatical that the rocking chair made by hand, except ings, legally bound to inspection. The subject. While more restricted than the immediately recycled into valuable contrast, the plans and models for the distinction between production and that the installation functions as a provisional (Compostoilet) and the criminal on the run, freedom fighter, building materials. AVL’s series of incarceration installation SlaveCity consumption, resource and waste, modern weight-lifting machine. AVL’s improvised (Alfa Alfa with Chicken raver or vagrant, the prisoner remains individual isolation units Orgone take efficiency to a new extreme by tends to disappear. The most tightly- world is filled with many complex Run) are other liminal legal cases; even an ideal AVL user: by living directly Helmet from 1997 – recently revived in running on 0 per cent energy; there closed circuits of self-sufficiency encounters, beyond the convergence the state of emergency is covered under the eye of the law, prisoners Dickhead – channel a naturally-occur- are only profits to be made – to the revolve around the human body; thus, of architecture and art. The old with a fully-functional field hospital become intimately acquainted with ring energy into a healing force for the tune of 7.8 billion euro annually. recycling human faeces and urine into meets the new; the ecological mixes in an easy-to-move container (AVL the law’s force as well as its limits body’s immune system; orgone was Cost-effectiveness rules over any other various resources was not efficient with the scatological; plain wood is Spital). AVL’s preferred sites include and flexibility, if any. SlaveCity, which first discovered in 1940 by Wilhelm consideration, especially ethical. While enough for AVL. For the atelier, faecal contradicted by coloured fibreglass; the slum (Favela House), the open is inhabited by both slaves and non- Reich (1897-1957), who was ostracized SlaveCity may recall the death camps, sex is a much better solution since rationality is forced into cohabitation sea (A-Portable) and the rural frontier slaves, goes even further into the state and persecuted for his beliefs, the project’s proximity to the present shit is directly converted into food with irrationality, the natural with the (Pioneer Set) since these zones tend of exception by following the Nazi including an unprecedented attempt is as disturbing as its recollection of – a shortcut that bypasses the entire synthetic, the efficient with the inef- to escape inspection. Target clients concentration camp’s division between to combine Freudian with Marxian the past. Instead of qualifying the composting process, whereby human ficient, the moral with the immoral, are those who move too quickly or the full citizens who ran the camps theories, sexuality with economics. Holocaust, SlaveCity suggests how faeces first becomes fertilizer and the human with the inhuman. too stealthily to be picked up by the and the non-citizens who suffered and The Una Bomber Theodore Kaczynski many Nazi practices have persisted in then nourishes crops that are later Considered from a wider perspective, sluggish inspector’s radar: criminals on died in them. It will be remembered – who survived alone in the woods our current global economy and how eaten, digested and eliminated. The AVL builds for the state of exception. the run (The Good, The Bad and The that victims like European Jews – played an inspirational role in The many lessons were never learned from watercolour Recycling – three figures The atelier’s most significant legacy Ugly), freedom fighters (Workshop for murdered by the Nazis were deprived Good, The Bad and The Ugly. AVL has their systematic murder of the Nazi eating faeces – suggests that there is is to build, occupy and operate in Weapons and Bombs) and the new of their citizenship before they were an on-going interest in the ingenuity victims. In SlaveCity, recycling organs no need for ‘conversion.’ Along with spaces that are created by the law mobiles, from high-end tourists (Maxi deported to the death camps; although of criminals – in hiding or on the run reflects the reality of the black market shit and urine, even vomit can become and yet remain to a certain extent Capsule Luxus) to low-end ravers (Mini imprisoned, the concentration camp – and prison inmates, whose forced trade in organs as well as the practice a meal. The watercolour Vomiting Trio outside its jurisdiction. Like the state Capsule), vagrants (Ideal Caravan) and inmates simply cannot be compared isolation abets thrifty recycling and of ‘donating’ the organs of executed depicts three men throwing up into of emergency declared during a politi- migrants (Modular House Mobile). to prisoners in a state jail. While discourages squandering. Most envi- prisoners; moreover, prisoners have a funnel-feeder which is attached to cal crisis, wartime or in the wake of a Unlike most architects, AVL reads the prisoners live outside civil society, the ronmentalists and conservationists long been used as a cheap, if not a fourth man’s open mouth. In AVL’s natural disaster, the state of exception building code and every other code, camp inmates were forced to subsist would balk at the idea of incarceration free, labour force for the telephone ecological Eden, waste is eliminated is filled with both danger and freedom. not to learn the rules by heart, but in an exceptional state beyond any as an environmentally-friendly alterna- service centres of corporations, whose along with the abject. Inhabitants Since the norm of law and order is rather to discover what is not covered law, since they could be murdered tive to the consumer society. And yet customers remain blind to the identity ‘work’ by simply following their own temporarily suspended, you could be by the rules and then to enjoy the with complete impunity. Again: the AVL’s urban plan for Almere called for of their incarcerated interlocutors. bodily functions, whose secretions shot as easily as you could construct most freedom in design, production state of exception is filled with danger the new city to become self-sufficient The most ecological element of AVL’s provide a source of food. a make-shift house around a public and use. If a Wombhouse is not in the and freedom. While SlaveCity reflects by hosting a prison where inmates self-sufficiency appears to be its desire monument. AVL began to explore the books, then that’s the best reason the dangers inherent to state of the could double as cheap labourers to eliminate waste. There should be state of exception by exploiting the to make one. Made in the space of exception, if not its inhumanity, AVL- The Deformation of Everyday Life: A Short History of Joep van Lieshout’s Architecture

Ville explored the freedoms beyond where slaves are legally murdered for a fair trial. On the other hand, the Aaron Betsky the rule of the law. The Free State their organs, reflects yet another hor- liberalization of markets and the rise declared at the Rotterdam harbour rific form of bare life. Inside SlaveCity, of free trade has forced nation-states became an exceptional city within the ‘bios’ of each individual slave’s life to give up, not only their monopolies the Netherlands while criticizing the is no longer protected by a set of civil, on public services, but also their ability official nation-state on two levels. constitutional or universal rights but to use legislation as a buffer against First, AVL-Ville questioned the Dutch rather subject to the laws of supply pure economy. Indeed, communal life state’s monopoly in certain communal and demand in the free market. If there cannot always be profitable. As AVL’s realms by proposing alternatives to is no legal mediation by the state or an oeuvre suggests, our exceptional the national and municipal norms international convention, the differ- states bring great dangers and great for health care, currency, weaponry, ence between biology and economy freedoms. Bare life may be imprisoned sanitation and other public services. disappears. Human life can be im- and subject to the market or be deter- As an art work, AVL-Ville could realize mediately calculated and realized as mined by the twin desires of sexuality such alternatives, which are illegal, pure profit; moreover, in SlaveCity, the and ecology. Everything is possible: while reaping their benefits; take slave’s body must be profitable both in from harvesting organs to recycling AVL’s Compostoilet, which is more life (as a cheap source of labour) and shit for faecal sex and biogas. AVL has environmentally-friendly than the in death (as a set of organs). AVL- already built the facilities; it’s up to us wasteful flush toilet required by Ville offered a slightly more positive to inhabit them. building codes. Second, AVL-Ville manifestation of bare life not only by challenged the Dutch state by writing exploring the freedoms in the state of its own Constitution. The Free State’s exception but also by eliminating all foundational document guarantees forms of legislation and government many of the rights already guaranteed beyond the basic Constitution. Inside by the Netherlands (such as freedom AVL-Ville, there was no further media- of expression). But AVL did away tion to protect, control or represent with all other forms of legislation and the inhabitants. Human physiological government along with the people functions came close to pure politics, who enforce them: police, judges, driven primarily by bodily needs and lawyers, politicians. Moreover, AVL desires along with ecology (economy eliminated any exceptions to its own also played a role, albeit less decisive laws. Judged by its Constitution, AVL- than in SlaveCity, since AVL-Ville could Ville was not exactly a break-away not escape the market as easily as it city, nor a parallel city, but claimed could work around the Dutch state). itself as the state of exception to the The Free State’s installations – from Netherlands and Dutch laws. The Free the open Compostoilet to Modular State was the only place in Holland Multi-Woman Bed – codified and where there were no exceptions; the collectivized the most intimate exception was the rule; everything was biological functions: defecating, possible. By eliminating the state of sleeping, eating, having sex. Just exception to its laws, AVL challenged beyond its Constitution, AVL-Ville the Dutch state’s right to declare one. glimpsed a collective organization Whether anticipating the dangers or of human life based upon bare life. exploring the freedoms in the state of Since AVL-Ville ran according to exception, AVL has created planning biological functions specific to the and architecture for a community life human species, this manifestation of based upon bare life. Originally coined community challenged symbolic ways by Walter Benjamin and more recently of belonging, whether via citizenship developed by Giorgio Agamben, the or via identity politics (whereby the term bare life does not refer to a naked nation-state must legally recognize body but to a human body that has micro-communities among its citi- been stripped of legal rights, whether zens). AVL – responding to the state the basic human rights guaranteed by of exception and to bare life in all of the Geneva Convention or the rights its forms, both positive and negative – enjoyed by citizens in a democratic may operate at the edges of the law. nation-state. As Agamben noted, bare Yet its creations are instructive for our life is bred wherever the state of present era, which is caught between exception has been declared; in the terrorism and globalization. On the state of exception, bare life can be one hand, nation-states fighting extinguished with impunity, whether terrorism have increasingly declared a the Jews in a Nazi concentration camp state of exception, where citizens can or today’s refugees who are left to be freely killed by accident as terrorist drown in a sinking boat. SlaveCity, suspects or be imprisoned without 021 Joep van Lieshout has constructed a In the late 1970s, a strong reaction Model, a particular manner of adapting complex edifice within the realm of towards this kind of consumption of all these foreign imports and local contemporary art. It is not made up exotic places in mechanical objects traditions into a collage of institutions, of paintings or sculptures, nor of made the Dutch develop a culture of ways of behaving, and forms. It pro- performance pieces, installations or what they called ‘goat hair socks’. duced great art and architecture, such body art. Instead, it is an amalgama- Plastic and its colours were out, while as that of the Office of Metropolitan tion of many of the elements taken organic forms, wood and wool were in. Architecture, that spiralled out of a from these traditions and fused into The aim was to have a self-sufficient knowing reuse of popular culture and something that one can use or inhabit. community that would exhibit a good a tendency towards bigness while It is a deformed architecture of every- stewardship of the land while setting proclaiming its anarchic, autarkic day life. itself off from capitalist society in principles and covering itself in the To make sense of such a deformed everything from sexual mores to the nostalgic images gleaned from the structure, it might be useful to trace its rough textures and fluid shapes with moment when the new was still origins. Van Lieshout, who is roughly which it surrounded itself. No member exciting. Verge tourism had finally my age, grew up in the Netherlands of a commune was Joep van Lieshout, produced art. It was then that Joep as an orderly, organized society at least not in those days, but he has van Lieshout, collaborating with OMA where everything and everyone was certainly built one of the most success- and others on projects such as Euralille in its place. His art traces and tracks ful entities of that sort in the Dutch in 1995, came into his own. He had the ways in which we reacted to the art world – even if one has to raise absorbed the past and was now of and knowable and predicable architecture questions about the conviction with about his age. Even the trickier sides of everyday life. which its anti-capitalism is carried out. of this highly self-aware culture, such When we were growing up in the Now he is proposing veritable autarkic as its playing with fascism as a way Netherlands in the 1960s, there was communities (The Technocrat series, of criticizing prejudice and pointing to a strange phenomenon called ‘berm 2003 and onward) in which the collec- holy cows, as was the working method toerisme‘, or ‘verge tourism‘. City tive and collected effluent produces of the assassinated filmmaker Theo dwellers would pack up that symbol the food that keeps the no doubt goat van Gogh, became part and parcel of of their new-found wealth, their car, hair sock-wearing inhabitants going. van Lieshout’s work, leading to the get on the highway, go to a spot an Such idealistic ways of living proved design of concentration camps (The hour’s or so drive away, and then park unsustainable then – and will probably Disciplinator, 2003) rendered with to watch the other cars go by while do so now – and in the 1980s greed the innocence of a child survivor’s enjoying a picnic lunch seasoned was good. The bravura with which drawings. with exhaust fumes. I have a strong symbols of power were adopted, Thus it is easy to see van Lieshout’s suspicion that Joep van Lieshout, who from drugs to corporations, was an whole career as nothing more or less denies ever having engaged in this accepted way to live out one’s desires. than a palimpsest of the last four dec- activity, would have loved to do so. The ability to manage a large company ades of Dutch culture, filtered through The world of cars and movement, from or group of people, to buy anything the refined sensibilities of an artist and its bulbous shapes to its hard colours, one might want, and to live large presented with the showmanship that but also to its culture of drag racing in every sense of the word became is these days proper to that avocation. and the freedom the car provides, and popular in the otherwise rather The result is startling. The bad boy art- especially the tacky culture surround- reticent Netherlands. The government ist has now carved more than a niche ing the emblem of consumer culture, began to think about privatization, for himself in the international church provides him with endless fascination. and popular culture, mainly generated of contemporary art. He has turned By the 1970s, we were all going out in in the USA, threatened to drown out himself into a complete industry of art, ‘caravans‘, trailers that the Dutch took whatever locally produced cultural including disciples, rules, and a well- to France or, if they were really daring, artefacts might still be surviving. Joep oiled machinery supporting a clear and Italy. Again, van Lieshout claims never van Lieshout, then just embarking on effective organization. to have been part of this mass summer his career as an artist, was hungry This is in itself not surprising or that migration south, but he certainly for it all. He travelled to the USA and exceptional. These days, many artists loves his trailers, having turned them rented American cars. He raced cars operate in this manner (though van into what was for at least a decade and dressed like a businessman or a Lieshout has been at it longer than (starting with the La Bais-ô-Drôme in hoodlum, depending on his mood or Matthew Barney, Damien Hirst or 1995) the central vehicle for his art. In the occasion. And he turned his art- Olafur Eliasson) and it would be easy this case, however, it seems that what making practice into a multinational to argue that this is the destiny of art if interests him is not so much the forms corporation geared to ever-greater it is going to survive in a world of ever and the culture of camping, as the kind production. If Bill Gates can boast of larger and more complex institutions of perversion of social relations that being the richest man in the world, and collecting communities, as well take place in these close, but nomadi- Joep van Lieshout can claim to have as a popular culture more productive cally free, quarters. Though I have not more exhibitions a year than anybody and savvy than ever before. If so, then dared to ask him this third question, else. van Lieshout is, if not the Rembrandt, I would love to imagine that van Finally, starting in the mid 1990s, then surely the Rubens of twenty- Lieshout lost his virginity somewhere a new culture crept into the Dutch first-century art. In fact, AVL (Atelier on vacation in a tent, cabin or camper. consciousness. It was the Polder Van Lieshout) might be the first truly effective art-making entity since Andy Not that the act of sex is without least to this observer, rather chilling. ing his awareness of the popularity finds, builds and articulates the order perhaps finally found the right way in Warhol’s Factory, and is a lot more consequences: van Lieshout has In the drawings for both Sportopia of sex, violence, food and excrement, that binds them to each other and to which he can unify his various artistic productive than that drug-addled mo- created Wombhouse (complete with and the The Technocrat, mutilated that he has found a way to not only the system. tendencies. ment in New York cultural ephemera. alcohol dispensers to assuage the pain bodies having sex, sexual organs become a more successful artist, but The Technocrat, Disciplinator and This does not mean that he necessarily The basis for AVL’s success is not of either father or mother) and the taken out of context, castrated and also to tie together many of the other SlaveCity projects of the last few wants to or should build. It is exactly just organizational or generational, interior of the A-Portable (2001, abor- tied up, and other forms of extreme themes in his work. Thus the hogs he years are the most complete and most the proposal quality of his work that although one does wonder whether tion container) that cruised along the sadomasochism are of course artistic butchered and turned into sausages disturbing summing-up of his art that keeps it as art, while its form becomes future generations will respond coast of Ireland in 2002. And then there elements that have august precedents became not only the origins of works van Lieshout has presented to us more and more truly architectural. Is as empathetically to some of van are the forms themselves, which range from classicism to Caravaggio, but van of art, but also of a commercial thus far. It shows a kind of art for arts it any coincidence that the best work Lieshout’s earlier work as those of from the womb-like to the phallic, Lieshout does tend to take things a bit enterprise that had as its highlight sake, in which art is a closed-system that the Dutch have produced in the us who grew up with more or less and are meant to either contain one farther. the short-lived AVL-Ville van Lieshout technology that binds us to each other last four to five decades has existed in the same culture. Van Lieshout is a or be worn as a kind of prosthetic to Only occasionally has the artist taken proclaimed during the 2001 Rotterdam and reveals both the beauty and the the world of architecture and design successful artist because of his ability enhance one’s (appearance of) abilities. violence as a topic in and of itself, as Cultural Capital of Europe events. futility of sex, violence, exercise and or, as in the case of Constant in his to plug into the basic elements out Sex is central to van Lieshout’s work when he has portrayed himself in 1995 Though the artist sold the enterprise commerce themselves. It is a kind of New Babylon, has mimicked it? Is of which our culture is made: food as a generator of forms if nothing else. as a latter-day revolutionary standing as a political gesture and relished the ironic utopia in which all the objects there something about the architec- and drink, violence, sex, exercise and Even exercise, another topic that ready to mow down the bourgeois (his closing down of his little dominion by the artist has made until now can tural quality of the Dutch landscape, or health, commerce and tourism. These van Lieshout introduced in his entry collectors?) with a machine gun. When the police (for health reasons, they have a place. It is a form of built verge the pragmatic attitude towards visual are the categories of culture with (Sportopia, 2002) for the 2002 São violence is not tied up with sex in van claimed), he actually operated it as a tourism, a voyeuristic assimilation art, that leads the visual arts in this which we concern ourselves when Paolo Biennale, is related to sex: the Lieshout’s work, it becomes part of restaurant and bar that was meant to of technology as a spectacle one direction? Or is it merely that, living in we are not making money, feeding platforms he designed are meant to how we produce food. Van Lieshout sustain itself and AVL-Ville more than consumes while producing it. a world in which everything is already ourselves, procreating or doing other tone the muscles and provide the learned how to butcher pigs, did so anything else. Today, he calls himself a This ironic utopia is finally, however, ordered, regulated and designed, you useful things. They are the palimpsests machine-based titillation he seems as an art performance and installation ‘anarcho-capitalist‘. one that remains outside of us. It is, can only escape from it in caravans, of all those activities that provide to think is an integral part of the (Slaughter, 1997), drew and turned That method of operation is typical for in the end, a work of art, a project speed racing, communes or corporate meaning, value or merely escape and sexual act (though his own appear- into art the necessary implements, Joep van Lieshout. He produces art and not a proposal for a real situation. gulags, or can deform it into some- let us understand where we are and ance does not give much evidence and then produced a manual as an that, like that of many contemporary Van Lieshout is always careful to stay thing one might call art. who we are. To make us aware of that of this discipline – it is perhaps just a artist’s book that showed us all how to and historical artists, is made up of on this side of sanity and high art by In the end, Joep van Lieshout has not culture, we need, in short, art, and van question of art, not conviction). Van do it (1997). This is the most extreme components and themes that he can presenting his violent rendering of yet built his architecture, and perhaps Lieshout is the artist for us. He has Lieshout seems fascinated by the case of the ways in which he has recombine and reuse, and that he pigs, his prosthetic penis, his hippy never will. Instead, he does remain an managed to create art out of those machinery of self-discipline, but also highlighted the violence (it is a way to can also make in multiple versions. concentration camp and his sadomaso- artist. He lets us take a trip through his aspects of our consumer culture that by the medical machinery into which show how to deal with food and food Because he works with materials such chistic gym as proposals, drawn in own mind and the worlds that shelter are the core elements by which capi- we must, at times, plug ourselves. In production in a respectful and crafty as plastic, polyurethane and other ink on paper or built in fragments that within that strange place. He allows us talist systems of production manage Sportopia, all three fascinations merge way . . . ) inherent in food production highly malleable, highly mechanized can and are sold as precious objects. to be a tourist to the mechanical sites to make us take part in their systemic into drawings that go from Kama and consumption. In the AVL-Ville elements, and because his forms are They are dreams and nightmares, not that are usually off limit to us. We can logic while giving us our own world. Sutra to carnality in every sense of commune of 2001 and the subsequent elemental and, one might even say, blueprints for real places. see a slaughterhouse and we can see Joep van Lieshout fashions something the word. If one were looking for an commune-like proposals he has made cartoon-like, he can produce and All of which makes it even more a concentration camp, fantasize about called art, in other words, out of the intellectual explanation, it would be over the last five years, assembly-line reproduce them with great ease. While interesting that today Joep van being either prisoner or keeper, victim reality of our social and economic that van Lieshout is illustrating either production of food – though he would other artists might hide the business- Lieshout increasingly sees himself, or or perpetrator, or both. We can inspect system. By doing so in a logical and Foucault’s lessons about discipline and claim in a bio-agricultural way – is a like aspects of their ateliers behind is presented by museums, as a kind of a gym without doing any exercise. We attractive manner, as befits anybody punishment or Deleuze and Guattari’s central theme. The machinery it takes the veneer of craft and one-off master- architect gone haywire. He certainly can watch sex without even getting working in a consumer culture, he ramblings about ‘bodies without to feed us is shown in all its beauty, pieces, van Lieshout relishes the look has designed a few structures and has aroused. We are only tourists taking can appeal to a large audience and organs’, but in truth the work seems but also in all its naked power and and feel, if not always the actual fact, collaborated with architects, but his in the show at whatever museum is still claim to be an artist in the model to come more from a cross between violence. of mass production and cheapness. art more and more takes the form of presenting this art. of the academy, producing singular a delight in the medical manuals and This food production is also part of a The image he presents is that of the an integrative project whose utopian It is no coincidence that the caravan pieces worthy of collecting, criticizing (the artist’s?) love of bodies sweating cycle of production and consumption artist as a used car dealer. and dystopian overtones are spelled or camper is the most basic element and even enshrining in a museum. for whatever reason. This is not to say that highlights the less polite aspects That play with mass production, out in ink on canvas drawings, cut- of van Lieshout’s art. It is an emblem Joep van Lieshout makes sure to hit that exercise and health as a topic in of the human body. Van Lieshout has a-human seeming materials, sleaziness away models and other fragments of of the artist and tourist as well as the the hotspots. First, there is sex, always van Lieshout’s work is tied only to sex. long had a fascination with defeca- and illegality has recently reached what could be the presentations of an viewer as tourist. It is a deformation a good topic if you want to make art It also pervades his work in an almost tion and other bodily effluents. Such a further extreme in his dangerous architectural office. of our popular culture and particularly that will appeal to a large audience. invisible manner, leading to forms natural results of the other activities toying with memories of concentra- The model of the architect as some- of that part of that culture in which Van Lieshout has been engaged with that are continually bulging out from, out of which he has made his art tion camps. Here it is not so much body who is at the same time a viewing landscape, sporting events this subject from the beginning of his but constrained by, the containers produce images and forms to which commerce itself that is his subject, but handmaiden of those forces who have and cultural artefacts are all jumbled career, and has managed to use it as in which they occur. This is the case he seems attracted and which, I must rather the commercial impulses taken the power and money to commission together and subordinated to the act a subject, as a way of presenting his whether these constraints come in confess, I find to be the most juvenile to their illogical extremes. People here him (almost never, still, her) and a of travel itself, in which one reduces work, and even in its formal qualities. the form of institutions for which van part of his art. And yet it is exactly this are ‘citizens‘, who produce effluent subversive dreamer who seeks to build one’s ties to the world around one His Bioprick and Bedroom-Slave Unit, Lieshout has designed toilets or the that makes him more popular, perhaps and consume food cheaply produced a perfect world and in the end creates to the compacted, free-floating, but both of 1992, are explicit in this sense. many caravans he has outfitted with because it shows that he is not just an in The Feeder and are kept happy and nightmarishly rational constraints plugged-in mobile home. To this day, he revels in drawing and cancerous protuberances. Exercise abstract manipulator of imagery, but quite with The Alcoholator. They make with and in which we all have to live These days it seems as if the real making pricks. Photographed on a bed and health shade off almost inevitably somebody who is in touch with the methane gas that is used as fuel to is perhaps the perfect model for Joep world is catching up with Joep van that would be, if looked at in another into violence, the third grand subject reality of life – or perhaps just because cook and distil. Human beings are thus van Lieshout. After fashioning himself Lieshout. Most of us no longer travel manner, rather unremarkable, he in van Lieshout’s work. They can do his audience is juvenile as well. consumables as well as consumers. as everything from a race car driver in campers, and sex, violence and makes sure that the legs of a naked so benignly, as in A-Portable, or they It is through van Lieshout’s portrayal They are part of a closed-loop system to a butcher, and from a commune exercise have been so thoroughly woman are on the background. can do so with directness that is, at and manipulation of commerce, includ- in which the loop is the art itself that guru to a subversive capitalist, he has assimilated into popular culture that we barely notice them anymore. The between use and observation, con- comics kids read and the skating they sumption and admiration come to- do a little later are so much more gether in a singular piece that evokes adventurous than van Lieshout’s art the smell of beer and the street. It is a that the latter looks very much like van Lieshout haiku, proper to the place polite high culture. Van Lieshout has and the age out of which this artist wisely not engaged himself in a race to makes his art. the bottom by trying to keep up with these trends. Instead, he is becoming, however strange that might sound, more mature. His forms are becoming smoother, more abstract and more polyvalent. In the later versions of his human figures, produced as giant gunby-like statues for museums, parks and squares in the last two years, one can read a number of different scales, sexes and attitudes into shapes and compositions that are almost iconic. He is also more clearly separating the work he does himself, as an artist, from the near-mass production that takes place in his atelier. He is even extending himself into a brand, pro- ducing highly successful and simple furniture through the Van Lensvelt Company. Multiples have long been a part of his art (literally, as a series in 1987 and 1990 with that name, and figuratively, throughout his work), and for me that goes to the heart of what makes his art so attractively disturbing. They show that van Lieshout works in and with our shared memories and goods, which is to say our shared culture. They show him not trying to refine that commonplace vernacular into something we might call art, but attempting to produce art through the refraction, deformation and reproduc- tion of what is most base (in every sense of the word) about our world. The heart of all Joep van Lieshout’s prodigious output for me still is the simple gesture of the 1987 Untitled piece, now owned by the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen. Three beer crates are sandwiched between eight concrete tiles. The art lies in the illicit appropriation of standard goods to make a new object for presentation in an art setting, the discovery of the geometric concurrence between these disparate materials that together make a solid object, and the crafting of these into a thing of great clarity, measure and purity. It is a pop-culture version of a Sol LeWitt. Yet it is also a bench, or a table, a thing to be used. Fragments of mass production, the arrangements proper to art, and the ambivalence The Socially Oriented Art of Atelier Van Lieshout

