HETERUTOPIA / 异托邦 — Markus Sepperer/奥地利
从乌托邦到异托邦——Markus Sepperer自述
异托邦Heterotopia，是哲学家米歇尔·福柯（Michel Foucault）用来阐述处于非支配处境下的地点与空间形态的人文地理学概念。这些空间，以异于平常的角色在遵循自我规律（或自发）运转。它们存在于现实与虚幻的连接点上，凸显现存之状态和“新生”的幻象。当然，如果你熟悉它所处的周遭环境，一切将变得自然而易于理解。
重庆的“城市菜园”就是一个完美的异托邦Heterotopia例子。这些农地看上去像是属于私人或公司。但，事实上，它们属于政府，只是目前被暂时空闲。大多数情况，这些土地很快将会被用于开发。所以，你可以理解为它们已经拥有了关于未来的不同属性。它们是暂时未被明确定义的空间，拥有着不同层次的意义。
这些土地被城市居民占用（或使用），变成了种植食物的农地。在未被告知的情况下，（菜园）任何时候都有可能被摧毁。只要这里还在开发，就没人关心这些农地的小生计。对于它们大多数而言，这也是一块关于身份认同的土地。那些被城市蹂躏过的农民，会因此在新世纪快速发展的高楼和公路间，保留住农民身份，而不会变作城市居民。因此，他们生存在一个异托邦之中。
这次展览，我将重庆异托邦式的菜园与我创作的摄影拼贴系列结合，并最终将其令名成——异托邦。
在之前的摄影拼贴系列中，受高速城市化与全球化的主题激发，我在真实城市场景的照片中创造出一个高密度的乌托邦空间。城市化的主要现象是时间的压缩和空间的破坏，以及个体历史与城市空间连结的记忆干扰。现代化使距离越来越短，在扭曲挤压的时空中，充斥着消逝时间的雕塑，这既为被重塑的我关于“乌托邦”的描绘和想像。
在我对中国的观察中，相对正处于消逝中的时间雕塑，人们会更期待去把握和驾驭那些变化和潮流。城市正被技术功能、物质功能以及商业功能所肢解。
在此过程中，欢愉与悔恨的心理学交接点似乎幻变为了高速发展的经济现实。购物商城成为了城市化的中心空间，一所实现理想的新的乌托邦场所。人类通过此根茎被引导，就像被媒体、广告和政治宣传冲击的迸发下，新城市空间中延展开来的混凝土大爆发。
在如今环境中，失明并遗忘你正在行走着的地面的可能性在不断增大。一些存在，可能会永远消逝在他们甚至看不见的雾霭中。
Heterotopia is a concept in human geography elaborated by philosopher Michel Foucault to describe places and spaces that function in non-hegemonic conditions. These are spaces of otherness which function outside of their usual role and function on rules of their own. They exist at the point at which he saw a junction between reality and unreality that exposes existing conditions and reveals new illusions. They are only fully understandable if you know all the circumstances around the place.
Foucault uses the term heterotopia to describe spaces that have more layers of meaning or relationships to other places than immediately meet the eye. In general, a heterotopia is a physical representation or approximation of a utopia, or a parallel space that contains undesirable bodies to make a real Utopian space possible.
The urban Gardens of Chongqing are a perfect example for a heterotopian space. They look like farmland which belongs to someone or a company to produce food but in fact the land belongs to the government, is temporary unused but mostly there will be some development happening soon. So the places have already a different meaning in the future.Therefore they are temporarily not clearly defined spaces and got many different layers of meaning.
The urban dwellers who take this land to transform it into a garden for self sustainment mostly reoccupy this place and transform it to farmland for food production which can be destroyed anytime without announcement. As long as there is now development going on nobody cares about their small food enterprises. For most of them it is also a place of identity, farmers who got rapidly overrunned by the city will therefore not transform to modern citizens and will stay farmers in between 21st century high rise buildings and motorway junctions. Therefore they also live a heterotopian existence.
This exhibition combines the heterotopian gardens of Chongqing with my ongoing series of photo collages to HETERUTOPIA.
The urban dwellers who take this land to transform it into a garden for self sustainment mostly reoccupy this place and transform it to farmland for food production which can be destroyed anytime without announcement. As long as there is now development going on nobody cares about their small food enterprises. For most of them it is also a place of identity, farmers who got rapidly overrunned by the city will therefore not transform to modern citizens and will stay farmers in between 21st century high rise buildings and motorway junctions. Therefore they also live a heterotopian existence.
This exhibition combines the heterotopian gardens of Chongqing with my ongoing series of photo collages to HETERUTOPIA.
In my collages, which are fully Utopian places, I cut together new Utopian rooms from photos of real places, I create an Utopian space of high density which is inspired by themes of high speed urbanization and globalization. The main phenomena of urbanization are compression of time and destruction of space, therefore distraction of memory of the individual´s connected personal history to urban spaces. Distances seem getting smaller by modernization, time is getting com
pressed. Distorted and compressed rooms are filled with sculptures made of elapsed time they are reshaped to new Utopian figures.
On my observation on China the regret on losing old structures is small, people seem to ride on a wave of transformation. The city itself becomes a place which is cut down on technical, material and commercial functions.
The psychological intersection of joy and regret concerning this ongoing process seems to be a booming economy, therefore the shopping mall becomes the central space of urbanization, the new space of Utopia where dreams come true.
Humans are guided through this rhizome like meandering concrete explosions of the new urban spaces by a firework of impulses from media, advertisement and propaganda.The possibility to get blind and forget about the ground you are walking on is rising under this circumstances and some existences might be lost forever in the fog they cannot even see.
pressed. Distorted and compressed rooms are filled with sculptures made of elapsed time they are reshaped to new Utopian figures.
On my observation on China the regret on losing old structures is small, people seem to ride on a wave of transformation. The city itself becomes a place which is cut down on technical, material and commercial functions.
The psychological intersection of joy and regret concerning this ongoing process seems to be a booming economy, therefore the shopping mall becomes the central space of urbanization, the new space of Utopia where dreams come true.
Humans are guided through this rhizome like meandering concrete explosions of the new urban spaces by a firework of impulses from media, advertisement and propaganda.The possibility to get blind and forget about the ground you are walking on is rising under this circumstances and some existences might be lost forever in the fog they cannot even see.
