THE NETHERLANDS

Videos in the street for reflection, responding to an urban plan
OpTV has been started up in The Hague by Klaas van Gorkum and Iratxe Jaio.

URTZI URKIZU.

While most TVs play superficial programs or reruns during summer, they found a different way of making TV in the Dutch city of The Hague. The video makers Iratxe Jaio (Markina, 1976) and Klaas van Gorkum (Delft, 1975) started up a project call OpTV. In this screen hanged in a building, they will play artists’ movies, propaganda films, films found in second hand shops and movies made by the inhabitants of Transvaal. Until the building is broken down the 31st of December, they will broadcast the videos, together with images from the daily life of the neighbourhood.

Witness of a neighbourhood forced to transform
Transvaal, due to the urban plans of the city of The Hague, is an old neighbourhood that is going through deep transformations. The city council will break down 3000 houses to build 1600 more expensive houses for sale. To make the renovation, many neighbours will have to go from the neighbourhood, leaving the houses empty. This is the context where the OpTrek movement has been born, a group that organizes art projects during the demolitions. And in front of the office of OpTrek is where they put the structure with the screen of the OpTV television, designed by the artists Michiel Voet and Jeroen Bischeroux.

During the six months of the transformation of the neighbourhood, the innovative television project will analyse the consequences that safety, control, the competition between the different cultures and the urban plans have for the neighbours. «Apart from that, OpTV wants to make an investigation about its function and instrumentalization, at the same time that keeps its independence and a critical attitude», says Jaio. The organizers explain that the essence of the project was mirrored the day of the opening. They opened a microphone and they broadcasted live the messages of the inhabitants in OpTV. They selected 200 images characteristics from newspapers and films. One neighbour read a manifesto against the urban planning. And many people showed their will to cooperate with the movement.

Intention to open up the work made
OpTV is a special program because it has a deadline. But the work made can have fruits in the future. “We would like to take this as an example for working in other places and to make use of the investigation into the politics of urban planning”, says Iratxe Jaio. Besides that they will be experimenting with rebuilding television stages. Van Gorkum and Jaio have the intention of making a number of audiovisual projects in Bilbao, with the help of Bilbao Arte.

(uit Baskische krant Berria)

Klik hier voor de oorspronkelijke Baskische tekst (PDF)
Klik hier voor informatie over het project OpTV

Andere artikelen uit Berria:

A different way of making TV