Rudi Laermans

029 A life contains only virtuals Prelude Production Communism Gilles Deleuze

Art turned modern the moment In 1995 Joep van Lieshout (JVL) penetration of digital networks within it ceased striving only for beauty decided to group his diverse activities which information can be instantly and focused on everyday life. This within AVL and to use this collective exchanged and modified. Productive began with the Impressionists, call sign as his signature. Within AVL, labour had already been socialized for who attempted to capture the new design and production are explicitly some time, but post-Fordist capitalism cosmopolitan existence as well as socialized, according to a logic both of condenses human capabilities such the vitality of physical perception in division of labour and of cooperation as interaction and communication, their paintings. A few decades later, that has been predominant outside thinking and imaginative power, into Duchamp and Dadaism chose the more the realm of art for a long time. In the a single collective factor of production direct path of the ready-made or the art world, however, the model of the that also embodies a ‘general intel- banal utilitarian object, while Breton Factory à la Warhol still elicits resist- ligence’ (Marx), a socialized creativity. and the Surrealists wanted to hotwire ance. It severs the practice of art from In this way, a creative production art to the subconscious . . . This the notion of the auteur, models it on communism has crystallized within history of modern art is still unfolding, the business world, and in so doing the framework of private property and even though there has been talk of desecrates the Romantic faith in the wage labour. It encompasses creative post-modern art for some time now. genius of the artist and the unique- production, and thus the concep- Perhaps a portion of art production ness of the art object. Art is created tion and design of objects, images, has managed to connect so success- individually, not produced collectively information, and so forth, through the fully to everyday life that it is no according to a business model, says linkage of divergent individual creative longer identifiable as autonomous the still-dominant creed. By forging capabilities on a project-by-project art. This ‘post-art’ goes through ahead nonetheless, AVL is remonstrat- basis. Mutable work communities life as fashion, design, advertising, ing the art world for its de facto organize around diverse tasks or film, architecture . . . In all of these commercialization and the negation commissions in an informal and fields of commercially based cultural of this in the prevailing doctrine of art. relatively egalitarian fashion, based on production or creative economy, the Yet the work of AVL cannot be reduced consultation, cooperation, collective Kunstwollen, the artistic volition (Alois to such a critical mindset in any way. brainstorming and so on. The resulting Riegl), has imploded in lifestyles and AVL’s production is wide-ranging, from product cannot therefore be credited life forms that are lived effectively and artworks to design artefacts (furniture, to one single auteur, even if it carries play a part in structuring society. interior design, residential units) to a (brand) name, but is instead the In the work of Atelier Van Lieshout commissioned works (‘You ask, no outcome of a collective decision- (AVL) art, design and architecture design or art is involved’, says JVL). making process. In the creative sector intertwine. Their work is based on the AVL is therefore less an artists’ enter- this non-political, primarily production- observation that contemporary capital- prise and more a creative venture that focused communism is most prevalent ism has made the avant-gardist dream incorporates a broader social trend. in design-centred practices, such as of a fusion of life and creativity a real- Art is creativity, but the arts have long architecture and design. AVL extends ity, resulting in a drastic evolution in ceased to hold a monopoly on the this evolution to the conception as the relationships between art, life and conception and construction of ‘new well as the production of artefacts politics. The very extensive oeuvre of worlds’, the exploration and actualiza- scaled as art, in which the variance AVL, in the form of countless artefacts tion of new possibilities in media such from objects ascribed to design is and designs, as well as in the way in as image, text or sound. Innovation, sometimes paper-thin. which it is produced, shows the basic playfulness and imaginative power The socialization of the capacity for contours of the anonymous order in also characterize the diverse forms creativity buttresses activities within which our lives are presently shaped: of the cultural economy, from film AVL, and this in spite of the ‘brand what this existing order generates and rock music to advertising and the name’ linked to an individual (in this within the domain of production, what writing of software. AVL is acting out regard as well, AVL is committing to physicality it directs, how it disciplines this evolution, therefore operating its economic environment: creative and regulates us. AVL does not make on the boundaries of art, design and production communism goes together political art, in the usual sense, but its architecture, and implementing the with private property and individu- work undeniably deals with the inter- collective logic of immaterial labour alization). This transforms the artist lacing of life, creativity and politics in (as described by the heirs of the Italian JVL into a collection of functions and our time. I wish to clarify this identity operaismo movement: Toni Negri, positions, the organizational weight in the following text, in the cheerful Paolo Virno, Maurizio Lazzarato). of which varies according to the sort knowledge that any interpretation is In contrast to the arts, research of project involved and the phase it as much an artifice as a coup d’état, and creation have been forms of has reached. He is no longer a genius as much a hard construction as a soft non-individual, socialized labour auteur continually confronted with form of symbolic exercise of force. in the cultural economy from the himself in his lonely work, but the very beginning. Making a film or a director of a collective intelligence. He television programme, designing a proposes projects and also bears ulti- car or a clothing line, or conceiving an mate responsibility, and he is primarily advert, are all teamwork. The fusion a coach and source of inspiration, of cooperation and labour division has mental and social manager, controller now been generalized by the general and activator of a collective capacity Generic Corporeality Biopolitics or social potential within certain Almost no artefact designed and by AVL are, down to the smallest to prettify – to ‘lie’. Instead of the ‘cos- The sociability with which AVL’s work use. The modern state and the figure economic outlines. Given a budget, he produced by AVL up to this point looks detail, an enlargement of the fusion metics’ of colour or form, AVL opts for has signed a pact is a corporeality of the modern subject do in fact form applies it to ensure that a concept or like an art object in the usual sense. of provisionality and permanence, truth and honesty. Shitting is shitting, present in all social relationships, the a pair, for the state cannot function potential ‘new world’ is translated in a Whether they be mobile homes or intimacy and publicness, that charac- so a simple and preferably sustainable, biologically specific weight that all without the fiction of the rational and motivated, non-mechanical way in ma- compost toilets, large organ sculptures terizes life below the poverty line and environmentally responsible toilet action and coexistence carries: ‘the disciplined citizen with a pure self- terials and operations. Conceptual art or the model for a gigantic call centre, is mimicked as a deliberate state of suffices. AVL champions the values flesh of the world’ (Merleau-Ponty). awareness untainted by any stimulant. institutionalized the division between the artefacts of AVL practically never exception on any summer campsite. of Adolf Loos after the implosion of This generic corporeality is always a AVL’s blueprints do not pay attention conception and execution, design and refer to art history, not even to current The generic body seems quasi- bourgeois culture and its bent toward collection of strengths and physical to taxes or social benefit payments, realization, concept and object; within artistic developments. They do not animalistic, and has been relegated curlicues within the new context of possibilities as well, which have been, but show the modern state precisely a creative venture like AVL these allude, directly or indirectly, to the backstage in the course of the civiliza- the anonymous design culture of since the advent of secularization in as pure biopower, as the medium of activities do not come together in the formal idiom of the autonomous tion process, as described by Norbert consumer capitalism. the modern West, the object of cultural a maximally goal-oriented control person of the ‘creative director’, but in artwork, or, more recently, of installa- Elias. Civilization is synonymous with AVL’s design work seems rough, civilizing offensives via the family, of individual bodies that endorses his or her punctual and project-driven tion or site-specific art. The objects do increasing impulse and affect control, because of its combination of harsh the school and the media. They also and commands the ideal of civilized cooperation with associates. not even stand on their own; they are an expanding management both of colours and hard materials (scaffolding form the target of various forms of vitality. AVL’s vitalistic anarchism may AVL-Ville (2001) was an attempt to anything but monads. Rather they de- spontaneous emotional urges (to elements, untreated wood, very often political control and canalization (laws at times seem naïve, and it undeniably stage this genuinely existing creative rive their meaning from their potential strike, to embrace, to run away) and fibreglass). It is never really cosy; and campaigns, identity cards and has a hard macho component (JVL as communism in a public setting, and use within an everyday living context, of primary bodily functions (needing not infrequently it looks unheimlich, files, police and army), and of a direct a sponsored race-car driver or posing simultaneously to broaden it. The without appropriating it directly, as in to piss, eat, drink, sleep). The civilized sometimes plainly abject. AVL opts economic instrumentalization through would-be terrorist, the numerous penis Free State-in-operation was open to the tradition of avant-garde art. AVL body neither wolfs nor bolts down for life as a biological reality and labour discipline in all its variants. sculptures). But it is also paired with visitors, but was also the harbinger makes actual or potential utilitarian food but rather eats in a disciplined against the pressure of lifestyle, for Modernity is synonymous with democ- a both Machiavellian and materialistic of a social community not regulated objects; it critically plays the concrete manner, with a knife and fork, can the truth of the body and against racy and capitalism, but this political view of the state and politics that is by laws and prescriptions. Before and use value of the objects it produces control the urge to relieve itself modelling according to a body style. and economic order is in turn founded averse to the belief in the structuring after AVL-Ville, AVL was and is a fusion against the abstract exchange value until it finds a toilet, and fights the The creative venture rejects the logic on an all-encompassing biopower, as power of ideas or arguments. In AVL’s of collectivity and individual enter- (the price) and the coded symbolic inclination to get bigger and fatter. The of the current experience economy, the work of Michel Foucault teaches. vision the power of modern govern- prise, communism and capitalism. In value (status, fashionability, etcetera) biological generic body is sublimated its promise of a comfortable life and Biopower regulates and standardizes ments is based not on ideology but the AVL-Ville project, AVL turned itself of the countless things that populate and disciplined, and at the same time its related addressing of the body as the body as the carrier of life, through on various forms of direct body and inside out, as it were, and the underly- everyday life. At the same time most made publicly invisible, banished to a neutral medium for pleasing sensa- laws, divisions of time or health population control. ing communal logic of its production of AVL’s products presume a very such private spaces as the toilet and tions. To this end AVL does not return regulations and – more contemporar- AVL’s designs show the modern state communism was made autonomous specific user. They are not geared to bathroom. Countless design objects to the functionalist dogma of ‘less is ily – lifestyles, happiness models in a photonegative: they are always and generalized. AVL-Ville marked the a self-aware subject out to purchase and installations by AVL imply it as an more’. The designed ‘stimulacra’ (JVL) or environmental standards. The blueprints for a Free State. The Free transition from a working community a ready-made lifestyle, but to general unshown premise – once in a while, testify to the realization that in today’s generalized life control aims to train State is the crossed-out state, literally: into a mini-society and liberated the vital functions – not to ‘somebody’ incidentally, it is symbolically evoked consumer culture, functionalism in the body, make it docile and efficient, the state. It may still assert itself as group productivity from its relation but to ‘anybody’. To a pre-individual, by means of, for instance, little AVL design and architecture too is merely and at the same time control sexuality, a territorial entity, but no longer as a to particular tasks. The enterprise primary corporeality we share as living Men in a squatting position. a specific symbolic value or connota- mobility, productivity, etcetera at the political and legal entity with a cultural became the collective it always had beings: in the work of AVL a conscious The work of AVL shows nothing tion. AVL therefore does not produce population level. The societal coloniza- identity (the national community) and been and thus revealed the real production communism goes hand in directly; it is full of allusions to the purely utilitarian objects, nor pure use tion of body and life continually elicits with a monopoly on the right to life social foundation of the existing hand with the production of objects generic human body. AVL pulls the values, but flashy design objects the resistance, just like the dream of a and death (the state as Sovereign) that production communism. Work is now that refer to a ‘communal’ body. basic bodily functions out from distinctive symbolic value of which is fully liberated, ‘authentic’ corporeality. at the same time wants to train life cooperation, with as its engine an The generic body without a face or backstage, not with hard images but perverted by a mix of rectilinear and The work of AVL, especially the more to the model of the rational subject affective commitment that can never particularity is in fact the presumptive through the peculiar design of the organic forms, proletarian materials, recent work, thematizes this dialectic who uses his or her life force primarily be wholly rationalized. The existing user of most of AVL’s artefacts and apparatuses and technologies with and colours that are ‘not done’. AVL of the occupation and liberation of to tame and control him- or herself creative economy and its modulated blueprints. In the oeuvre of AVL, this which the biological body has long does low-profile design, and the result life in dual fashion. It protests against (the state as government, as holder of captivation of life forces is predicated is symbolized by the little AVL Man, since become intertwined. In moder- of this direct body design is often a modern state power as a prescriptive biopower). How should we understand on a broader libidinal economy – that the often pure-white polyester body nity, bodily functions gradually turned bizarre combination of the ascetism and anti-life tyrant, and it enlarges the this state? AVL’s projects are equivocal. was the sociological and political reduced to a trunk plus appendages into structural linkages between of the post-war Eastern European grip of global capitalism on life into a One the one hand they show the state lesson of AVL-Ville. The AVL working that is not only faceless but also body parts and objects: arse-toilet, look with the garishness of gadgets contemporary form of slavery. as the origin, as predating any actual community changed in potency into relatively genderless (it connotes penis-bed, hands- and mouth-table. produced in Asia. AVL-Ville and its direct forerunner, state – as a pure colonists’ community a living community within which the masculinity, but has no male genitalia). The objects or apparatuses in question the plan for the Almere Free State, that has not yet organized itself as a ever-present ambiguity of mutual trust Some objects are enlargements of were long seen as mere instruments, Happy Forest (Kröller-Müller, Otterlo), sovereign state. On the other hand and distrust, sympathy and antipathy, organs, but far more often they refer then they were given considered The Good, The Bad and The Ugly they allude to the state as a desired attraction and repulsion was unhitched to generic bodily functions, such as colours and shapes, and now their ap- (Rabastens, France) and AVL Franchise objective – as the future society, from the concentration on the objects sleeping, defecation, sex, eating and pearance changes with the prevailing Unit (Middelheim Museum, Antwerp) posited in today’s production commu- to be produced. At the same time, the drinking, and personal hygiene. They trend or fashion. This made allusions are, directly or indirectly, designs for nism, of people who need neither law content of the collective labour extend- come together in the mobile home: a to the generic body even more indi- a community liberated from state nor state to govern themselves. But ed to all activities necessary for living temporary abode machine in which rect, even more sublimated: in the age and law. They protest against state can the state be effectively realized? – growing food, cooking, cleaning, and housing is reduced to a purely corpo- of generalized design body technology power as a regulator of violence Even the Free State, suggests AVL- so forth – because AVL-Ville wanted real configuration, an efficient compo- tries to remind one as little as possible through the ban on the possession Ville’s charter, cannot do without a to be as self-sufficient as possible. It sition of physical operations, without of bodily reality. AVL’s artefacts and of guns, of sexuality through the ban minimal constitution. This is needed had something of a commune without much decoration or status symbolism. installations deconstruct this evolu- on prostitution, and of physical or in order to block further statification, communist doctrine. This reduction also pervades – but tion. AVL deploys its design practice mental mobility through identification to . . . outlaw the transformation of then permanently – in colonization or against the dominant tendency in requirements (the identity card) and the state into a State. This is why, for poverty. The Favela Houses designed design and architecture to conceal, the regulation of alcohol and drug instance, there is a clause mandating Coda: Blueprint Art that conflicts be resolved through potential of non-life as well. The it is indeed self-referential: the work What are the stakes of the models or image from which any allusion to mutual consultation, without the installations and designs of AVL rather refers to the collective activity that and quasi-installations of AVL? Why labour, material or immaterial, has intervention of any police or legal refer to work camps for delinquents precedes it and objectifies it. does AVL, for instance, not make been meticulously erased. apparatus. AVL’s Free State is, in other or lawbreakers. They represent a total video documentaries on the current In their prototypical character, AVL’s words, a paradoxical fusion of law prison in which the body is merely political system instead of opting for objects emphasize that they have and lawlessness. AVL-Ville was also exploitable life force, in a way that schematic representations, in cheap been conceived, constructed, invented, the state as state within the state. is related to slavery. Yet where does materials, of the architecture and etcetera. But one prototype is not like The project came down to a symbolic the construction of a ‘new world’ end apparatus through which power is the other; the design can follow radi- declaration of independence, which and reality begin? There are countless exercised? One initial possible reason cally divergent logics in practice. One was, however, not possible without an labour situations in global capitalism has to do with the receptive effect of can, for instance, explore possibilities actual dependency on a context, both that come close to AVL’s scenarios. In the artefacts produced. By showing a and produce with a slick product and a legal and administrative, like the art the average corporation in authoritar- primarily technical and architectural large or small audience in mind. There space in part regulated and subsidized ian, state-capitalist Thailand or China, framework, much is still left, unlike is another attitude, common among by the Dutch government. The depend- there may not be slavery as such, but in a video documentary or computer engineers, that views the conception ency undermined the independence, the combination of long working days, simulation, to the viewer’s imagina- and construction of ‘new worlds’ as a the Free State of AVL-Ville constantly extremely low wages and the require- tion. The spectator still has to guess learning situation. By schematizing, had to deal with the state context ment to live within the walls of the and to think; he or she can even take one can try to understand how some- surrounding it, which does not permit factory (and often to consume there as deliberate action and input his or her thing works, what, for example, is unlimited possession of guns and well) approaches that of a SlaveCity. own body as a generic corporeality involved in habitation, shitting, having simply forbids everyday activities like Free State or totalitarian state by starting an exercise programme sex, sleeping . . . or exercising power. the running of a restaurant or a little bit capitalism: taken together they point in Sportopia, for example. In other This analytical rationality of dissection of farming if the necessary permits are to a double lawlessness – and it is in words, the simulation does not think and innovation, first unfolding and not obtained. Any Free State soon risks the negation of the Law, both in the or act in his or her stead, nor does it then recombining, first conceptually degenerating into the political pendant symbolic sense (the ethical ‘thou shalt’) immediately fill in possibilities. This reducing and then synthesizing in to an amusement park. and in the legal and political sense (the makes for greater engagement and a new proposition, is the hallmark The Technocrat, Sportopia, The official ‘power of law’) that the installa- oddly enough also sorts out a harsher of AVL’s work. At the crossroads of Disciplinator, Teutopia and SlaveCity tions and designs of AVL find their dual effect. By showing only the potential art, design and architecture, AVL are not allusions to the state but hard apex. Either there is the state without a hardware of a hyper-rational biopoliti- places quasi-prototypes, objects and depictions of the biopolitical function- Sovereign and Government that comes cal order, alternatively in combination scenarios that are the expression of a ing of capitalist production. They show ‘before’ or ‘after’ the Law, or there is with the generic corporeality of the collective conceptual labour as well as the underside of creative production the fusion of authoritarian state power AVL Men, this system acquires a sort invitations to reflect along further on communism in the capitalist West and and capitalism that completely ap- of material cruelty that an image today’s interlacing of our bodies with thematize the harsh factory logic that propriates life and therefore, in a legal inevitably lacks. But the greatest stake all manner of machines, lifestyles, con- typifies the production of goods in ‘the way, places it beyond the Law. In both is perhaps a different one. sumer goods and, in a broader sense, new East.’ Its enlargement is synony- situations this is the imaginary enlarge- As a rule, not just the installations, but with a biopolitical rationality that is mous with an eco-capitalist utopia: ment of actual historical situations. This also the furniture, mobile homes and tending toward a total control of life. a total management, simultaneously is exactly why AVL makes political art, other artefacts by AVL have something Only within a thinking collective, and profit-oriented and ecologically sound, but in a non-emphatic way: the implicit of the prototype. This impression is not for an individual spectator, will the of body capabilities and excretions, of imaginary matrix of the logic of the of course related to their rough and artefacts of AVL ever become decipher- the life energy and time embodied by modern state and contemporary capi- simple exterior, their reductionist and able and transparent. every individual on a generic, pre- talism is publicly staged and presented. primitive-looking character, as well individual level. The installations and This matrix is two-dimensional. On as their utilitarian orientation. Like scenarios imply a fusion of state and the one hand it refers to the anarchic the scale models, these are artefacts market logic, political and economic management of life, emancipated from that explicitly affirm their status as rationality, biopower and productivity the Law and communist in tendency, by blueprint or design, and thus im- in an all-encompassing, total rational- ‘the multitude’ (Negri and Hardt) or ‘the mediately claim unicity in a way very ity that even manages to recuperate community of singularities’ (Agamben); different from that of an autonomous the excrements of the body, that which on the other hand it presents the artwork. Like real prototypes they productive life sheds as dead matter possibility of a globally regulated social inhabit the grey area separating the (as ‘shit’), in a logic that reconciles space with an architecture that speaks conceptualization of an object with its ecology and profit. We are once more of a total control of life and society materialization as standard product confronted with an oxymoron, that down to the smallest detail. Free State or finished artwork. The thinking of a capitalist planned economy that and capitalist totalitarian state, libertar- and production work involved is proliferates without limits and there- ian community and biopolitical govern- still sticking to them, as it were; the fore efficiently socializes piss and shit. ance, communism and totalitarianism objects are not cooled off commodities The actual pendant to this economy is are imaginary sides of the same coin, with a primary mission to titillate. This not so much the concentration camp the modern biopower and its rationality peculiar identity constitutes the critical in which every individual is reduced of total life management. AVL’s work strength of the artefacts AVL produces. to ‘naked life’ (Giorgio Agamben), explores both possibilities, but not With their quasi-identity as prototypes to mere zoé without rights, and as without explicit ethical and political they break with the dominant com- life in an institution geared toward choices based on the reality of its ‘own’ modity fetishism, with the design logic extermination always embodies the production communism. In this regard of the self-enclosed, narcissist object Sade, Fourier, van Lieshout?

