Krzysztof Wodiczko,Tijuana Projection (2000)

辛 宇

（阿尔弗雷德大学，美国 纽约10041）

Abstract：Wodiczko is well known as his public projections of still and moving image. In this paper, I simply introduce and analysis one of his projects called Tijuana Projection.

Keywords：Projection mapping; the other; Krzysztof Wodiczko; Video installation；Public space and private space

Tijuana Projection is a public projection and was shown in 2000. It has been shown at the Culture Center of Tijuana, Mexico (as part of In-site 2000).

In Krzysztof Wodiczko’s public projection Tijuana Projection (2000), the artist invited six women who work in the“maquiladora”industry in Tijuana to share their working experience and family issues. During their sharing, the emotions on their faces were live projected on the most important building at Tijuana while their voices were broadcast nearby. In the piece, he uses the location, images and voices of local laborers, and the concept of “strangeness” to break down the wall between public space and private space, thereby challenging the alienation of the city environment and of increasingly alienated interpersonal relationships.

“Krzysztof Wodiczko was born in 1943 in Warsaw,Poland. He grew up in post-war, Soviet-occupied Poland. He is an artist working in large-scale public projection, and he is also an art theoretician. He is a resident Professor of art at the public domain at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Currently, Krzysztof is one of the most important visual artists in the world. In 1968, Wodiczko graduated with a MFA degree from The Academy of Fine Arts in the Industrial Design Department, Warsaw. After that he began to design popular electronic products. In 1971,Wodiczko began work on Vehicle, which is one of the most influential art pieces in his life. He did his first installation in 1972, in Warsaw.”①

As an immigrant artist in the United States, he tends to work with immigrants and increase representation of marginalized, underprivileged people in society, as he has done with the piece Tijuana Projection(2000).

Wodiczko is influenced by Jacques Ranciè re’s judgment “realm of the sensible”,②which is from his later publication The Politics of Aesthetics. Moreover, Wodiczko made a critical response to Jacques’opinion in his own art pieces.

According to Wodiczko, “the only way to make the public space become a real public space, is to let people speak in that space.”③The technology he uses as a medium to allow marginalized people to speak in the public domain breaks the boundaries between private and public, underprivileged and privileged.

Tijuana Projection was shown in 2000. The event,located at the culture center of Tijuana, was a discussion about the situation of low-paid female labor in Tijuana, Mexico.

Tijuana is located in the south of the San Diego-Mexican territory. As the busiest city of the country,there are nearly three hundred million people who travel between the two countries each year. As an industrial and financial center of Mexico, many multinational factories were located in Tijuana.④There are a lot of factories called maquiladora, which provide many job opportunities, and attract large numbers of workers. Some of these laborers are illegal; most of them often work overtime. Because of the physical strength required for the jobs, there is also a sexism issue; female workers frequently encounter unfair treatment. It’s no denying that the stories people shared in the piece is essential to the society. They shared their unforgettable experience just to make a little difference amount the community with people also suffering the same situation. The stories about she being raped, the inefficient medical treatment in the factories, boyfriend being beat, etc. seem unimportant but these are what the presenters’ traumas of the whole life. After several years, they have a chance to stand out and talk in the public. It is the chance that they can face their weakness and make a voice for the people who suffered in the area. With the whole technical support, they can make even larger differences.

The Culture Center of Tijuana was built in 1982.It is a spherical building, and now functions as an IMAX Theater in Tijuana. The San Diego Museum of?Man,which is adjacent to The Culture Center of Tijuana,has cultural products that are symbolically opposite.These two buildings belong to both Mexico and America,the one representing a strong economy of capitalism;the other side is speaking for the low-paid laborers exported by the country. The architectural style of the San Diego Museum of Man belongs to the Spanish colonial style. By contrast, the Tijuana culture center is a round geometric modern building. Its function is to transmit and receive mainstream culture.

Beyond that, Wodiczko argued what is public space by using Culture Center in Tijuana as a main concept of this piece. Recently, there are some critiques about how to define public space. One side of the concept of public space is discussed by Michael Sorkin and Mike Davi; they come up the idea as “the end of public space”and the “destruction of any truly democratic urban spaces.”⑤On the other side, opposing theories claim that the most important point to public space is to sustain human spirit, as well as peoples’living experience that will redefine the meaning of public.⑥Because of this, Wodiczko’s wondering if Culture Center in Tijuana is a public space, it depends on who attends to experience this culture. By visiting the website of Culture Center in Tijuana, it is clear that all the events in the culture center are aimed at the upper classes. They provide high culture; in a sense, the Culture Center is not open for the working class. Therefore, Wodiczko uses Culture Center in Tijuana to argue what is public space as a matter of fact.

Combining architecture and the projection (including dynamic and static images) is the most important form of his expression of art.The combination of these two elements forms a visual spectacle.On the one hand,the body of the building, given the spectacle’s scale,reinforces the strength of public speaking.On the other hand,in this specific space, the people who live there are very familiar with the building of Tijuana Culture Center,and then the building suddenly becomes a part of the human being’s face, talking about their experience;it makes the environment uncanny and weird.

As a consequence, by using the projection to make the building stronger, it awakens the relationship between the human and architecture, and allows the people who live there but have never been seen, to speak in the public through the building. As an illustration, the six female laborers in Tijuana Projection(2000), restructures urban landscape by using montage,to reverse people’s normal experience of this building, and produce the effect of situationist international detournement.

