5.
On the other hand, as a result of such a spectacular process of urbanisation and economic growth, a new Asian middle class are emerging as the core of the urban society. They embody the most typical urban identity of the Global City. They are the most dynamic in action, ambitious in politics, open towards the new, looking for a kind of "cultivation" by absorbing the most trendy cultural products in the global market. However, they are often profoundly conservative in terms of values since for them the first generation of modern middle class in Asia the priority in life is to establish a secure economic, social and familiar statues. Also, as products of post-colonial economy and culture in the region, they are contradictory hybrid of "Westernised" modern knowledge/culture and nationalist sentiments. As the dominant influence in the configuration of Asian cities, their aesthetic orientations are the main foundation of the new urban space and image. One of the main obsession for them is to combine the most advanced architectural know-how and "Asian identity" in order to create a kind of "in-between" architecture to incarnate the Asian, non-Western modernization which is also a decisive element of the current globalisation of culture . The typical result is the Disneyisation of Asian urban spaces: many Asian cities introduce systematically the Disney or Las Vegas style of artificial and imaginary reconstruction of signs of "history" and indigenous cultures to "conserve" and "refurbish" historic area, and reality. Contradictorily, the result is the final disappearance of real historic areas and the appearance of "more than real", highly sterilised simulacres of history and tradition. Notions of authenticity, originality and (good) taste, etc. become inefficient and even obsolete. It is second reality par excellence. Obviously, these reconstructed props of history are aimed to attract tourists. However, even more interestingly, they have also become an integrated part of real urban life itself. It is perhaps the most global side of Asian urban life and the guarantee of the "globality" of the Asia city. The Singapore China Town is an ultimately "typical" example of such a practice. The entire district has been restored and painted in dazzling colours to "recall" the fantastic, exotic "past" so it shows no difference from any "main street" in any Disneyland. As a part of it, the recently built Far East Square, conceived upon the Feng Shui principle, interweaves stiffly the refurbished old elements and the most high tech glass-steel construction, making it an intensive point of "crash of civilisations" as well as a strangely charming entertainment centre. What is also important to point out here is that, in spite of their perfectly polished finishing, these artificially reconstructed urban sections are never finished. Instead they are always under new construction and expansion, constantly negotiating with their surroundings as well as with their own established status quo by involving further adjustments and "improvements". Like the cities, they are always on the move.
6.
Asian cities have indeed a rather established history of urban planning and urban development strategies in the last fifty years. The post war generation of the Japanese Metabolism and later the Singaporean urban planners, among others, have developed innovative philosophies and practices of urban transformation in order to fulfil the demands of the upcoming consumerist Capitalist society. On the other hand, in the 1950s and 1960s in China, Liang Sicheng and his successors had elaborated and practised an entire ideology and strategy to construct Socialist cities which blend the Soviet urban planning and architecture principle and Chinese traditional urban structure. However, many of these projects remain highly idealist and humanely and economically inefficient although they have been indeed realised in a handful of cities. Most of Asian cities, with their incredibly high density of population and unbalanced economic developments, are essentially "unplanned". The urban spaces are uncontrollably expanding while new buildings are being constructed upon both useful and useless speculations. Some extreme examples can be seen in areas like the Kowloon "Walled City" and other crowded districts in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Bangkok, Seoul, Tokyo and Taipei. In the eyes of some commentators, this kind of "unplannedness" of urban explosion is result of economic necessity whilst for others they are simply "entropic" or "dystopian". Anyway, typical problems of urban (over)developments are generated in almost every city in the region hand in hand with the euphoria of Modernisation: density, gentrification, traffic jam, pollution and degeneration of social relationship. Obviously, such a contradictory and explosive situation is being largely intensified in the 1990s when economic "miracles" are blossoming everywhere in the Asian Pacific region. New solutions are to be found. In fact, the Asian architectural world has had a tradition dealing with the tasks. The central concern shared by many architects and planners from the 1960s is how to adapt the most advanced modern architecture and local conditions in different areas of Asia. This tradition of thinking is now being turned into practice in different manners and different contexts. One of the early projects is Tay Kheng Soon's eco-city. From the 1980s Ken Yeang has been promoting his idea of tropical skyscrapers. Toyo Ito, Itsuko Hasegawa, William Lim, among many others, are searching new solutions to integrate ecological interests in the most high-tech constructions. Some recent major projects such as Rem Koolhaas' Hanoi New Town planning, Isozaki's Mirage City and so on are looking for boundary-breaking openings towards new utopia: a humane "Generic City" satisfying the demand of ultimate globalisation and a "tourbillon in which the West wind and the East wind encounter each other". On the other hand, some younger generation architects concentrate themselves on more realistic and flexible strategies of negotiation with the tremendous pressure of urban density and hybridity, without losing the chance to enjoy the excitement and pleasure provoked by the pressure itself: Chi Ti-Nan's Z House, Yung Ho Chang's concept of miniature city in a building and Aaron Tan/Louise Low's in-depth studies of the Walled City and Sohn-Joo Minn's project for Seoul as well as Katuyo Sejima's projects are among the most innovative projects conceived in such negotiations.