Wouter Vanstiphout

037 SlaveCity

At least they’ve done the math. 331,301,070 euro. The entire initial The answer, which could be ‘all of the According to Atelier Van Lieshout investment – buildings, infrastructure, above’, offers both writer and reader (AVL), one human being can do seven security – is 1,540,000,000 euro (PM), a much-desired escape from this truly hours of office work and seven hours but with the income from callcentres, frightening project. It explains away of hard labour, sleep for seven hours transplants, transfusions and van Lieshout’s operational interest in and have three hours left in which to brothels, the annual yield would be the precise mechanics of extermina- relax, eat, or visit a prostitute. Exactly 7,500,000,000 euro (PM). tion camps. It glosses over the artist’s 72 human beings are accommodated The immense financial gain is accom- ambiguous view of the project. (On in a steel and timber construction panied by other, more sociopolitical television, he has stated, in all serious- containing bunk beds and a table for effects. Recycling human beings is ness, that it’s a mirror to be held up to computer screens behind which, wear- one solution to the global problem of society and that it should not be built ing headsets, they work in a call centre overpopulation; the minimal ecological at all, of course; in other contexts, he in three shifts: office work, sleep, hard footprint of such call centres helps enthuses about the possibilities of labour. With 72 of these subdivisions relieve the stress on the environment; its realization.) Analyzing SlaveCity on each floor of a nine-floor building, and the call centres’ public sectors from various perspectives is a way to the total comes to 28,512 people living introduce culture, entertainment, mitigate the real threat of the piece. and working in one building, or unit. sex and medical solutions to far-flung Focusing the analysis on the position Each unit is allotted a certain amount regions. of its author before contextualizing of land on which to grow foodstuffs. That’s the concept. Atelier Van Lieshout or rationalizing the project allows Eight units create a total working believes it will take ten years – the us to accept the work as a slightly populace of about 200,000 human time needed to get the necessary edgy piece of art, floating on a bed of beings. On average, one in five of them permits and to influence political critical and theoretical analogies, and is fit to be trained and put to work. opinion – before the first call centre in a sea of art fairs, magazines and The rest can be ‘recycled’. On average, can be built. Like the financial invest- galleries. Maybe that’s all it is anyway. a human being is a productive member ment, the political decision to go Nonetheless, I would like to try some- of the unit for three years before hav- forward will also yield enormous thing a little bit different, something a ing to be recycled. One human body profits. Thanks to huge financial gains, little closer to my profession: history. yields six litres of blood, an average call centres are expected to have a of 2.6 organs for transplants and 35 direct impact on the geopolitical and kilos of meat for consumption by other political situation. ‘participants’. SlaveCity is an ever-growing series of Located next to the ‘camp’ – where pieces by AVL that together describe participants work and are recycled – is a fictional city ‘inspired’ by Second the public sector, a compound consist- World War extermination camps in ing of a museum, brothels, a hospital Eastern Europe. It has been exhibited (for transfusions and transplants), a in galleries as two giant ‘paintings’ sports centre and an airport. A work- on the wall: one with a plan, the ing staff of 5,437 is required to guard, other with a spreadsheet showing all care for, kill, harvest and manage the kcals, km2s, kgs and euros, as well as participants. Staff members need their a collection of architectural models own living quarters. Such housing of brothels, education centres, call consists of a range of dwellings, centres and museums featured in from 350-m2 villas to 70-m2 ‘type D’ the complex. Van Lieshout has even dwellings, amassed in a meticulously created an entire dinner service for planned settlement outside the camp the call-centre board of directors; where participants work and are highlighting the individual sets of recycled. beautifully glazed porcelain plates and In its entirety, the city is wholly self- glasses are the various activities that sufficient in terms of food, energy take place in the complex. and water. Food is either grown and Is SlaveCity a searing attack on a soci- harvested on site or provided for by ety that commodifies people for pure eating the flesh of recycled partici- profit, split into ‘users’ and ‘the used’? pants. Energy is supplied by biogas Is it a Cassandra-like warning against obtained from human excrement the megalomaniacal ambitions of mod- (0.4 kg of gas per participant per day) ernist town planners, radical ecologists and other sustainable sources. Water and other social utopians? Or should is supplied by natural sources and a we be more critical and expose Joep closed circuit. van Lieshout as an artist who plays This setup needs 49.37 km2 to on the hypes and erogenous zones of function. Because it is independent the art industry, a man even capable of existing infrastructure the land of using the Holocaust to create the can be purchased cheaply, for only shock value needed to sell his work? Sade, Fourier, Loyola, van Lieshout Howard, Duany, van Lieshout Himmler, Christaller, van Lieshout