Hence,in this Tijuana Projection (2000)piece,Krzysztof Wodiczko makes the building became an actor to expressing shame of painful experience, making the building speak and cry, making the building have feelings. He created a more powerful expression of the women.

By analysis of Krzysztof Wodiczko’s Tijuana Projection (2000) piece, we have to mention the concept of“strangeness”.

About the notion of “stranger”, in the study of sociology discussed a lot. Sociologists Georg Simmel mentioned about stranger is a social type in 1908. He said：

“The stranger is thus being discussed here, not in the sense often touched upon in the past, as the wanderer who comes today and goes tomorrow, but rather as the person who comes today and stays to morrow. […]

He is fixed within a particular spatial group, or within a group whose boundaries are similar to spatial boundaries. […]”⑦

In addition, Julia Kristeva, a French philosopher from French,mentioned the concept of “uncanny strangeness”,she remarks that, the stranger in us. She states that,

“What is so discomforting about the strangeness Freud is talking about is that a border is no longer operative, and that thus something comes to the fore which was not meant to show itself. What was meant to remain private suddenly appears in public. And instead of feeling solidarity, what Freud says we are experiencing is unease, a discomfort. We feel‘awkward,’and react to the uncanny with a (mild) anxiety.”⑧

She demonstrates that “Confronting the foreigner whom I reject and with whom at the same time I identify, I lose my boundaries, I no longer have a container, the memory of experiences when I had been abandoned overwhelm me, I lose my composure. I feel‘lost’, ‘indistinct,’‘hazy.”⑨Therefore,“Stranger”have many levels of meaning.

In the piece Tijuana Projection(2000),the six women are stranger, intruders of our group. Furthermore,the spectacle of the building is just a medium to buffer the feeling of uncanny when the strangers appear.⑩Wodiczko let the strangers of the group speak,let them take the center of the group. In this certain way to speak in public, their active speech is kind of claim for their rights and humanities.

Wodiczko said that, the intension of his work is to buffer the feeling of uncanny when the strangers appear.⑪So when the six women laborers appear in the public, audiences meet them in the familiar places,the feeling of uncanny to the audiences make the laborer become a bigger figure, gives the piece more power. This piece reveals the relationship between“other group”and“group”.

In the piece Tijuana Projection (2000), Wodiczko makes proficient use of video recording and projection to challenge the alienating city environment and increasingly alienating interpersonal relationships of the public. Kristeva and Simmel’s concept of“strangeness”to builds a relationship between the notion and the piece. Wodiczko also uses his piece to let “other group”and “group”communicate with each other, to blur the strangeness in our society. He lets silent strangers appear in public, to talk of their experiences in a variety of ways. He allows marginalized, underprivileged people to become a stronger voice in that society, through giving them a voice and platform, to breaking the boundary between classes.

Notes：

①“Krzysztof Wodiczko|Artist,”Culture.pl, accessed April 1,2016, http：//culture.pl/en/artist/krzysztof-wodiczko.

②Jacques Ranciere, The Politics of Aesthetics[J].A&C Black,2013.

③Krzysztof Wodiczko, Critical Vehicles： Writings, Projects, Interviews [M].MIT Press,1999.

④“Tijuana,”Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia, March 28,2016.https：//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.phptitle=Tijuana&oldid=712379278.

⑤Michael Sorkin, Variations on a Theme Park： The New American City and the End of Public Space [J].Macmillan,1992.

⑥Margaret Crawford,“Contesting the Public Realm： Struggles over Public Space in Los Angeles”[J]. Journal of Architectural Education, 1995(01)：4-9.

⑦Georg Simmel, “The Stranger,”in Sociology： Inquiries into the Construction of Social Forms (2 Vols)[J].(BRILL,2009： 601-620.

⑧Julia Kristeva and Leon S. Roudiez, Strangers to Ourselves (Columbia University Press,1991.

⑨Kristeva and Roudiez, Strangers,187.

⑩Wodiczko, Critical Vehicles.

⑪Krzysztof Wodiczko, Critical Vehicles： Writings, Projects, Interviews[M].MIT Press, 1999.

BibIiography：

[1]Wodiczko, Krzysztof. Critical Vehicles： Writings, Projects, Interviews[M]. MIT Press, 1999.

[2]Ranciere, Jacques. The Politics of Aesthetics [J].A&C Black,2013.

[3]Sorkin, Michael. Variations on a Theme Park： The New American City and the End of Public Space. Macmillan, 1992.

[4]Margaret Crawford, “Contesting the Public Realm：Struggles over Public Space in Los Angeles”[J].Journal of Architectural Education, 1995(01).

[5]Simmel, Georg. Sociology： Inquiries into the Construction of Social Forms (2 Vols.). BRILL, 2009.

[6]Kristeva, Julia, and Leon S. Roudiez. Strangers to Ourselves[M]. Columbia University Press,1991.

[7]“Krzysztof Wodiczko | Artist.”Culture.pl. Accessed April 1, 2016. http：//culture.pl/en/artist/krzysztof-wodiczko.

[8]“Extended Version of Memory Is a Verb | Boston Society of Architects.” Accessed April 1, 2016. http：//www.architects.org/architectureboston/articles/extended-version-memory-verb.