7.
As we have emphasised above, the explosive booming of free-market economy and consumer society in Asia as well as Asian economy's integration into the Global economy as a new major power not only bring the region to a much higher level of development and everyday comforts. Also, they bring about new problems, pressures and social conflicts because the introduction of the dynamism of Hyper-Capitalism causes systematically competition, frenzy desire, frustration, restructuring of social classes, and, eventually, establishment of a new totalitarian power of the Capital itself, let along the problems of the separation between the urban rich and poor, between the "electronic haves" and "have-nots". The City becomes a Locus of Conflict. As resistance to this new totalitarian power of Hyper-Capitalism, claims for new freedoms, and social, cultural and political justice are made by the society itself. These new claims are pushing all the social actors to reconsider our society's structure and order, artists are no doubt among the most sensitive and active in the struggle. Artists from different cities such as Chen Zhen, Cai Guoqiang, Zhang Peili, Geng Jianyi, The Big Tail Elephants group (Lin Yilin, Xu Tan, Chen Shaoxiong and Liang Juhui), Huang Chin Ho, Lee Bul, Choi Jeong Hwa, Ahamaiani, Shen Yuan, Oscar Ho, Zheng Guogu, Liew Kung Yu, Manit Sriwanichpoom, Wang Du, Zhou Tiehai...are handling critically with the issue of the conflicts between the consumer society and human existence as well as the frenzy schizophrenia of the new urban life, often with irony and humour. Other artists, to search the freedom of artistic action in cities, where there is too little space for artistic expression, invent their own spaces and channels of expression in the heart of the dense urban space. Like urban guerrillas, Navin Rawanchaikul, Surasi Kusolwong, Lin Yilin, Zhang Wang, Yin Xiuzhen, Tsang Tsou-Choi, Yutaka Sone, Judy Freda Sibayan, Tsuyoshi Ozawa, Shi Yong, etc. are transforming the street and construction sites into their action ground. They explore the forgotten zones of the city, the urban void, making it a formidable opening towards freedom and freshness in the heart of the density and intensity of urban life.
8.