De Sade à Fourier, ce qui tombe, c’est an analysis reveals what van Lieshout The first and most famous model of globe exhibited completely different discusses communal facilities, public Still, it would be interesting to identify le sadisme; de Loyola à Sade, c’est really shares with Sade, Fourier and this type of city appeared in Garden underlying ideologies and an even transport, the number of inhabitants more closely where and how Joep l’interlocution divine. Pour le reste, Loyola: the crazy cybernetics of their Cities of Tomorrow (London 1898), a greater diversity of architectural per neighbourhood, the time it takes van Lieshout gained access to the même écriture: même volupté de approach, the spreadsheet attitude, book written by Ebenezer Howard, an forms, while all relying faithfully on to walk from home to school, and hidden code he follows so faithfully classification, même rage de découper the savant-like focus on the minutiae impoverished shorthand writer from Howard’s basic scheme. Interestingly, so on. It describes a comprehensive in SlaveCity. As he has stated repeat- (le corps christique, le corps victimal, of their constructions. With these London. Howard believed the solution the scheme was not simplified to meet financial system that touches on every- edly, his first inspiration for the work l’âme humaine), même obsession similarities in mind, we can imagine to the world’s urban problems was the requirements of varying political thing from fiscal incentives and land came from a careful study of Eastern numérative (compter les péchés, les that Barthes, had he lived, might have to retain all that is good about cities views, regions or economies, but prices to property taxes and tax-relief European extermination camps used in supplices, les passions et les fautes written an extended version of his (employment, culture, shops, public became denser and more precise, as benefits for first-time buyers. Here, the Second World War. In the meticu- mêmes du compte), même pratique de original book, this time with the title life), to discard all that is bad (poverty, if the molecular structure of Howard’s too, is the hierarchical logic of house, lously managed economy of bodies l’image (de l’imitation, du tableau, de Sade, Fourier, Loyola & van Lieshout. anonymity, debauchery), to combine atomic diagram had been augmented neighbourhood, town and city. We (dead and alive), barracks, railway la séance), même couture du système There is one major difference separat- the former with the good qualities by super-controlled, urban-social recognize the same land-price eco- lines and gatehouses; and in endless social, érotique, fantasmatique. ing the cosmologies of Joep van of rural living (health, intimate rela- components. Socialist or capitalist, nomics we have seen before, as well lists kept by the Shoah managers, (This is the first sentence of a small Lieshout and those of Sade, Fourier tions, quietude) and to eliminate the neoclassicist or highly modern, these as the familiar spreadsheet attitude van Lieshout found a way to unite his book by French philosopher Roland and Loyola, however: that difference is bad (lack of work, lack of public life, urban models were all based on the with which the architect has made a previous themes and to raise them to Barthes, published in 1971: Sade, the twentieth century. Sade’s, Fourier’s isolation). The result would be the same type of hierarchical diagram of complete and hermetic microcosm of a new level. Earlier projects include Fourier, Loyola.) and Loyola’s systems were unique perfect garden city. Howard’s garden house, neighbourhood, town, city; urban rules and regulations, numbers The Technocrat, The Disciplinator and In Sade, Fourier, Loyola, Barthes for their time, islands of order in a cities were made up of houses that and all based on a neighbourhood of and distances, buildings and people. Total Faecal Solution. In these instal- focuses not on the distinguishing realm of contingency. Their ‘worlds’ formed neighbourhoods called ‘wards’. 50 to 100 dwellings, a town of 15,000 The idea that beyond its existence as lations, human beings are used as qualities of the three authors but on were cerebral and radically different Each ward had 5000 inhabitants, an to 30,000 people, a city of 200,000 to an artificial construct, the city touches raw materials, or as cogs in machines what they have in common, identify- from the world they lived in; we could abundance of greenery, and its own 250,000 inhabitants. They all offered a on each minute detail of urban life and for the production of biological gas, ing this communality as what it’s all describe them as ‘parallel worlds’, schools, shops, churches and other green alternative to the city, converted urban form is still very much alive. and remixed in installations that are about: instead of sex, happiness, God, introverted alternatives to the reality communal facilities. Six wards formed depressed rural land prices into cheap Indeed, Howard, Duany, van Lieshout, virtually autarchic. Food gets pumped and a compulsion to count, categorize, that dissatisfied them. They were also a city of 30,000 inhabitants: the maxi- rents, and compressed the entire could be the working title for the in and faeces pumped out; to keep the classify, systematize, organize and truly new: no one before had ever mum size of a town with a good bal- complexity of urban life into hermetic sequel to Sade, Fourier, Loyola. In it people content, alcohol is pumped in, present. Barthes describes the crazy thought or dreamt of such places. ance between births and deaths, the diagrams and schemes. Their highly would be revealed that behind all the too. The Disciplinator features humans sequences of perverse acts recounted SlaveCity could not be more different. correct number of communal facilities, schematic layout makes them direct seemingly contrasting world-views inside a wood-and-steel cage, where before a committee of libertines in a Joep van Lieshout was able to crib the right climate of social intimacy, descendants of the manic ordering of and architectural styles that have they toil for hours a day, doing useless theatrically staged room in de Sade’s from an entire century in which the an adequate amount of greenery, the Sade, Fourier and Loyola. Howard’s determined the living environments but heavy work – making sawdust Justine; Fourier’s limitless listing of rage for classification and categoriza- desired social profile and the ideal sense of order, however, not only led of the twentieth-century urbanite from logs – before being fed and put categories of love, food, money, work tion – as identified by Barthes in Sade, scale. The result was Howard’s garden to living environments for hundreds lies one, and only one, hidden code into bunk beds to sleep. The polar and so on – and their reordering in his Fourier, Loyola – had become incarnate city, a unit requiring 4,05 km2 . Six of of millions of people, but also had – or should we call it an ‘obsessional opposite of this treatment of human phalanstères; and Ignatius of Loyola’s in thousands of built villages, towns, these units – plus a centrally located an underlying super-logic which has ordering mechanism’ – which is so beings is exemplified by autarchic minute-to-minute, hour-to-hour, cities and entire landscapes. Seen from city twice as large, with twice the become so ubiquitous that it has deeply ingrained in human society communities like AVL-Ville or the day-to-day, week-to-week manual: this perspective, van Lieshout’s work, building density – combined to form a disappeared behind the different forms that we are hardly aware of it. It is as Almere project. Volunteer participants his attempt to get closer to God by distilled from a century of ubiquitous ‘social city’ of 250,000 people. This was of the cities and behind the divergent if the cerebral constructs described by in AVL settlements produce art, food, mentioning His name, praying to reality, is old. From the very beginning presented as a cartwheel of towns and political ideologies from which they Barthes have managed to escape the drugs and weapons and are not Him and thinking about Him during of the century, radical alternatives infrastructure in a huge green area, emerged. brains and books of their authors, have subject to national legislation. One every single act in his Exercises. By for laissez-faire industrial cities were with asylums for alcoholics, factories, One very strong example of this become real, and have taken over the such community actually existed for discussing the authors’ works side by being put together by a worldwide hospitals, farms and cemeteries camouflaged technocratic urbanism is world. a few months in a Rotterdam harbour side in a slim volume, Barthes removes cabal of anarchists, communists, hidden away in the greenery. Other the New Urbanism Movement. From area. It was shut down after an end- the focus otherwise placed on a single Christian socialists, enlightened charts explained the principle of the the 1980s on, the Florida-based office less barrage of inspections from Dutch author, his historical context, his capitalists, nationalists and fascists. ‘vanishing point of the landlords’ rent’. of Duany Plater Zyberk has been build- governmental institutions. philosophical position, his professional These groups had several common Howard counted on using depressed ing towns that seem to offer the only The influence of Holocaust literature discipline and his personal obsession. objectives: to create brand-new, stable land prices far away from the cities to alternative for suburban sprawl. These and visits to camps was already What seemed to be the main subjects communities outside existing cities; to buy the land cheaply, and on eventu- small-scale towns have communal visible in these earlier installations, of their books becomes nothing more divide, classify, order, count, measure, ally turning the cost of the land from a facilities and public transport within especially Total Faecal Solution. At a than an attribute, a vehicle for the list and present these alternatives as small cost factor into a profit factor for walking distance of residents and a certain point, however, van Lieshout true obsession: taxonomy, order and universally applicable models; and to the benefit of the inhabitants. traditional, coherent architecture with seems to have shifted his attention to organization. apply them. Before we return to van Howard’s scheme was quickly picked mixed-income neighbourhoods and the bureaucracy involved in planning It would be tempting to see Joep van Lieshout’s SlaveCity, it seems appro- up by an ever-growing movement of safe, simply designed public space. In camps and to the way in which these Lieshout’s recent work as the perfect priate to quickly revisit the twentieth architects, social reformers, politicians an effort to help cities at home and camps can be seen as comprehensively combination of de Sade’s perverse century: the age of the communitarian and the like. His concept led to the abroad create New Urbanist cities, planned communities. We see his microcosm and Fourier’s social utopia, spreadsheet that actually existed. creation of entire and partly built cities Duany Plater Zyberk distributes Smart interest in creating new communities but concentrating on what they share and towns from Letchworth, England, Code, a kind of urbanist shareware. merge into ideas on using human in subject matter would be missing to Radburn, New Jersey; from new This nearly 100-page PDF file consists bodies as raw physical produce. This Barthes’ point. I would like to follow towns in fascist Italy to Communist of hundreds of detailed models that is where spreadsheets that had listed Barthes in separating the subject mat- settlements in Siberia. It launched a show how to build a town, starting at amounts of faeces, ammonia, alcohol, ter of van Lieshout’s project, including worldwide consensus on how to build the centre and moving out to the rural food, water and the like expanded possible references and meanings, a town. The largest wave came after surroundings. The file includes strict to contain the entire inventory of a from the methods, the instruments the First World War, when modernist rules covering relationships between community of 250,000 people. And and the structures of the work. Such and socialist-realist towns across the densities and distances. Smart Code with no evidence of Joep van Lieshout having immersed himself in the history who was a major economic ideologist century whose passion for classifica- elements of SlaveCity – spermatozoal of garden cities or twentieth-century within the Nazi Party, wrote Die Neue tion, obsession for numbers, fury of and uterus . . . brothels for women urbanism, somehow the resulting Stadt (1939). Presented as the perfect dissection, love of diagrams and exact and men, revspectively; wonderfully project is eerily close to the ideal cities combination of countryside and town, tailoring of the social system escaped ramshackle class-B brothels made of Ebenezer Howard and his successors. his new city was to be built on cheap the utopian fantasies of the few and of wood; a university building half- There is a simple but uncomfort- rural land, to accommodate 20,000 became the living (and dying) environ- covered with earth; busts; drawings able reason for this similarity. The people, and to cover an area of 2.78 ment of the many. Looking back at of labouring participants; a dinner concentration camps whose workings km2, of which 1.13 km2 were to be Barthes’ trio of protagonists, we table set – all seethe with the same Joep van Lieshout has been studying forest. The total cost was estimated recognize the intense semiotic plaisir joyous caveman aesthetic of van were designed with the same logic at 50,000,000 Reichsmarks, or an that the three authors invested in their Lieshout’s earlier work. Here, however, and the same depth of organizational investment of 2,500 Reichsmarks per world-replacement systems; looking at we are constantly forced to view structure as twentieth-century new person. The smallest unit of the city Ebenezer Howard, we see the fervently them in a certain order, as elements towns, garden cities and New Urbanist was the family dwelling. Such dwell- optimistic and ideological fervour with of a bureaucracy consisting of eating, communities. Fritz Ertl, an architect ings were to be combined in blocks, which he imagined leading the masses shitting, transplanting, slaughtering, educated at the Bauhaus and the which were to be combined in urban to the Promised Land. fucking, working, living and dying. We designer of Auschwitz, constructed cells, which would form groups, which Nazi planners were filled with an are prevented from simply fantasizing the camp from the bunk upwards. One would form districts, which together equally ideological fervour, which led about these elements as activities we brick ledge held four cots, three of would form a region. At every level of to an atavistic, genocidal desire for might or might not consider doing, which were stacked above the lowest scale, an entire inventory of facilities, expansion. And making a 50-year leap as we once contemplated the Bais-ô- level to make bunk beds. There were infrastructure and party leadership in history to the New Urbanists, we Drome and the sensory-deprivation 62 bunk beds in one barracks building, was described. find an organizational logic that is still helmets. Even worse: in retrospect, and 174 barracks buildings formed one Feder’s ideas were further developed very much intact but that has become Atelier Van Lieshout’s earlier work now sector of a camp for Soviet prisoners by architect and planner Carl completely invisible and essentially seems to have a meta-order and to be of war. The extermination camp could Culemann, who used multiplication meaningless. In the case of Barthes’ part of a systematic way of thinking house 200,000 people, a population (to the decimal) to create three to four examples, as well as of Howard and and ordering. It becomes simultane- distributed over four bauabschnitten, jumps in scale. Neighbourhood units the Nazis, the aesthetics of each sys- ously technocratic and anecdotal. each of which comprised six camp were to contain three to four houses; tem expressed the ideas of its author, But what does the system add to the units. One unit held 10,000 people, ten houses would form cells of 30 to whereas Duany Plater Zyberk covers individual elements? or participants, as AVL would insist. 40 houses; ten cells would create a the system with a different aesthetic, What does SlaveCity add to the Dutch architecture historian and district of from 300 to 400 houses; and that of traditional dwellings and public objects and designs other than a Holocaust scholar Robert Jan van each town would have ten districts spaces: the comforting and beautiful reference to the Holocaust? Where is Pelt remarked that the interior logic with 3000 to 4000 houses. The aver- environment of the small town. At this the joy, the fervour or the ideology in of Auschwitz was a crucial part of the age population of a town, however, point, thinking in terms of systems this example of thinking based on a regional plan for the annexed areas of was still projected at 20,000 people. loses all meaning; it becomes a tool, system? I think these factors were lost western Poland and, ultimately, for the According to Himmler, the Generalplan a form of bureaucracy, a way to get somewhere in the second half of the Lebensraum stretching out beyond the Ost would permit German colonists to things done. It has no particular twentieth century. There is no longer Ural: the Generalplan Ost. This area build perfect National Socialist com- flavour or emotion of its own. Roland any added value in the creation of a was to be cleansed of the last human munities – step by step and scale by Barthes would never have written his super-order such as this one; on the and topographic traces of Polish and scale – even in times of intense ethnic book about the model-makers of our contrary, the individual elements are Slavic inhabitation and transformed strife. The interesting aspect of the times. Drawing up a huge spreadsheet reduced. By allowing the spreadsheet into an ideal cultural landscape of Generalplan Ost was that it not only of numbers, spaces, functions and attitude to take centre stage, Joep van National Socialism. Himmler, who provided for the gradual colonizing rules has become just as banal as the Lieshout seems to have stripped his oversaw the planning of this entire of the region, but also integrated in use of a computer, or a pencil. Such own work of the freedom to induce in region, mobilized Germany’s best its logic the means to evacuate the banality does make this type of think- his viewers the intimate and endlessly minds and planning engineers. Walter area. More than simply a regional ing or ordering an innocent pastime. unpredictable effects of fear, lust, Christaller, a famous geographer who plan, it showed an understanding of The danger of this thinking lies in its wonderment, disgust and intellectual is widely quoted as the father of the the process of violent, transformation. pseudo-rationality, its depersonalized interpretation. It should not come as a central place theory, projected his The town of Auschwitz (Oswiecim), and depoliticized omnipresence, with shock that the controversial artist Joep methods on the region. According for example, was one of the first ideal which it clouds our judgment and dis- van Lieshout has chosen to be inspired to Christaller, an ideal region has towns built according to the system; tracts us from thinking in a truly free by concentration camps and the six small villages, which require one its parallel extermination camp, which manner. Relegating the spreadsheet Holocaust; it is much more surprising market village; six market villages, created space for German settlement method to the back burner allows us that this self-proclaimed harbinger of which require one town; six towns, structures, operated on the same logic to assume that it is an inevitable way total personal freedom sees the need which require one city; and so forth. and featured the same basic diagram. of working and a guarantee for order. to embed his work in the bureaucracy The result is a pattern of overlapping Do we see Joep van Lieshout’s It provides the bureaucrat with the of interpretation that is SlaveCity. hexagons that divide the central SlaveCity, then, as a work of art reassurance that everything is in its spaces at each level of scale. Part of about extermination, exploitation place. the concept utilized Gottfried Feder’s and totalitarianism? No, no and no; or Andres Duany conceals his theories on the ideal spatial-economic maybe, maybe and maybe. But that spreadsheets with the aesthetics structure of towns. While serving as is not the point. We can read it as an of the small town, and Joep van a professor of urban planning at the ode (though perhaps not meant as Lieshout seems to do the opposite. Technical University of Berlin, Feder, one) to the twentieth century, to a The beautifully strange and sexual Works La Bais-ô-Drôme, 1995

046 La Bais-ô-Drôme, 1995

Custom-made for relaxation, enjoy- ment and sex, La Bais-ô-Drôme is equipped with a minibar, sound system and upholstered tables; the bed for resting is situated in a slide-out section while the toilet is a simple hole in the floor. Collection FRAC Rhône-Alpes, Lyon

048 Mobile Home for Kröller-Müller, 1995

Mobile Home for Kröller-Müller is also fondly known as The Master and Slave Unit. The Master Unit forms the central block; the Slave Units can be clicked or screwed into any one of the five modular holes in the Master Unit. Each Slave Unit has a specific function – bedroom, sanitary space, kitchen, office – and can be easily moved from one hole to another in the Master Unit. With no fixed layout, no foundation, nor final form, The Master and Slave Unit breaks all the rules of traditional architecture. The absence of an overall design makes any rule infinitely

expendable and flexible. Museum, Otterlo Collection Kröller-Müller

050 052 A3 Mobiel,1998 permit. the structuredoesn’t needabuilding of thestory:ifyoubuildonwheels, the neighbours’caravans.Themoral although itisthreetimesbiggerthan Adri gottokeephisstudiocaravan, mobile homesparkedintheirgardens. neighbours whoallhadcaravansand Adri simplypointedhisfingerto that thecaravanwasillegal.But mayor camebytocomplain,insisting A fewweekslater, thepoliceand 15 m,whichAdriparkedinhisgarden. mobile home,onemeasuring3.5x was toproducethelargestpossible he cametoAVL. Theatelier’s solution permit foranextension.That’s why house butwasunabletogetabuilding wanted tohaveastudionexthis made foranicemancalledAdriwho The Dutchlikecaravans.Thisonewas

Collection Adri Huisman, Maasdijk 054 Mobility meetsmodularity. unit withhotandcoldrunning water. can bereplacedbyatoilet andshower a feast.Thedoorsofthe cargo section dining roomifextraguests arrivefor cleared andusedasanoffice orasa space. Thecargosectioncanalsobe heating, sleepingareas),andacargo needed bythedriver/user(kitchen, functional unit,withallthefacilities achassis, sists ofthreemajorparts: An AVL classic,thismobilehomecon Modular HouseMobile,1995 -

Collection Prada Foundation, Milan Clip-On, 1997

The director of the Centraal Museum in Utrecht wanted a small extension in which to work, sleep and relax. AVL’s solution was to devise a piece that is mounted with large bolts onto the museum’s outside wall. Since AVL tends to build without detailed drawings, the works evolve inside the studio and often change in unforeseeable ways during the construction process. In this case, AVL began with the three basic elements of the extension – a table, a bench and a bed – and then started building the space around them. The final piece on the outside of the museum was not designed; its appearance is the result of the coincidental form of the space needed inside the structure. During the construction process, AVL discovered that there was not enough light inside; skylights were required. What shape would they take? Squares, triangles and circles were all drawn on the ceiling as possible shapes, but none worked. The solution arrived when Joep van Lieshout had a drunk driving accident on the highway and totalled his car. The only things left were the floor mats, which were lying around in the studio and suddenly appeared as the ideal form for the skylights. As Clip-On demonstrates, AVL’s design process allows for coincidence and the infiltration of random elements. In collaboration with Klaar van der Lippe / Collection Centraal Museum, Utrecht

056 Alesco Interior Design for Daros, 2001

For the Daros collection in Zurich, AVL designed this reception area and added a soundproof bunker under the staircase. Normally, museums have cold surroundings; there is no space for love. Inside the bunker, which includes a bed, handles and other equipment, one can retreat without being disturbed and without disturbing anyone else. Daros collection, Zurich

058 Butcher Equipment, 1997

This set includes all of the necessary butcher equipment, including a hammer to kill pigs. Collection Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Zurich

060 062 Tampa Skull,1998 a bedroom.Compactyetcomplete. frying pan,anoffice,alivingroomand a bathroom,kitchenwithdeep another anduseitsfacilities:atoilet, order tomovefromonesection space thatahumanbodyneedsin by theabsoluteminimumamountof unit. Itsdimensionsweredetermined Tampa Skull isaclaustrophobicliving

Collection Les Abattoirs, Toulouse Schiphol Skulls, 1999 3M Minimal Multi Mobile, 2002

For Schiphol Airport, AVL designed 3M is an exercise in design restraint. two cabins, for people to relax, sit AVL made every element as simple down, hang out or just sleep in. and as straightforward as possible in Although the cabins were installed, this mobile unit. Most of the parts are they were never allowed to be used, simple materials from the hardware- since the structures were deemed store, fixed on the body; thus, the both unsafe and capable of promoting headlamps are not built in but rather undesirable behaviour. screwed on to the vehicle’s surface in a crude and minimal way. The driver’s seat is an AVL Shaker Chair, which can be removed once the 3M has reached its destination.

064 Mini Capsule Side Entrance, 2002 Mini Capsule Side Entrance (6 units), 2002 Mini Capsule Front Entrance Square, 2002

Like Mini Capsule Side Entrance, Mini Capsule Front Entrance Square is a rectangular version of the capsule hotel unit, designed to be used as an unmanned budget hotel and offers two guests the bare minimum of comfort.

Mini Capsule Side Entrance (6 units) can be viewed as a people farm. Stacked together, the units look like a large fibreglass rabbit hutch, if not the hutches of the mobile Pioneer Set. Each of the six hotel units has space to sleep two people; the interior is not much larger than a double bed and is equipped with the basics: a mattress, sheets, blankets, a nightlight, clothing hooks, an electricity outlet and a shelf. A modest version of Maxi Capsule Luxus, the Mini Capsule is made to function as a budget hotel without staff.

066 Maxi Capsule Luxus, 2002

A larger version of the Mini Capsule, Maxi Capsule Luxus is an entirely self-supporting unit that functions as a mobile hotel room. Its luxuries include a king-size bed, a minibar, an entertainment centre for listening to music and watching films, a heating and ventilation system along with storage facilities for luggage and clothing. Everything is sealed with the shade of love: red fibreglass, red leather, soft red carpet upholstering on the floor, walls and ceiling. The red cube is a machine for concentra- tion and retreat, which contains its comforts inside while carrying its equipment on the exterior surfaces. The technical capacities outside of the cube provide a contrast to what’s happening inside. Private collection, Milan

068 AVL Canteen, 1999 Floating Sculpture, 2000

This kitchen and dining area for 16 people was originally made for an ex- hibition in Bourneville, UK. Bourneville is a village built in the early twentieth century by the Cadbury chocolate company for its factory employees. The purpose of the company’s found- ers was to provide good homes with large gardens: spacious, dry and light. Common facilities were also made, such as the men’s recreation grounds, whose austere athletic fields are marked by the occasional dressing room. By contrast, the women’s recreation grounds consisted of an idyllic park with brooks and hills, which was hermetically sealed off from the men and only accessible through a guarded tunnel. Bourneville remains an idyllic place, and the ban on alcohol is still in effect.

