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
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