In the last two years, Asia has seen the most serious financial crisis in its post-war history. Some people even describe it as an economic melt-down. As consequences, some cities and nations are enduring political, social and cultural instability and even turmoil. Also, it causes serious effects on the whole global economy. Again, many artists react to the situation by recalling the political consciousness of reforming the economic and political systems which are the real origin of the crisis. Andar Manik/Marintan Sirait and Heri Dono are exposing the political conflicts in Indonesia. Wong Hoycheong goes even further to appeal active resistance to the degeneration of democracy in Malaysia. In fact, such a crisis reveals the real crisis ã the crisis of the "bubble economy" which has been introduced as the fastest way towards modernisation. Ruyji Miyamoto's photographs of Kobe earthquake and cardboard houses for the homeless not only show the reality of the crisis but also imply an revelation of the structural problem of the economic system itself. However, such a revelation is by no means a negative one. On the contrary, more and more people living in Asia start understanding the necessity to reconsider their "success stories" and look for more relevant, long-sighting strategies, policies and new systems of economic, political and social developments. As to the urban future, the architectural world in the region is debating intensely on the question of changing the mode of modernisation. Bangkok was the first city in Asia affected by the crisis. Numerous constructions of skyscrapers were interrupted when the developers found themselves short of money. Now, one of the main topics among thousands of Bangkok architects who have lost their contracts in the crisis is how to transform the half-built empty skyscrapers into more useful and humane constructions. Some young architects provide fantastic ideas. For example, someone proposes to get inspiration from the homeless people living under the highway: they change their cardboard house constantly in order to fit the different places on their nomad's routes. Now, it's the time to think about truly flexible, relevant and constantly evolving languages of architecture and art. Our urban space as well as urban life itself, should be able to deal with all kinds of movement, change and mutation, including crisis. The only possible strategy to succeed this is to keep the city itself always on the move.
9.
"Cities on the Move" is such an ever-evolving event city: it is constantly changing, re-inventing, renovating, adapting itself to different venues while transdisciplinary and transnational collaborations are being practised, just like in real city life itself. After Vienna, Bordeaux, New York, Humlebaek (Denmark), London and before going to Helsinki, it is now coming to Bangkok. For this, we decide to apply a totally different strategy in order to make the touring of the project back to Asia, the very "origin" of the project itself, more relevant. Instead of continuing to bring the previous exhibitions to present in major art institutions as we did in the West, we have come up with a specific version conceived for Bangkok. Considering the fact that the people, works and projects involved with the ongoing "Cities on the Move" are originally produced for the context here, it becomes obvious that simple "artistic presentations" in art institutions won't make any sense at all. Thus, it becomes necessary to articulate that the whole project should be re-adapted to direct dialogues and collaborations between "outsiders" and the local art, architecture and culture communities. In the meantime, direct interventions into everyday life and social contexts embodied in different kinds of urban spaces and edifices should be encouraged while a larger audience is to be involved in the process of producing the event itself. Streets, shopping malls, rivers, university campuses, cafes, small galleries, commercial and residential buildings, construction sites... are now the very "central" venues for the event while mobilisations of the local art-architecture-culture communities to open themselves up to common citizens are being organised. In the meantime, all kinds of mass media, from publicity billboards to newspapers, from magazines to televisions, from radio to public transport system, etc. are also providing particular and continuous spaces for projects of envisioning the urban reality and future of Bangkok and Asian cities in general. What is more significant is that the curatorial process has been fundamentally changed into a veritable "glocal" negotiation and invention. As the curators of the general project, we prefer to "retreat" ourselves into consultants while a local team consisting of people from both Europe and Bangkok, including Ole Scheeren, Thomas Nordanstad, Albert Paravi Wongchirachai, Francine Meoule, Edouard Mornaud, Aline Sam-Giao, Mathilde Boulo, cedric Alvani, Michael Thouber, Phataravadee pataranawik, art4d, Air, Jibby, Supinda Bridget... , along with Bangkok participants who have been involved in the previous steps of the project, has been the main organizing force for the realization of the event. Many participants of the project have been invited to conceive and produce site specific projects for the Bangkok step. Their answers to the demand of the urban reality in the city are highly pertinent, being mobile, flexible, ephemeral and vital. On the other hand, the project also opens itself to contributions of new comers both from Bangkok and outside. Some projects like the exploration of the situation of the rivers as an important urban element in Bangkok, conceived respectfully by Rachaporn Choochuey and her colleagues from the city and the Italian Fabrizio Gallanti and "D-Project" are extremely interesting examples of this "glocal" negotiation and collaboration.
10.
At the end, we should emphasize: "Cities On The Move Bangkok" is a "collaboratorium", a veritable collaborative adventure into the Asian urban reality. It's outcome will challenge many established understandings of art, architecture, urbanism and social life...
25 September 1999
Hou Hanru and Hans Ulrich Obrist
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