Mix and match: the longer side of Floating Sculpture is based on the old-fashioned architecture of the ‘Zaan’ area. The attached blue bulb with windows (transparent eyes) has

a large round bed inside. Collection City of Amsterdam

070 Bedroom, 1999

The master bedroom with food, guns and booze for six people.

072 Placemat Design of Toilet Unit Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, 1998

Placemat for the Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum. For the inaugura- tion of the toilet unit at the museum, AVL designed these placemats to be used in the restaurant. The drawing shows alternative ways of using the toilets: having sex, vomiting and pass- ing out. Despite its explicit nature, the placements garnered no complaints, nor protests.

074 076 Toilet UnitMuseumBoijmansVan Beuningen,1998 AVL believesthatamuseumisall left with which to make the exhibitions. building andthenthere’s nomoney arespentonthe architecture. Fortunes AVL doesnottakekindlytomuseum around therules. beginswithfindingaway artists that thefreedomofarchitects and creativity andinvention. AVL believes ends unto themselves that limit design, unsafe architecture,rules canbecome written toprotectpeoplefrombadand While thelawsforbuildingcodeswere legislation governingarchitecture. adversity tothelaw, the inparticular unit, thecamouflageexpressesAVL’s and gardens.Whilehidingthetoilet blends intothesurroundingmuseum army-like camouflageprint,which the exteriorhasbeencoveredinan the interiorisalightshadeofgreen, room andoneforthemen’s. While the twotesticles,oneforwomen’s side ofthepassage;onotherare from themuseumgarden,isonone entrance totherestaurantpavilion The penishead,whichprovidesan to penetratetheglasspassage. shape ofalargepenis,whichappears restaurant, AVL’s toiletunittakesthe links themainbuildingtomuseum Located intheglassed-inpassagethat Museum BoijmansVan Beuningen. sanitary spacesatRotterdam’s lenge ofbuildinganextensionfor architecture, AVL tookonthechal Despite itsadversitytomuseum doors. agricultural buildingwithlargesliding as simpleanindustrialoreven about interiorspaceandshouldbe -

Collection Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam Modular Multi-Woman Bed, 1998

King- and Queen-size look like poor cousins to this bed, which can expand horizontally and even vertically into multilevel bunk beds. The simple modular system is infinitely repro- ducible with a multiplication of the basic 1.2 m frame. Like desire, this bed knows no limits.

078 Brothel with Greenhouse, 1999

A design for a public space in Muttenz Botanical Garden near Basel, this house stands next to a stream and has been completely redesigned and combined with a watermill. There is a special biotope inside with desert plants; the waterwheel generates the heat and the light needed to maintain the dry climate for plants. The turning wheel provides the energy for a per- manent, eternal piece of desert in the botanical garden. On one side of the house there is a window that shows all the mechanics; on the other side there is room for a prostitute waiting for clients. The climatic extremes of the stream and the desert meet in energy, beauty and sex.

080 The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, 1998

The Walker Art Center in Minneapolis child-friendly activity areas for making commissioned AVL to make a mobile art, music and theatre on the road. art lab: a youth centre on wheels that After touring the state, the trailer can could bring the good word of art and come back to the museum’s sculpture culture to schools and people from park where it has a permanent place, poorer neighbourhoods throughout docked into the Black House. Bad the state of Minnesota. While the goal things live in the house; its imaginary was a noble one, the project seemed ideal dweller is the Una Bomber, a over-determined as a design. AVL took prototype terrorist who survived alone on the task, with one condition: to add in the forest and recycled materials to a darker side to the museum’s good manufacture his bombs. The house’s intentions. The result was The Good, extension holds a laboratory, where The Bad and The Ugly, a triptych struc- ugly things – and other things – are ture composed of a trailer, a house possible; the attic includes a cage, a and an extension. The good things single bed and a small study table.

are concentrated in the trailer, with its Minneapolis Art Center, Collection Walker

082 The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, 1998

084 The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, 1998 Prototype Shaker Table and Chair, 1998

One of the pieces of furniture that AVL has developed is the AVL Shaker Chair. A religious movement from England, the Shakers began to build their own villages in America towards the end of the eighteenth century. Their lives were dedicated to ecstatic worship, hard work, self-sufficiency and celibacy. Their many inventions include the circular saw, the washing machine, the clothespin and seed improvement. The furniture developed by the Shakers was highly innovative for its time; they considered perfecting the final product as one of their life tasks. AVL has produced crude versions of chairs and tables according to the traditional designs of this exceptional community. This prototype set was originally made for The Good, The Bad and The Ugly project and constructed out of leftover materials from the project. Joep van Lieshout has visited many Shaker vil- lages and even met the last remaining Shakers: eleven women and two men living at Sabbathday Lake in Maine. Their strict rule of celibacy – and a lack of good leadership and public relations – has pushed the Shakers to the brink of extinction.

086 Modular AVL Man, 1998

The AVL Man as a modular man. This simplified design is based on standard materials and sizes. The AVL Man appears to be the ideal employee, because he never eats, nor does he ever complain. Yet he doesn’t have hands and feet with which to perform work. He does, however, have a screw-on penis for pleasure.

088 Knokke Men, 2000 Fist-Fucking AVL Men, 2002

Friendship.

Collection City of Knokke AVL Men have their needs too.

090 A wise man overlooking AVL-Ville, 2001

092 Blast Furnace, 1998

These drawings tell the story of the work in other cities, like Utrecht or The drawing Atillery Farm (p.098) garlic and potatoes. Beside the good nect them to the mainland and start of Almere rejected the proposal. AVL birth of the Free State of AVL-Ville. Amsterdam. AVL had a plan to revive drawing shows the same family five food there are knives, grenades and their own independent state within an decided to realize its pioneer city on Once upon a time, the city of Almere Almere’s lost pioneer spirit and came years later: Autocrat is being pulled machine guns. This domestic arsenal unified Europe. To be independent, the the atelier’s terrain in the Rotterdam asked AVL to make a proposal for an up with these drawings. Instead of by a Mercedes with a canon. The indicates that the people who live here Almere economy would be based on harbour (minus the prison). In 2001, urban plan for 30,000 new houses. building 30,000 houses, AVL proposed family also started a little factory are very idealistic and prepared to die illegal goods and services – weapons, AVL declared itself the Free State of Artists, architects and philosophers to make 30,000 mobile homes, which called Atelier Van Lieshout, where for their ideals. drugs, alcohol, prostitution – produced AVL-Ville. The atelier’s largest and were asked to make proposals. could be produced in a factory on the they make pieces of furniture. There The drawing Settlement After 10 Years and consumed by the prisoners. most controversial work of art. The Almere is a special place because it is island. In that way, Almere would is a big stable, a big farmhouse, a (p.104) shows a further development. In Europe, many complain that there Free State created a pleasant mixture a piece of reclaimed land – an island be able to develop its own economy dormitory, a communal space, a large One can still see the farm and the are not enough prison cells to lock up of sanctuary and art site filled with AVL measuring 60 x 20 km – that used to instead of being completely dependent atelier, a workshop for weapons and Autocrat, next to the factory there is a all the criminals; or the prisons are too work. The Autocrat and Workshop for be under the sea. The founders put up on the surrounding bigger cities. The bombs, a storage space for agricultural blast furnace; heat and carbon dioxide expensive. It costs about 50,000 euro to Weapons and Bombs found a home a dyke and started to pump out the owners could park their mobile homes machines and for weapons, and a is recycled and used in the green- incarcerate one prisoner for one year. along with new works like the Pioneer water. Everything in Almere (founded wherever they wanted: in the forest, founder’s log cabin. houses. There is also a large arsenal, Almere would offer the same services Set and AVL Transport. AVL-Ville also in 1969) is less than 40 years old; the along the beach, in the city, in the Another drawing (p.100) shows an a watermill to supply electricity and for half the price: 25,000 euro per year created its own flag, its own constitu- buildings, the streets, even the trees. park, in the neighbour’s garden. Since exploded view of the farmhouse with a sawmill where the wood on the per prisoner. All of Europe’s prisoners tion and its own currency. Unlike the It’s a completely new country, like there were no zoning rules, anything its sleeping units, a large bathroom island is made into lumber for building could come to the Free State and live drawings, everything in AVL-Ville was a pioneer’s city. One would expect could go anywhere in Almere. with dual toilets, the communal space furniture and barracks. There are also in the barracks. During the day, the fully operational. Not art to look at but that such a new country could be a The drawing Autocrat (p.096) shows with a generous sit-pit dining table, a tank, watch towers and a fence. In prisoners would work in the weapons, art to live in, live with and live from. place for experiments and inventions. the happy owner, coming back from a office spaces and a large kitchen. the back, there are the prison camps. alcohol and drug factory; at night, they Unfortunately, Almere became a hunt while his multiple wives work the The drawing Kitchen (p.102) shows In AVL’s plan, Almere would become return to the barracks or spend the typical suburban town; its 150,000 land. Being self-sufficient is hard work some women preparing a healthy meal a Free State with a prison. The city money they have earned on site. inhabitants live on the island but but ultimately satisfying. with organic vegetables and herbs, would cut the three bridges that con- Unfortunately – or fortunately – the city

094 Autocrat, 1997

096 Atillery Farm, 1998

098 Farm House, exploded view, 1998

100 Kitchen, 1998

102 Settlement After 10 Years, 1998

104 Autocrat, 1997

Autocrat is a survival car for living in were all made from scratch. Autocrat remote places – far away from civilized plays a key role in AVL’s evolution, society – without being deprived of since the vehicle gave rise to the its comforts. There’s a large kitchen slaughter project. For this project, pigs and a sleeping area on the inside and were slaughtered on a farm according another kitchen outside for heavier to traditional methods. All the parts culinary work, like slaughtering were immediately used or preserved animals. The car was designed and by drying, salting, smoking, pickling manufactured with the utmost autoc- and other methods. The guide book racy in mind. Every effort was made A Manual (1997) shows more about to use homemade items and to avoid the slaughter process, specifically ready-made products. The hardware, how to kill a pig at home. water taps, the locks and the stove

106 Workshop for Weapons and Bombs, 1998

Before becoming a Free State, AVL wanted to make sure that the atelier was well-armed. Workshop for Weapons and Bombs was the unique result. Designed in 1998, the workshop was built from a shipping container and expanded with a fibre- glass structure that ends in a sphere. This spherical space is the bedroom for the freedom fighter; the middle passage features an office space for writing manifestos; and the container holds a metal workshop and chemical laboratory where weapons and bombs can be made from simple household chemicals. The homemade weapons and bombs can be used for defence as well as attacks.

108 Mercedes with 57-mm Canon, 1998

AVL’s old company car, an ordinary Mercedes, was converted into a pick-up truck and equipped with a 57-mm canon designed by the atelier and made from everyday materials. Part of the exhibition presented in Rabastens in 1998, the Mercedes with the canon gained notoriety when the mayor banned the show. In 2002, the work was almost confiscated by the Rotterdam police, who started to im- pound artworks shortly after the Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn was murdered. Twenty Dutch state officials showed up at AVL: ten policemen, five customs officials and five tax officials. They took AVL M80 Mortar but decided to come back the next day for the Mercedes. The car was transported to the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen which decided to acquire the work for its permanent collection and save it from being destroyed.

An original AVL design, AVL M57 Houwitzer can be made with simple materials and tools. The canon was installed on a customized Mercedes pick-up truck Collection Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam Collection Museum Boijmans Van 110 AVL M80 Mortar, 1999

AVL M80 Mortar is a simplified design of an existing mortar, which can be built with widely available materials, like ready-made tubes and simple tools that can be found in any metal workshop. This piece was made in an edition of ten, but one no longer exists because it was confiscated and destroyed (the other remaining nine are safe abroad). After the Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn was murdered in 2002, the Rotterdam police began to confiscate artworks with a destruc- tive potential. AVL M80 Mortar fit the criteria. Other AVL works that have been confiscated temporarily or permanently by state officials, both inside and beyond the borders of the Netherlands, include: Pistolet Poignée Americaine (1995), Survival Knife (1995), and Jewellery (1995).

112 Bad Pistol, 2004 Machine Gun Exploded View, 1998 Pistolet Poigneé Americaine, 1995

An adaptation of the Sten gun based upon another adaptation made by an obscure American group. An English submachine gun, the Sten is easy to manufacture and was used extensively by the British army during the Second World War. The American adaptation made the gun even easier for any skilled metal worker to produce. AVL added yet another improvement by drawing the gun with metric measure- ments. The designs are not readily available and can be illegal in some countries.

114 Workshop for Alcohol and Medicines, 1998

Workshop for Alcohol and Medicines was created in 1998 shortly after the Workshop for Weapons and Bombs. This container can produce alcohol from sugar, fruit or cereals and juices, which are then distilled. The pure alcohol that results can be mixed with medicinal herbs, spices and other natural ingredients to produce friendly drugs and sedatives. The workshop confounds the distinction between right and wrong since the same alcohol can be used for illegal distillation or to produce medicines for treating physical and mental ailments.

116 Alfa Alfa with Chicken Run, 1999 Generator 80 KW 1999 Diesel Engine of Alfa Romeo, 1999

Alfa Alfa with Chicken Run began its life as an Alfa Romeo 164. The car had put in a considerable amount of time as an AVL company car before its engine was taken out to serve as a generator. The body was lovingly restored in 1999 and converted into a chicken coop. To transform the car into a coop, AVL undertook a thorough study of chickens: habits, health, habitat and psychological behaviour. The results of the study were integrated into the final design; proper adaptations were made. The chickens have a run and feeder outside the car; their nest is located in the trunk; which can be opened to collect the eggs with ease. Human conveniences are happily united with chicken welfare in the Alfa Alfa.

When AVL’s Alfa Romeo 164 was transformed into the chicken run Alfa Alfa, the car’s engine – a 150 horsepower turbo diesel – became a generator, which supplied electricity. The cooling system was connected to the hot water system reservoir. In the metamorphosis, the sexy powerful Italian engine fused with the serious Dutch Heemaf generator. In typical Dutch style, this generator is made, not of cast iron, but constructed from tubes and sheets of steel. The electronic regulation parts were improvised by AVL. While providing power, the generator holds three worlds of design: the Italian, the Dutch and the homemade improvisation that binds the former two together.

118 AVL Constitution, 2001 AVL-Ville Money, 2001

AVL’s constitution was drawn up in consultation with Dutch lawyer Gerard Constitution AVL-Ville Spong for AVL-Ville and was displayed in the Hall of Delights. The Free State’s Introduction constitution guarantees many of the In a constantly developing society, the artist plays an important stimulating role. rights and freedoms guaranteed by Development implies breaking away from existing structures. To reach optimal artistic the charter of a democratic state. expression, it is crucial for the artist to be able to deploy himself or herself without being The major difference is that AVL’s subject to the restrictions of civil morality. The objective of AVL-Ville is to create an founding laws are absolute and environment where this is possible. To reach this goal, the rights formulated below are to be without exceptions. By removing the seen as absolute, without any exceptions. Living at AVL-Ville can be experienced as a hard possibility of exceptions, AVL keeps and confrontational artistic life. However, this is the ultimate consequence of an honest and legislation to an absolute minimum. uncompromising existence. Article 11 states that individuals must solve any conflicts within AVL-Ville or Text of the Constitution leave the compound – a clause that 1) Everyone has the right to freedom of artistic expression and design. renders judges, lawyers and police 2) Everyone has the right to freedom of expression, which is to say revealing and superfluous. The constitution opens by receiving thoughts or feelings other than artistic. guaranteeing each individual’s right to 3) Every participant of AVL-Ville is equal and is entitled to be treated without absolute freedom of expression. discrimination on account of race, colour, sex, language, belief, political, artistic and philosophical ideas, nationality, possessions, or any other ground. 4) Everyone is entitled to gather with others and to demonstrate. 5) Everyone has the right to freedom of religious expression, including idolatry, polygamy and forming a sect. 6) Everyone is entitled to have an education. 7) Everyone has the right to immunity in privacy and artistic lifestyle, as well as communication in any way with third parties. 8) Everyone is allowed to wander freely within the AVL-Ville area. 9) Everyone is entitled to create independently his or her own housing within the AVL-Ville territory. 10) Everyone has the right to have immunity over body and spirit, which also includes being able to dispose of one’s body and spirit according to one’s own wishes, with or without help of artificial means. 11) All AVL-Ville participants are obliged to treat any other member with absolute honesty and respect; it is compulsory to solve any conflict within AVL-Ville. 12) A) All AVL-Ville participants accept that management will be decided by the general committee, which is composed of an as of yet unspecified supervising board, to be formed by members of the general committee along with others. B) The general committee is qualified to expel participants, if no amicable settlement can be agreed upon in conflicts.

AVL designed its own money for AVL- nondescript designs on the euro bills. Ville to promote the ideals of the Free 1 AVL is dedicated to weapons and State. The value of AVL money was bombs; 5 AVL to alcohol and energy; not related to gold but to beer: 1 AVL 25 AVL to sex and mobile homes; 100 is 1 beer, 5 AVL is 5 beers, 25 AVL is AVL to the most important realms many beers and a meal and so on. of food and farming. The money is AVL decided to adorn its currency functional while displaying AVL’s

with heroic symbols instead of the belief in heroism and ideals. Design by Floor Houben

120 AVL Property, based in the Katoenveem on Keileweg 43e, Rotterdam, 2001

A view from the water of the AVL studio in the port of Rotterdam. Artworks and a host of other products begin their lives here before travelling to points around the globe. AVL’s 20 employees, in addition to interns, have different creative backgrounds and come from different countries. The designers are closely involved in the manufacturing process of each prod- uct, or they even make the product with their own hands. This approach gives rise to an intense contact between the maker and the product – one of the hallmarks of the AVL style. The atelier is organized as a business where horizontal communication is encouraged. Although money and the opportunities it offers are valued, profit is not AVL’s primary objective. The chief concern is to make special, innovative and challenging products. AVL’s location is ideal for its aim; the port is an inspiration for mobility, a source of used shipping containers and a platform for intercontinental shipments.

122 AVL Workshop

124 AVL Headquarters and Hall of Delights, 2001

In addition to money, education and weapons, AVL-Ville had its own public transport company, which carried people from downtown Rotterdam to the Free State. In contrast to public transportation systems, AVL let pas- sengers ride for free; instead of a valid ticket, they had to have a cold beer. The fleet included a horse and carriage combo as well as a tractor and wagon with room for 60 passengers. The carriage was driven by the force of the AVL-Ville horse Kereda, a Gelderlander born in 1993 and especially trained to pull carriages in the big city. When Kereda was not on the road, she was working away at the AVL-Ville Farm. The tractor was a Nuffield Universal 4, produced in 1956; its 56 HP engine has a maximum speed of 35 km per hour. When off the road, the tractor was used at both the atelier and the Farm. Along with a hydraulic system and lifting device, the tractor is equipped with a power take-off for connecting ploughs, mowing machines, tippers, lifting masts, excavators and other Built for AVL-Ville, the Hall of Delights AVL terrain where guests could buy tools. The tractor normally runs on functioned as a canteen, a restaurant their own drinks and bring them to diesel fuel but also has a hankering and a clubhouse. The hall was fashioned the restaurant. The authorities were for a bit of processed frying fat; from seven sea containers which were not amused and shut the hall down Kereda prefers hay and carrots. welded together and whose interior again. A plan to open a souvenir shop dividing walls had been removed. – where guests could purchase a Everything that tastes good found a souvenir bottle of wine or beer with home here. A variety of guest cooks regards from AVL-Ville – did not work – artists, gourmet chefs or regional out. The last possibility was to put the cooking fanatics – were invited to restaurant on a boat since alcohol can prepare the delightful feasts. AVL’s be sold without any licenses on water. plan was to pay for the costs of the By that time, the authorities became Free State with income from the so angry that the restaurant was restaurant, where guests could eat abandoned and AVL-Ville was closed. very good food at a very good price. After a successful start, the local authorities discovered that the Hall of Delights did not have any licenses, no building permit, no restaurant license, no liquor license, and closed the hall down. Determined to continue, AVL opened the hall up again; they found a way around the liquor license by opening a small grocery store on the

126 Darkroom, 2001 Fisherman’s House, 2000

A small, self-sufficient house inside a Designed in 2000, the house measures 20-ft container. The interior is entirely only 2.1 x 2.9 m. This dwelling was made of wood and can be securely inspired by the cottages that once sealed with steel shutters. Originally stood around the Zuiderzee until equipped with a sex machine, Darkroom the 1950s and served as weekday now offers the familiar comforts of a shelters for local fishermen. Although bed and a working area. On the roof, the shape of the house is traditional there is a compost toilet with a built-in and small, the house provides for a kitchen and a green filter. pleasant stay. Like many AVL works, this dwelling is an attempt to combine simple solutions from the past with modern applications and materials. Houwert collection, Schaarsbergen Dalen; Sprengel Museum, Hannover Collection Prada Foundation, Milan; Sanders Family, 128 Pioneer Set, 1999

The farmer’s house in the Pioneer Set is a very sturdy building with the same size, layout and empty design aesthetic of the stables. After all, humans and animals are somewhat equal. But the farmer’s house does come with some extras: a multi- woman bed, a wood stove and a kitchen. All design decisions were made with only one goal in mind: the structure must be strong, and if it breaks down, anyone should be able to fix it.

With the Pioneer Set, AVL created a upon the autonomy of the Autocrat. prefabricated farm and equipment, AVL’s goal was to make a farm set for which handily fits into one 40-ft survival – not to create a farm driven shipping container. Individuals and by profit or in competition with other groups can travel around the world, farms. Pioneer Set is a fully functional set up the farm at any location and farm that appeals to the imagination live self-sufficiently. In addition to in its concreteness. The set fulfils a the container, the set consists of a nostalgic, utopian and even romantic farmhouse, a stable, a rabbit hutch, a idea of living: longing to go back to chicken coop, a pig pen, several tools, nature, to be independent or even not equipment and fencing. Pioneer Set is to be a part of this world. The good a sturdy construction which has been things from the ‘old world’ meet the built to function indefinitely, without good things from the ‘new world’ in any need for repairs and extensions. a feasible way. The only things that have to be added and replaced are the farm animals. AVL considers the Pioneer Set to be a milestone artwork, which improves

130 Pioneer Set, 1999

The Dutch stove from the Pioneer Set demonstrates an old AVL adage: food is so important that it does matter what means are used to cook it.

This 40-ft shipping container is the ‘box’ for transporting all of the pieces of the Pioneer Set. Once the set is unpacked, the container functions as a barn in which to store fodder and tools. These tools are traditional ones; their ergonomics, designs and materi- als have been perfected by generations of farmers. The ideal tool has stood the test of time. It is the best design.

132 Pioneer Set, 1999

In the Pioneer Set Rabbit Hutch a single pair of rabbits can produce up to 200 kg of meat per year. Rabbits prove the old saying true!

AVL’s stable is a good place for cattle. Like the other parts of the Pioneer Set, the stable has been built to be functional and solid, reliable and indestructible. These qualities are essential for the buildings if this set is going to be used in remote areas.

134 AVL-Ville Greenhouse, 2001

In AVL-Ville Greenhouse, vegetable and herbs are cultivated according to organic principles and without artificial heating. The greenhouse was not made by AVL, but it fully complies with the atelier’s style on mobility: the inexpensive structure can be easily transported from one location to another.

136 Pioneer Set, 1999

In their natural setting, pigs are family creatures. They build their own homes and keep them clean. They care for their children and pay visits to their family and neighbours. It’s important for the animals’ well-being, and for the flavour of the meat, that they be allowed to live as ‘close to nature’ as possible. With these simple Pioneer Set Pig Pen, the pigs live quite natural lives; the stables can accommodate a pig family, provide shade in the summer and sufficient shelter in the winter. The shape of the roof prevents piglets from being accidentally crushed by their wallowing mother. On the Pioneer Set, all of the animals have more room than the norms stipulated by the Eko mark of quality.

138 Animal Farm, 2001

These animals lived on the farm in the Pioneer Set at AVL-Ville. After the Free State was forced to close, AVL had the animals stuffed so they will live forever as art objects, and the AVL workers ate the meat.

140 Utopian Doghouse, 2002 Caldenborgh Chicken Coop, 2002

Chickens can really hit the road with this minivan, which has been outfitted with a high-tech, electro-hydraulically motorized chicken run.

This ideal home for dogs has a living room, a bedroom and a porch with an unlimited supply of fresh water and dog food. A canine utopia, the doghouse was made for the biennial of Bussan in Korea (2002), where dogs are on the menu; the unit’s storage place also holds the butchering equip-

ment. Caldic Collection, Rotterdam

142 Favela House, 2001

After several visits to the slums of São Paulo, AVL developed the idea of establishing a working relationship with the favela dwellers. Five façades with windows and doors were made for this purpose in typical AVL style. The plan was to give the façades to the future inhabitants and let them finish building the house on site with locally available materials. The organic way of building that is characteristic of the favelas is appealing; the houses are built on top of each other and next to each other in a haphazard fashion, with no concern for the streets, infrastructure or accessibility to the building. Ultimately, the form of the houses and the city is determined by acute need, available materials and money.

144 Bio Pig, 2001

Energy from and for pigs. Pig food food for pigs. This mixture is combined is mixed with water and made into with regular pig food and organic alcohol, which can power a generator vegetables. On this diet, the pigs are to produce electricity. The excess heat healthier; they also taste better and of the generator is used to distil the still contain some alcohol as pork alcohol and/or stored in huge buffer chops. Pig excrement becomes biogas tanks. Solar panels, wind power and that can be used for cooking and for the incinerator are other sources of generating electricity. With 100 pigs, heat and electricity, that can heat AVL could provide the entire Free water and greenhouses. The waste State of AVL-Ville with energy. products from the distillery end up as a good low-carbohydrate, high-protein

146 AVL-Ville Energy Plant, 2001 Generator Trailer, 2001

For AVL-Ville, AVL developed an energy plant, which uses renewable energy sources, such as windmills and solar energy, and generators, in case there is no wind or sun. The plant has an efficient incinerator where all waste products can be burned to heat giant insulated water tanks, which can keep the water warm for extended periods of time. Within the compound, AVL created an infrastructure of electricity and heating and hot water.

A mobile generator with a little chicken ass on its back.

148 Septic Tanks, 2001 Sawing Machine, 1999

Septic tanks were originally part of the Finally the water is pumped to a reed infrastructure for AVL-Ville. The tanks filter. This organic filter works accord- provide a simple and conventional ing to two principles. Impurities are way for treating black water (human filtered through the sand. The reeds waste). The unit includes a faecal introduce a great deal of oxygen into pump, which breaks up pieces of the soil through their hollow stems excrement before pumping them into and roots; oxygen helps the bacteria the first septic tank. Heavier parts in to convert harmful substances. The the waste water sink to the bottom reeds also absorb a variety of waste of the tank; more volatile lighter parts products as fertilizer, which encour- Made from the engine of Joep van float on the surface; while the middle ages the plants’ growth. At the end of Lieshout’s old Honda motorcycle, layer of cleaner water goes to the next the filter, clean water is produced that the Sawing Machine can be used for tank, where the same process of float- can be released into the surface water. lumbering trees into planks. The saw ing and sinking continues. While the A well-constructed reed filter is able to was originally made to function within sewage remains in the tank, the water produce drinking water. AVL-Ville. is purified by means of fermentation and bacterial culture. Grey water, mildly contaminated water from the kitchen and bathrooms, goes to the fat separator. Coarse particles and fat are separated. After a period of time, the fat can be skimmed off, filtered and added to the tractor’s diesel oil or simply incinerated in the boiler.

150 Love, Hope & Belief 2001

A modern version of the traditional Dutch symbols for hope (anchor), belief (cross) and love (heart). While the anchor, cross and heart have been replaced by a bottle of wine, a woman and a pig, AVL’s modular symbols can be used in any combination: one may believe in women, hope for wine and love pigs; believe in pigs, hope for a woman and love wine; believe in wine, hope for pigs and love a woman. The woman’s truncated body and the empty wine glass suggest that these wishes may never be fulfilled.

152 Sonsbeek Raft, 2001 Compostoilet, 2001 The Pitiful One, 1996

Totally seaworthy, AVL’s Compostoilet travels on the front of the Sonsbeek Raft. At sea or on land, composting remains a simple and direct way of recycling and reusing excrement and other waste. The composting process turns organic waste into compost with the use of aerobic bacteria. During the process, the temperature rises, speeding up the composting process while killing harmful germs present in the mass. A flush toilet is dependent on large sewage systems that are not environmentally friendly because they waste clean drinking water. With the Compostoilet, the waste problem is solved locally and without wasting water. The toilet can be used not only for urinating and defecating but also for disposing kitchen and garden waste. The urine automatically flows to the bottom of the container where it gathers before being evacuated to the septic tank. The faeces must be covered with straw, sawdust, grass clippings or other organic matter. The bacteria use oxygen, the waste and the covering material to produce a fresh smelling potting ground that can be used on the land or in the garden.

AVL decided to make a floating restaurant. Built of scaffolding and inflatable pontoons, the raft has a kitchen, a dining area, sleeping spaces, a Compostoilet and an outdoor shower. The front of the raft sports a large penis, The Pitiful One.

No pity for the pitiful one.

154 AVL Franchise Unit, 2002

After the closure of AVL-Ville, AVL The unit features two converted decided to go into franchising to containers in which the basic equip- explore its ideas for alternative living ment is concentrated: a large kitchen, with more ease and less hassle from sanitary facilities with Compostoilets, the Dutch authorities. As a franchise, solar energy panels, heating and AVL-Ville became an international electricity. AVL also provided an brand, which could be purchased ecological infrastructure for dealing along with the services and hardware with waste water: green filters and needed to start a new Free State. fat dividers, pumps and composters. AVL-Ville, from the constitution to Everything was connected to a cheap the infrastructure, could be exported industrial hall. The franchise units can anywhere in the world, much like be coupled or connected to an existing a fast food branch. This franchise building or a new structure. was set up at the Middelheim Museum in Antwerp. Collection Middelheim Museum, Antwerp

156 AVL Franchise Unit, 2002

158 AVL Suisse, 2002

AVL Suisse hits the seas for the exhibi- tion Expo ’02, a modern-day ‘country’ fair that took place in Switzerland in 2002. Many Swiss companies and organizations represented their identity in a cultural way; renowned international architects built the pavilions to present ideas about products as culture; the Swiss Army made a theatre play about safety and peace instead of presenting guns and canons. Since art was clearly being utilized to lubricate a wealthy society, AVL decided to go against the flow and set up a Free State on a raft. After docking the AVL Suisse, AVL invited architecture students from Berlin to add their own structures. In addition to these makeshift houses, the raft sported a conspicuous ‘For Sale’ sign, alongside two inflatable sex dolls. Nothing was designed, unless it was designed in bad taste.

160 Hanging Man, 2003

162 Self-Portrait, 2002 Self-Portrait, 2000

Portrait of a man sitting at a table, drawn as an architect would draw a building: with a plan, a view, a section Cross-section of a man sitting on and in 3D. a Shaker chair.

164 Sportopia, 2002

166 Sportopia, 2002

Sportopia provides physical and mental excitement as well as relaxa- tion with three activity areas on two storeys. The ground floor has facilities for sports and for sex; the first floor features a rest and recovery area with a bed for 36 people, a shower and a Compostoilet. The entire structure (23 m long and over 6 m high) is made from scaffolding, a simple non-design material. Scaffolding – unlike other products, which are designed in order to sell – has no actual design, because no consumer cares how scaffolding looks; scaffolding is built, only to be dismantled. In the sports department, the weight-lifting and fitness machines were also built with scaffolding; the weights have been made from poured concrete: simple but functional. The sex department features a faecal corner, a cage, a Turkish Chair, a Multi-Woman Bed and SM equipment. In the rest and recovery department upstairs, the bed was designed to hold the number of employees then working at AVL. Intended for a utopian community, the upper level is a space for harmony, happiness and inter-hu- man contact. But the Compostoilet and shower have a double function that links both floors in a provocative way. The toilet’s long collecting canister hangs down from the first floor to the ground floor, where faeces can be taken out of the canister and used in the sex department. The shower’s drain empties directly into the head of another shower on the ground floor, thus mixing hygiene with waste water. For AVL, Sportopia manifests the contradictions that arise when the human body serves political ideologies. Visions of utopia, rest, sport or sexuality, can drive the ideals of perfection into excess; one man’s utopia could be another man’s hell. Sports may involve the discipline needed to be a good citizen, with a healthy body and mind, but sports have also played a central role in totali- tarian regimes. Whenever the human body becomes part of a machine, for pleasure or for pain, no body can beat the machine. Designed for the São Paulo Biennial 2002

168 Sportopia, 2002

170 Sportopia, 2002

172 Mini Sadist, 2002 Accessoires, 2002

Installation view of a small exhibition The SM equipment on this frame that caused a big commotion: SM at follows the principle of modularity so Gallery Fons Welters in Amsterdam. every piece is interchangeable. The The show featured sculptures of a mask can be put on the face; a funnel womb and a penis, fist-fucking men can be fixed to the mask, a bodily along with two scaffolding installa- orifice, handcuffs or any other piece of tions: the Mini Sadist for sex and the equipment on the frame. AVL’s motto: Mini Sportopia for sports. To create everything is possible. a special atmosphere, AVL added a film made with clips from footage of scatological porn movies. In seven minutes, Joepie de Poepie shows the best scatological sex scenes, edited one after another. Many visitors were repulsed by the movie; newspaper critics created a scandal by protesting the show.

174 Pillory, 2002 Man with Prick, 2002

The penis of this sculpted man is completely out of proportion to the rest of his body. While proud of his huge member, the man is unable to move because of its staggering weight.

Many people can take advantage of

the poor person in the Pillory. Falkenberg Collection of Art, Hamburg

176 Prick Medical Model, 2002

The first medical model, this sculpture of a penis heralds AVL’s series of anatomical sculptures and installations.

178 Bonnefanten Cart, 2002 Dickhead, 2004

Sensory deprivation dickhead.

Walking around inside a museum can be tiring; there are few comforts, let alone luxuries, apart from the artworks. Bonnefanten Carts provide a solution: the museum visitor can sit in the mechanized wheelchair and use the joystick to tour the museum at slower or faster speeds. The cart is stocked with cold beer and champagne; the armrest has a special bowl for peanuts. The chair can automatically be raised and lowered to get a closer view of paintings. After touring around, the user can park and slumber in front of his favourite artworks. The carts were designed for the Bonnefanten Museum in Maastricht; AVL believes that all museums should be equipped with such facilities. Collection Bonnefanten Museum, Maastricht Collection Rainer Ganahl, New York

180 Man and Wagon, 2002 Bad Man Kicking, 2002 Bad Man Hitting, 2002 Bad Man with Fist, 2002 Collection Stedelijk Museum, Schiedam and Prada Foundation, Milan

182 Bonnefantopia, 2003 Collection Bonnefanten Museum, Maastricht

184 Bonnefantopia, 2003

Inspired by Sportopia, Bonnefantopia was made for the Bonnefanten Museum in Maastricht. Despite the similarities with its noble predecessor, Bonnefantopia is more domestic and features both a kitchen sink and a cosy bed. Three fibreglass Michelangelo figures inhabit the installation: one is vomiting in the kitchen sink, another is hanging over the scaffolding, and the third is lying on the floor. While the historical Michelangelo slaved away on the Sixtine Chapel, these fallen followers show what happens when men become the slaves of machines or systems.

186 Michelangelo, 2004 Bacchus and His Two Assistants, 2001 Laocoon, 2003

AVL’s Bacchus comes with two assistants, who help the demigod drink.

Like many other installations, these figures are connected with tubes and hoses. Hall Collection, Connecticut

188 The Horn of Plenty, 2003 Vomiting Trio, 2003

AVL likes wine and beer. The horn of plenty for recycling.

190 The Disciplinator, 2003

192 The Disciplinator, 2003

The Disciplinator has a mathematical precision in its design, facilities and functions. Based on multiples of four, the elements are intended to be used 24 hours a day by a slave force of 72 inmates. There are 24 bunk beds that can be occupied three times a day; 24 places to eat with 24 cups and 24 dishes; 36 places to work and 36 files with which the slaves complete the useless task of reducing tree trunks to sawdust; and four toilets, four show- ers, four cups and eight toothbrushes. Running like a clock, The Disciplinator produces little else beyond the passage of time and sawdust. In this nightmare, total functionality meets total futility. Designed and filled with the same precision as space, time becomes indistinguishable from an architectural blueprint.

194 Satellite des Sens, 2003

Satellite des Sens was commissioned skin by peeking inside its little eyes whirlwind through the whole space when the city of Lille carried the an- and windows. Moving inside is like every few minutes – a touch of cool air nual title of Cultural Capital of Europe being swallowed and landing in the on the face. On the walls, children feel (2004). Eager to include children in the gigantic stomach of a whale. In the textures and reliefs in the mixture of celebrations, the organizers asked AVL central cave-like space, there are four different materials: from the hardness to create a mobile unit, which could different modules, connected by small of polyester to the warm softness of travel around to different schools. stairs, passages and a slide. Since the deep-pile carpet, sheep fleece and Once parked, the unit welcomed measurements and proportions are all itchy short-haired cow hides. 12 children, aged three to six, along adapted to the toddler’s size, adults Created in close collaboration with a with an adult companion, and invited will find themselves crouching and team of specialists – trailer builders, them to take another kind of trip: crawling to reach all of the spaces. engineers, sculptors, sound artists an artistic discovery tour of the five In this mysterious labyrinth, the and pedagogues – AVL’s Satellite des senses. The children can hear, see, feel, walls have ears, which emit different Sens is a surrealistic dream object on smell and even taste their way through sounds; there are little mouths to talk wheels. the spacious green caravan to become to and a big nose with a smell capsule conscious about the body’s senses to sniff. CD players with several sound in a fun and informative way. The channels produce sounds that intensify caravan’s exterior – which looks like the feeling of a living organism and of a bright green, friendly monster – is living inside one: the lapping of the sea, an experience in itself. Before daring the call of a whale along with curiously to step inside, the children can listen funny noises. A large television screen to a collage of sounds and explore shows a spherical collage of images what lies beyond the monster’s while a large ventilator sends a Collection City of Lille

196 Satellite des Sens, 2003

198 Compostoilet, 2000 Incinerator, 2006 Pig Toilet, 2005

A handy way to get rid of human faeces: defecate in the storage hole and the excrement slides into the furnace where it will be burnt.

Such pig toilets are still used in many parts of the world. People defecate in the toilet in the front; pigs happily eat the excrement from the trough at the back. The work was part of a theatre play about the different aspects of faeces and how it is dealt with. If anything, art is like shit: once an artwork comes out of the artist’s body, the work usually cannot be touched or changed anymore.

A double-decker toilet for environ- mentally friendly composting. Faecal matter falls into the elongated container. The Compostoilet is a very low-tech yet very efficient way of recycling human waste. Straw, which is thrown in the toilet bowl, helps the composting process; the straw’s hollow stems bring oxygen into the faeces, thus helping aerobic bacteria to grow.

200 Uritory, 2003 Toilets, 1992-1994

Uritory is a unisex amenity. The angle of the toilet bowl is positioned in such a way that both women and men can easily use the toilet while standing up. Ecologically-friendly, Uritory is linked to a small biogas installation. A storage space for the toilet brush has been built into the side of the bowel.

202 The Technocrat, 2003

204 The Technocrat, 2003

The section drawing of Total Faecal Solution shows the important design aspects of this biogas installation. Every part of The Technocrat has a different design atmosphere and approach. Total Faecal Solution features fresh modern colours and sensual shapes, combined with simple low-tech prefab products and standard applications.

The Technocrat is a closed circuit of The Burghers Total Faecal Solution The Feeder The Alcoholator the tank and mix the liquid three times food, alcohol, excrement and energy. For optimal functionality, The Technocrat Total Faecal Solution recycles human The Feeder produces and administers In order to keep the burghers satis- a day and allow it to ferment for three In this system, the human burgher is requires 1000 burghers, who can be excrement in a maniacal way. The cheap food that generates a maximum fied, alcohol should be administered. days. The alcohol percentage should the biological cogwheel that generates efficiently stored in large bunk beds. excrement is sucked out of the burgh- output of faeces. Calculate the menu Making alcohol is a two-step process: be between 10 and 16 per cent. Pump enough raw material to produce not According to the supply of burghers ers by vacuum power and pumped based on the available ingredients first you make a mash of an ingredient the liquid to the still and clean the only valuable biogas used for cooking and the availability of food, their into the two biogas digesters, where and the desired life expectancy of the with high sugar or carbohydrate tank thoroughly before filling it again. food and distilling alcohol to keep the lifespan can be manipulated. On a the slurry is mixed and heated. Under burgher. content and by fermentation it is Distil: The distillery has two stills: the humans functioning. The Technocrat daily basis the following activities these special conditions, methane gas Fill Cooker with water and open steam transformed into a liquid that contains first produces 50 litres of methanol consists of four parts that come with should be executed: is produced by specific bacteria. The valve; Weigh and add leftovers from approximately 15 per cent alcohol. The that can be used as poison. The instructions. By following the instruc- Remove and recycle non-functional gas is cleaned, dried and stored in the malting and distilling processes and distillery is used to purify and increase second still produces 400 litres of tions, anyone can learn to operate burghers as necessary, and replace gas-o-meter for later use: cooking and other edible materials; Weigh, grind, the alcohol content to 96 per cent. drinking alcohol. After four hours, the The Technocrat. them with new ones; Check connec- distilling. Everything is majestically and add cereals, vegetables, roots and Mash: Grind the ingredients to the distillation process will be complete: tions of feeding and excrement suction recycled into usable products: gas, tubers; Weigh and add fat, oil, and consistency of sand, add 300 litres of the methanol is stored for later use hoses; Check cleanliness of burghers water and compost. other liquids; Grind and add meat if water and boil for 30 minutes. Add while alcohol can be distributed to Three times per day, administer in the Regularly check temperature and acidity; available. Boil for 30 minutes; Switch another 300 litres of water, add 12 kg the burghers. following order: 600 litres of food from Control the connections and water on blender until a thin, smooth paste malt and switch on the mixer for The Feeder, 133 litres of alcohol and levels of safety equipment; Pump the is obtained; Switch on pump to 30 minutes. 600 litres of water; solid waste to the AutoComposter and distribute food to the burghers. Fermenting: Filter the mash, bring the After feeding, the hoses should be the purified waste water to the Water residue to the feeder to be reused as a cleaned by blowing compressed air Tower. food supplement and pump the liquid through them to empty them com- to the fermenting tank. Adjust the pH pletely. level to 4.5 by adding acid or base. Allow the temperature to fall to 30 °C and add 0.5 kg brewers yeast. Close

206 The Technocrat, 2003

This set of ecological toilets is made for optimal biogas production. In order to divide faecal matter from urine, AVL developed a special toilet for shitting only that uses vacuum power, like air- plane toilets, to suck out the excrement using a minimum amount of water. Urinating should be done only in the urinals, since urine is recycled separately. There is a male version and a female version since AVL believes in equal rights for men and women. While the toilets are designed for the best results in recycling, they involve an element of control. Inside the faecal toilet, there is a video surveillance camera, which allows a guard to see if anyone pees illegally in the shit toilet. Friendly ecology meets voyeuristic suppression.

In the Biogas Installation, faeces are pumped to the first tank or digester, where the temperature is kept at 37 °C. The mass is stirred, and the acidity of the liquid is maintained. Methane gas forms through the influ- ence of bacteria in the first digester. After 21 days the liquid moves to the second digester to recuperate the last traces of biogas. After that, it goes into the large horizontal tank, a septic tank with an aerator that pumps oxygen through the liquid to improve purifica- tion. The next step is the green filter: the filter removes the last impurities and produces quality drinking water, which is connected and transferred to the Water Tower. The biogas collects in barrels next to the tanks where it is dried and washed. There is safety equipment in case of overpressure or if the system backfires.

208 The Technocrat, 2003

These bunk beds can efficiently store up to 1000 burghers, who produce the biogas in The Technocrat.

These burghers are superfluous, non-functional citizens, ready to be transported to the composter or feeder.

210 The Technocrat, 2003

The Feeder has a nostalgic design, a rounded and heavy shape that evokes German and other totalitarian designs from the 1930s. The Feeder is a multipart installation with contain- ers, silos, storage for liquids, scales, steam boilers, cookers, water tanks and machines for cleaning vegetables like beets and potatoes and for cutting them.

212 The Technocrat, 2003

AutoComposter turns solid particles, one of the final products of the biogas installation, into compost. The particles are pumped at regular intervals into a mixing device that adds straw and sawdust. The mixture comes out at the other end and can be used as compost.

214 The Technocrat, 2003

In The Technocrat, the Alcoholator keeps people happy with 1800 litres of alcohol a day, every day of the week. The alcohol is made of waste products from the kitchen and other sites. After the distilling process, 600 litres of 40 per cent alcohol remain and are distributed three times a day. Like the other parts of The Technocrat, Alcoholator has a specific style: red, sexy, voluptuous.

216 I Faecal Experimental, 2004

Although The Technocrat and the Biogas Installation were made to be fully functional, these works were never tested (no burghers volunteered their services). Like the iPod, AVL’s I Faecal Experimental exploits mini- aturization, albeit to test on a small scale the production of biogas from human excrement. The process was monitored, measured and improved; the experiment was a success.

218 Triumph, 2005

Of course there’s progress on earth, Triumph: Man, Power and Machine oeuvre. These oppositions also form personal ways of expressing these power of industrial and technological so to speak, but that’s only one of the was an exhibition both produced and the starting point of this two-part fundamental human emotions. progress. Artists throughout the ages many lies that business people put curated by Joep van Lieshout for the presentation which the atelier made by In Room 2, the power and authority either resisted or followed these forms out, so that they can squeeze money Boijmans van Beuningen Museum. choosing artworks from the Boijmans’ of a person, regime or ideology is of visual propaganda in subtle ways. out of the crowd more blatantly and AVL’s installations provide so many permanent collection. made visible and palpable by means of The two rooms are linked by parts mercilessly. The masses are the slaves proposals for ‘model’ communities, Room 1 featured artists from the past visual forms of expression, symbols, of the AVL total installation The of today, and the individual is the slave from AVL-Ville, a cross between a and present who attempted to express buildings, images. Here, too, it is Technocrat: a closed system in which of the vast mass-ideas. There’s nothing hedonistic hippie camp and an armed universal, ‘big’ feelings like fear and often a case of stereotypes, such man is deployed to produce biogas, beautiful and excellent left. You must militia, to The Disciplinator, a stylized surrender, love and suffering, belief as the heroic representation of the a form of energy that is then used to dream up beauty and goodness and labour camp striving for maximum and heroic sacrifice, vulnerability and worker and the depiction of man manufacture food (sustenance) and justice. Tell me, do you know how to efficiency and productivity by means guilt. Both classical and religious art as machine. Supporters of various alcohol (intoxication), substances dream? of various mechanisms of oppression. are marked by the frequent use of twentieth-century ideologies, from intended to ensure that the man- The tension between collectivity and certain visual archetypes or idioms Fascism to Stalinism and Capitalism, machine continues to function Robert Walser, Jakob von Gunten, individual freedom, pleasure and such as the Niobe and the Pietà. used and misused art and architecture optimally. A quick lesson in how 1909 exploitation, good and evil, has always Contemporary artists like Beuys, Kiefer to reinforce their views about life and to design oppression. run throughout AVL’s heterogeneous and Nauman introduced other, more politics along with their belief in the

220 Ursoup 1 & 2, 2003

Ursoup has been drawn like a design for a theatre play. The scene shows a scientist using a blender to mix the basic chemical elements of which the human body is composed, from oxygen (65 per cent) to iron (0.1 per cent). The scientist will pour the mixture in an inflatable bath area with breeding lamps above where two women will perform an Ursoup mud fight. The mixture doesn’t look at all like the human body, but it has exactly the same composition.

222 Mini Technocrat, 2004 Multi Funnel, 2004 Mini Feeder 2004 Prada Foundation, Milan Collection Private Collection, Sweden / Collection Martha Herford Museum, Herford

224 Kitchen, 2006 The Scientists, 2002

226 The Caretaker, 2003 Society, 2006 Happy Family, 2005 The American Caretakers, 2004

Try to win, and you will be happy.

AVL’s inspirations often come from classical artworks whose qualities are more hidden. In earlier days, artists were dependent on patrons and their commissions. The church and wealthy families gave an assignment to make an artwork according to a special theme or occasion. Despite the constraints, artists managed to

Collection Hurst, Colorado produce superior works.

228 The Caretakers, 2005 De Gedragen Man, 2005

Carried Man.

230 Dancing Family, 2006 The Emaciated, 2006

The sculpture resulted from a major decision: not to have children for the next eight years. Collection Hugo and Carla Brown, The Hague

232 Bad Furniture, 2004

Contemporary design practice increasingly depends upon high tech. Designs are drawn on the computer and made by means of rapid proto- typing. Once the prototype is complete, the object is manufactured far away in another country with cheap labour and then comes back. To counter this distant way of designing, AVL created Bad Furniture in the tradition of the Arts and Crafts movement and Art Nouveau style. For Bad Furniture, the designer and the producer are one and the same person. Both the steel and the wood have been hand- crafted. Love, tools and materials are combined; shape and passion go hand in hand.

The Bad Crib can be secured with padlock.

234 Bad Furniture, 2004 Sport Nouveau, 2003

236 Sport Nouveau, 2003

Sport Nouveau was created in the wake of Bad Furniture. This set of sports equipment has been designed with fantastic shapes, elegant forms and a noble character. The machine fits only thin people, preferably wearing silk socks. A heavier human body would break the machines, even with normal use.

238 Exploded View Organs, 2003

240 Womb, Penis, Kidney Bladder Combination, Liver, 2003 Womb, Gullet, Rectum, 2003

Joep van Lieshout is obsessed by systems. All systems have a good side and a bad side, possibilities and restrictions. An individual can depend on a system, profit from it or be enslaved by it. Human systems, like AVL developed a complete series those created by the internal human of sculptures of the human internal organs, add an aesthetic dimension: organs, ranging from the heart and how organs work and how they look is the brain to the penis and the womb. magnificent. Who was the designer? Some of the organs are connected in a larger system. The tongue, gullet and stomach are part of the digestive system; the urinary system has been made for both sexes (a kidney and a bladder with a penis or a vagina). These works offer a stylized repro- duction of the interior of the human body: the artist turned inside-out.

242 Penis S,M,L,XL, 2003

Like penises, medical models come in different sizes.

244 Gullet, Penis XL, Kidney Bladder Combination, 2003

246 Wombhouse, 2003

The design for the Wombhouse owes its origins to AVL’s sculptures of the female reproductive system. One of the sculptures caught the attention of a Belgian collector and retired gynaecologist, who had spent his life examining women. Excited by AVL’s magnified genitalia, the collector wanted to have a super-size version so that he would be able to go inside with his wife, children and grandchildren. AVL rose to the challenge with a new, expanded design, which is not quite anatomically correct. The womb has a bed and the vagina is an escape hatch; the right ovary holds a barbeque while the left sports a minibar containing bottles of booze instead of eggs. The design eventually gave birth to the real Wombhouse, an offspring with even more features.

248 Wombhouse, 2004

Wombhouse is a utility unit that acts as the technical core for a house. The womb is not only every human’s first dwelling, but also the only human body part that can be inhabited by another individual. The technical core is a well-known design principle invented in the twentieth century by avant-garde architects and then used many times over by other architects. Prefabricated, the technical core contains all of the essential functions of a building: sanitation, kitchen, heating, ventilation. Normally, this core is an anonymous, square object. By contrast, Wombhouse has an exciting, poetic and enchanting shape. The womb contains a bedroom in the uterus, the safest place in the mind of human beings, along with heating, air-conditioning, electrical systems, a kitchen and a shower. One ovary contains the minibar; the other the toilet. Wombhouse can make any space function as a home; the struc- ture requires only a roof and walls to protect it from the climate. The sur- rounding space can take many shapes: a simple wooden shed, a concrete modernist structure, a traditional brick house or even an existing building. Put the plug in the socket, and everything will work.

250 BarRectum, 2005

BarRectum, ArschBar, AssholeBar, BarAnus. While the translations sound different, the form is universally recognizable. The bar takes its shape from the human digestive system: starting with the tongue, continuing to the stomach, moving through the small and the large intestines and exiting through the anus. While Bar Rectum is anatomically correct, the last part of the large intestine has been inflated to a humongous size to hold as many drinking customers at the bar as possible. The anus itself is part of a large door that doubles as an emergency exit.

252 BarRectum, 2005

254 The Heads, Claudia & Hermann, 2005 The BikiniBar, 2006

A meeting point for elderly people: beautiful, cruel and sensual, with a nice interior space. Both art and architecture, BikiniBar represents a building as a sculpture and a sculpture as a building. There is a place to rest inside, where people can withdraw from the busy beach life or bad weather. It’s also possible to play a very special game of darts! BikiniBar is the only female body you can enter without permission.

This sculpture group has three heads, which are hollow and can be used in different ways. The male head Hermann is a typical blue-eyed blond, the female Claudia has dark hair and brown eyes. Tom, the third head (not yet produced), is a dark-faced man, standing straight on his neck. The three of them together reflect on the diversity of humanity in a very special way.

256 Split Hollow Man, 2005 Half Standing Hollow Man, 2005

A split man with a simplified digestion system. Collection Geert and Lieve Behaegel, Pittem Collection Museum of Contemporary Art, Benevento

258 The Rock Music Room, 2003

260 Modular Bathroom Units, 2004

For Amsterdam’s Lloyd Hotel, which was designed by the MVRDV archi- tectural team, AVL made a series of bathroom units for individual hotel rooms, along with two special music chambers: one for rock, the other for classical music. Both chambers are extra-large: family- or orgy-size.

The Rock Music Room is mainly refur- bished with wood, hanging free inside the hotel space to muffle hard sounds. A Multi-Woman Bed is installed for the groupies and all kind of equipment is available to play all night long without disturbing any other hotel guests. Even the windows can be blocked with panels to make the night everlasting.

262 The Classical Music Room, 2003

This room is about 6.5 m high with a lounge to relax in and a platform to sleep on. These separate spaces are connected by a vertical bathroom topped with stairs. The lounge refers to a baroque version of a classic hotel lounge with a grand piano and chesterfield sofas. The platform is designed for rest and sanitary use.

264 Bodytables, 2006

For the restaurant of the museum Boijmans Van Beuningen and the receptionhall of KOW architects, AVL designed tables in the shape of different female torsos. The irregular shape of the tables serves to enhance communication. People sit closer to each other at the same table – a proximity that tends to ignite a conversation.

266 The Practice, 2004

Every day brings a new challenge to AVL. One fine day, we found ourselves invited to refurbish the practice of a family doctor and art collector, Dr Van Sint Fiet. AVL redesigned, refurbished and rebuilt his practice – the reception, the examination room, the laboratory – while adding a clip-on to the building for personal consultations. AVL took out the walls of his office and replaced them with organically-shaped partitions and furniture. These shapes create a more functional space. The furniture looks as if it has grown right there on the spot. The Practice forms a place where people feel welcome and free to discuss all kind of matters with the doctor. An extra parasite on the outside of the building, a crystal-like room, can be used for more intense and intimate conversations with the patients. Since this family doctor accompanies individuals from the day they are born till the day they die, one can expect health problems and a few secrets.

268 The Practice, 2004

270 The Company, 2002

The Interpolis Insurance company asked AVL to design a half-open meet- ing place for 13 people; the company did not want to build a separate room. AVL’s solution was to create a central table, surrounded by a sculpture group. The sculpted fibreglass figures represent the employees of an average company and their lives: businessmen shaking hands and discussing a port- folio; a hard-working manager, a good director pushing a disabled person in a wheelchair; gossiping office assistants; a family and a depressed worker.

272 Clubhouse 8, 2003

This design was commissioned by the Interpolis Insurance Company, which had a restricted space and a long list of wishes. To economize on space, AVL built the requested activity areas beside and on top of each other. The resulting two-level structure has several points of access. On one side of the ground level, there is a ball with a television and relaxation room inside; on the other side, a dining and Internet area with low overhead space. On the upper level, which can be reached by an open staircase, there is a sound- proof library or meeting place.

274 The Theatre of Life, 2003

AVL made the most beautiful windows in the ugliest building: the Kriekelaar community centre in Brussels. The stained glass, made of fibreglass and forged steel, shows scenes from the daily life of one of our AVL designers.

276 The Theatre of Life, 2003

278 Refurbishment of Promo Fashion, 2005

This office was designed for Promo Fashion in Belgium. AVL decided to make very large tables that serve as backbones at which the whole company can work together.

280 Egg on Stand, 2006 Skull on Stand, 2005

282 AVL Workskull, 2005

AVL Workskull is designed for large offices as a secluded place, where employees can work alone undisturbed, have more privacy for phone calls or retreat from the world.

284 AVL Shaker Chair 1999 AVL Almost Perfect (King Kong), 2005

AVL artworks form the basis of AVL AVL designed the chair on a napkin design pieces, made in unlimited and then sent the sketch to a Chinese editions in small factories, or in special factory to produce. The design came limited editions in AVL’s own work- with no other information; the shop. AVL Shaker furniture is a good language barrier only increased the example of this. Already designed possibilities for misinterpretation. for The Good, The Bad & The Ugly in Most of the designing and detailing 1998, AVL Shaker furniture is based were done by the Chinese. Instead on furniture made by the Shakers, a of the designer, random and external religious community from England factors in the production process that lived in the Northern parts of the decided the chair’s final appearance. USA from the end of the eighteenth Far from a slick product fresh from century. the factory, the chair has irregularities, a non-geometrical shape and a hand- made look – features that make for a better product. . and Moooi B.V. . and Moooi B.V. Unlimited series of furniture, produced and distributed by Lensvelt B.V

286 Prototype AVL Potato Chair, 2004 AVL Interview Desk, 2005 AVL Office Chair, 2002

While designed by AVL, this chair is produced and distributed by the Lensvelt Furniture Company. AVL designed the chair after being horrified by the available office furniture. It’s nice to create a temporary storage space for the backside of the body.

288 AVL Home Edition, 2005 AVL Bench, 2006 AVL Crea Cart, 2005 AVL File-Apes, 2005

290 Big Funnel Man, 2004 Victory Light Pole, 2005

Victory Light Pole was made for a new business park in Nieuw Vennep. An office worker’s utopia, the business park has an idyllic garden with a duck pond and bronze sculptures where employees can linger during lunch hour to be happier and more produc- tive in the afternoon. AVL’s sculpture shows a herd of managers, trying to get to the top of a lamp-post.

Big Funnel Man is 10 m long and rests alongside the A27 highway near Breda, where there are always traffic jams at rush hour. People sitting in their cars, going to and from work every week- day, might feel just like the force-fed

man. Collection City of Breda Collection City of Nieuw Vennep

292 Woman on Bed, 2006 Modern Man, 2006 Les Mammifrères, 2006

A mother feeding her two children.

Modern Man, man and cage in one.

294 Heads, 2006

296 SlaveCity, 2005 - ongoing

CHECKPOINT

RESIDENTIAL AREA

EDU - CENTRE

CALLCENTRE

WORKSHOPS BROTHEL BROTHEL

CHECKPOINT

CALLCENTRE SPORTS CENTRE CHECKPOINT KITCHEN

AIRPORT

HOSPITAL

BIOGAS

BROTHEL POWER PLANT SLAUGHTER AND DISSECTION

HEADQUATER

SELECTION - CENTRE

EDU - CENTRE

CHECKPOINT

MUSEUM

CHECKPOINT

The Urban plan for SlaveCity has The second part is public and open to three parts. The first is the slave people outside of SlaveCity; no slaves department, built around a lake. are allowed. Located here are the The black lines are the roads; the headquarters, an art centre, a theatre, buildings include a selection area, sport facilities, a hospital, parks and a kitchen, a slaughterhouse, the other public leisure facilities. The third CallCenter, the SlaveUniversity, part is an ideal community for the workshops, PowerPlant, brothels employees of SlaveCity, approximately and more. 3000 people who dwell in five different types of houses.

298 SlaveCity, 2005 - ongoing

SlaveCity can be described as a sinister utopian project: rational, and highly profitable to the tune of 7,8 billion euros net profit per year. Values, ethics, aesthetics, morality, food, energy, economics, organization, management and the market are turned upside-down, mixed and reformulated in the designs of this town for 200,000 inhabitants. An up-to-date concentration camp, SlaveCity benefits from the latest technology, participants work in the CallCenter seven hours a day on tele-services such as customer service, ITC, telemarketing and computer programming. After manning the headphones, participants must work in the fields or inside the workshops for seven more hours to maintain the city. The participants’ efficiency is closely monitored; appropriate measures are taken if they drop below the optimally set level. SlaveCity is the first ‘zero energy’ town of its size in the world and functions without imported mineral fuels or electricity. The energy needs of the city are covered by using biogas, solar power, wind energy and bio-diesel. Everything is majestically recycled, even the participants themselves, whose vital organs are destined for transplantation instead of decaying into dust. Since no waste products are produced, SlaveCity is a green town that does not squander the world’s limited resources.

Facts

Built surface 900,000 m2

Total surface 60 km2

Participants 200,000

Employees 3,500

Total investment 1860 million euros

Annual profit 7800 million euros

Arts budget 78 million euros

300 Foodcart, 2005

302 CallCenter, 2005

304 CallCenter Units, 2005

306 Energy, Biogas and Watertreatment Plant Plan, 2006

308 PowerPlant, 2006

ENERGY PRODUCTION

TOTAL ENERGY USAGE PER YEAR 88.013.630 kWh/a Electricity 66.774.256 kWh/a Thermal energy 21.236.374 kWh/a

BIOGAS Excrements Excrements Fresh Substance per person and day 0,40 kg FS per year 29.000 ton Dry Substance (FS) 23 % Organic Substance (DS) 85 % Gas/kg (08) 520 l Gas production per year 2.968.472 m3

AGRICULTURAL WASTE agricultural waste Fresh Substance 11.440 ton Dry Substance (FS) 48 % Organic Substance (DS) 83 % Gas/kg (OS) 520 l Gas production per year 2.382.613 m3

WIND ENERGY Wind turbines 2.750 kW Energy output per annum 5,29 GWh/a Wind turbines 10 pieces Electrical energy 53.787.732 kWh/a

SOLAR ENERGY Thermo photovoltaic device 350 kWh/a Needed M2 23.214 m2

BIO DIESEL Rape seed 4,11 t/ha Percentage diesel 38 % Percentage rape pie 60 % Bio diesel 1,58 t/ha Rape pie 2,50 t/ha Planned rape seed 22 ha Total production bio diesel 34.310 l

310 SlaveUniversity, 2006

An all-female part of SlaveCity, the university is a training centre where the 100,000 female slaves can learn technical, business and communication skills. Equipped with several lecture halls, the university can be reached via earth ramps around the building. There are a total of 1,027 study places; these are used 24 hours a day by the female slaves. While one group is learning, another group sleeps, and yet another works on the land, in the fields or in workshops. The upper level holds a space for the teachers.

312 The Dentist, 2006 Transplant Department, 2006

314 Mill, 2006 Lathe, 2006

316 3 Star Nurses, 2006 Bookkeeping, 2006

318 Family, 2006 Residents, 2006

320 5 Star Brothel for Females, 2006

322 5 Star Brothel for Males, 2005

324 Brothels, 2005

The Brothels are a popular attraction in SlaveCity. Designed for the lower-class slaves, the modular brothel mixes the styles of Bauhaus, a Socialist Plattenbau and a ramshackle wood construction.

326 Mini Modular Brothel 2 x 1 x 1, 2005 Mini Modular Brothel 2 x 2 x 5, 2006

328 Minimal Steel with Red Lights, 2006

AVL’s work gets more minimal everyday.

330 The Coward, 2006 Appendices

Everyone has a coward inside.

332 Biography

Atelier Van Lieshout Awards Recent Solo Exhibitions (selection) Work of Atelier Van Lieshout / Keilestraat 43e Joep van Lieshout has been acquired by: NL-3029 BP Rotterdam 1991 2001 Phone +31-10-2440971 Charlotte Köhler Award PS1, New York Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht Fax +31-10-2440972 Jack Tilton Gallery, New York Caldic Collection, Rotterdam [email protected] 1992 Gallery Gio Marconi, Milan CAST, Tilburg www.ateliervanlieshout.com Prix de Rome Award ‘AVL-Ville’, Rotterdam Centraal Museum, Utrecht Centre d’Arts Plastiques, Rotterdam Atelier Van Lieshout was established 1995 2002 Centre of Contemporary Art, in 1995 by Joep van Lieshout (born Bolidt Floor Concepts 1995, Camden Arts Centre, London Castello di Rivara, Turin 1963, Ravenstein. Lives and works in 1st prize ‘AVL Franchise’, Middelheim Museum, Daros Collection, Zurich Rotterdam since 1987). Antwerp Falckenberg collection, Hamburg 1996 ‘SM’, Gallery Fons Welters, FNAC, Paris 87.Katalogförderpreis 1996, Amsterdam FRAC des Pays de la Loire Alfried Krupp von Bohlen FRAC Languedoc-Roussillon, und Halbach Stiftung 2003 Montpellier Le Rectangle, Lyon FRAC Rhône-Alpes, Lyon 1997 Centre d’Art Contemporain, Hall Collection, Connecticut Anjerfonds – Chabot 1997 Award Brétigny-sûr-Orge Interpolis, Tilburg Les Abattoirs, Toulouse 1998 2004 M.A.C., Marseille Mart Stam 1998 Award Gio Marconi Gallery, Milan Martha Herford Museum, Herford Gallery Tanya Bonakdar, New York Middelheim Museum, Antwerp 2000 ‘Teutopia’, City of Munich MOMA, New York Wilhelmina-ring, Sculpture Award ‘Der Technokrat’, Sprengel Museum, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Hannover Rotterdam 2002 Tim van Laere Gallery, Antwerp Museum De Paviljoens, Almere Stankowski Award Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Zurich 2005 Museum Kröller-Müller, Otterlo 2004 ‘Der Disciplinator’, Museum für Museum of Contemporary Art, Kurt Schwitters Award Angewandte Kunst, Vienna Benevento ‘Happy Forest’ Kröller-Müller Museum, Noord-Brabants Museum, Otterlo ’s-Hertogenbosch ‘Triumph’ Boijmans Van Beuningen Prada Foundation, Milan museum, Rotterdam Rabobank Netherlands, Eindhoven Sammlung Essl, Klosterneuburg 2006 Sprengel Museum, Hannover ‘SlaveCity’, Oficina Para Proyectos de Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam Arte/Central del Arte, Guadelajara Stedelijk Museum, Schiedam ‘SlaveCity’, Tim van Laere Gallery, The Dutch State, The Hague Antwerp The Henry Moore Institute, Leeds ‘SlaveCity’, Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, TPG/KPN, The Hague New York Van Abbe Museum, Eindhoven Walker Art Center, Minneapolis

Bibliography Atelier Van Lieshout

Joep van Lieshout: beelden/sculpture. Atelier Van Lieshout. Atelier Van Lieshout: Atelier Van Lieshout would like to Vienna; Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Rotterdam: Museum Boijmans Van Text by Alexandra Midal, Paul Rauchs. Abdislam Bouchanouch, Mohammed thank: Zurich; Han Nefkens; Jose Noe Suro; Beuningen, 1990. Beaumontpublic Luxembourg, 2005. Bouchanouch, Diederik den Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York; Giò Suzanne Oxenaar; Roger Pailhas; Dikkenboer, Douwe Hoekstra, Herman Marconi Gallery, Milan; Tim Van Laere Bea Peccue; Cloe Piccoli; Prada Collection 1991. ATELIER VAN LIESHOUT, de Jongh, Coen Kelder, Friso Leeflang, Gallery, Antwerp; Galerie Krinzinger, Foundation, Milan; Promo Fashion, Rotterdam: Atelier Van Lieshout, 1991. Der Disziplinator. Joep van Lieshout, Amine van Vienna; Galerie Bob van Orsouw, Deerlijk; Provincie Noord-Holland; PS 1 Texts by Peter Noever, Elisabeth Lieshout, Charlotte Martens, Neško, Zurich; Beaumont Public, Luxemburg; Museum Alanna Heiss; Rudi Ricciotti; 3000 Prefabricated Sanitary units Schweeger, Bettina Busse. Simone Romanow, Harm Verhagen, Distrito Cu4tro Galeria de Arte, Madrid Peter Rodriques; Seabrex/Ebrex for Application in Mobile-Homes. Vienna: MAK, 2005. Wytske Visser, Yolanda Witlox and all Lara Almarcegui; Warne Baerwaldt; Herman de Knijf; Sanders Family; Rotterdam: Atelier Van Lieshout, 1992. others that helped out in the past or Pierre Bal-Blanc; Geert and Lieve Ineke Schwartz; Jennifer Sigler; André present to realize AVL artworks. Behaegel; Bernard Blistène; Hugo Simoens Gallery; Dr. Van Sint Fiet; 1993–1995. and Carla Brown; Betina Busse; Gerard Spong; Sprengel Museum, Rotterdam: Atelier Van Lieshout, 1995. Bonnefanten museum, Maastricht; Hannover; St. Louis Art Museum St. Botanical garden, Muttenz; Joop Louis; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Atelier van Lieshout – A Manual. van Caldenborgh; Caldic Collection, Stedelijk Museum, Schiedam; Hilde Texts by Piet de Jonge, Joep van Rotterdam; Centraal Museum, Utrecht; Teerlinck; Ineke van Tuinen; USF Lieshout, Bart Lootsma, Arno van Centre d’Art Contemporain, Brétigny- Contemporary Art Museum, Tampa; Roosmalen, et al. sûr-Orge; Patrick Charpenel; City of Maurice van Valen; Van Abbe museum, Rotterdam: Museum Boijmans Van Almere; City of Amsterdam; City of Eindhoven; Nel Verschuuren; VW Beuningen/NAi Publishers, 1997. Breda; City of Ghent; City of Knokke; Stiftung, Berlin; Walker Arts Center, City of Lille; City of Nieuw Vennep; Minneapolis; Fons Welters Gallery, Atelier van Lieshout – The Good, City of Rabastens; Daros Exhibitions, Amsterdam; Jeanne Wikler; Rein The Bad & The Ugly. Zurich; Joost Declerq; Lieven and Wolfs; Women on Waves Foundation Texts by Menno Noordervliet, Chris Declerq; Chris Dercon; Danilo and all others that helped out in Peter Hoefnagels, BelBin Associates, Eccher; Harald Falckenberg; Fonds the past or present to realize AVL Bart Lootsma. BKVB; FRAC Rhône-Alpes Lyon; Xavier artworks. Rotterdam: Atelier van Lieshout/ Franceschi; Rainer Ganahl; Gewerk, NAi Publishers, 1998. (also published Berlin; Laurent Godin; Claude Gosselin; as Le Bon, La Brute & Le Truand Hall Collection, Connecticut; Jan (French edition)/The Good, The Bad Hoet; Floor Houben; Jan Houwert; & The Ugly (German edition)) Adri Huisman; Interpolis; Jousse Entreprise, Paris; Tadashi Kawamata; Atelier van Lieshout: schwarzes und Robert Kloos; Rem Koolhaas; De graues Wasser. Kriekelaar, Brussels; KOW Architects; Texts by Rudi Fuchs, Jennifer Allen. Ulrich Krempel; Kröller-Müller Vienna: Bawag Foundation, 2001. Museum, Otterlo; Kunst & Complex, Rotterdam; Le Rectangle, Lyon; Atelier Van Lieshout. Lensvelt B.V., Breda; Les Abattoirs, De Zakenmannen. Toulouse; Klaar van der Lippe; Lloyd Rotterdam: Kamer van Koophandel, Hotel, Amsterdam; Magazzino 2002. d’arte Moderne, Rome; Gianfranco Maraniello; Martha Herford museum, Atelier Van Lieshout. XXV Bienal de Herford; Ann de Meester; Middelheim Sao Paulo 2002. Representation for Museum, Antwerp; Mondriaan the Netherlands. Foundation; Moooi B.V., Breda; Text by Jennifer Allen. Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Amsterdam: Mondriaan Foundation, Rotterdam; Museum De Paviljoens, 2002. Almere; Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens; Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Atelier Van Lieshout. Text by Jennifer Allen. London: Camden Arts Centre, 2002.

Franchise. Text by Jennifer Allen. Antwerp: Openluchtmuseum Middelheim, 2002.

Sportopia. Text by Jennifer Allen. Lyon: Le Rectangle, 2003. Acknowledgements About the authors

This publication was made possible by Texts © 2007 Atelier Van Lieshout; the Jennifer Allen is an art critic living the generous financial support of Jennifer Allen authors; NAi Publishers, Rotterdam. in Berlin. The Netherlands Architecture Fund Aaron Betsky All rights reserved. No part of this Mondriaan Foundation Rudi Laermans publication may be reproduced, stored Aaron Betsky is the director of Dienst Kunst en Cultuur, Rotterdam Wouter Vanstiphout in a retrieval system, or transmitted in the Cincinnati Art Museum. From Koninklijke Wegener NV any form or by any means, electronic, 2001–2006 he was director of the Captions mechanical, photocopying, recording Netherlands Architecture Institute in Joep van Lieshout or otherwise, without the prior written Rotterdam. His publications include Jennifer Allen permission of the publisher. Architecture Must Burn (2000), Charlotte Martens Landscrapers (2002) and False Flat: For works of visual artists affiliated Why Dutch Design Is So Good (2004). Text editing with a CISAC-organization the D’laine Camp copyrights have been settled with Wouter Vanstiphout is an architec- Beeldrecht in Amsterdam. © 2007, tural historian and critic. In 2005 he Translation c/o Beeldrecht Amsterdam obtained his PhD at the University of Pierre Bouvier Groningen. His thesis was titled: Maak (text Rudi Laermans) Although every effort was made to een stad. Rotterdam en de architectuur find the copyright holders for the van J.H. van den Broek (Make a City. Book Design illustrations used, it has not been Rotterdam and the architecture of Stout/Kramer (Marco Stout, possible to trace them all. Interested J.H. van den Broek). Since 1994, Evelyne Kramer, Petra Warrink) parties are requested to contact Vanstiphout is a partner of Crimson NAi Publishers, Mauritsweg 23, Architectural Historians. Photography 3012 JR Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Atelier Van Lieshout, Peter Cox, Rudi Laermans is full professor in Diederik den Dikkenboer, Marc NAi Publishers is an internationally sociological theory at the Faculty Domage, Bob Goedewaagen, Glenn orientated publisher specialized in of Social Sciences of the Catholic Halvorson, Frank Hanswijk, Ahlburg developing, producing and distributing University of Leuven (Belgium). His Keate, Lideke Kruk, Hein van Liempd, books on architecture, visual arts and recent research and publications deal G.J. van Rooij, Ronald Schlundt related disciplines. with social systems theory, cultural Bodien, Hans Werleman, DJ Wooldrik www.naipublishers.nl and critical theory, and the sociology [email protected] of the arts and arts policy. Copyright images Atelier Van Lieshout Available in North, South and Central America through D.A.P./Distributed Editing Art Publishers Inc, 155 Sixth Avenue Diederik den Dikkenboer, 2nd Floor, New York, NY 10013-1507, Charlotte Martens, Stout/Kramer Tel 212 6271999, Fax 212 6279484.

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