City Breaks
Simo Brotherus, Jan 2005
Becoming Ecstatic (A Proposal
for a Public Monument)
Simo Brotherus has focused attention in his research
to shared urban codes or even ethos that affect our engagement with
and within cities. The suggested monument celebrates surrender to
ecstacy, letting go of the performed public roles and dependencies
on social structures, becoming absorbed in individual emotional
and sexual fulfilment. Classical formal language with all its symbolism
lends itself to the contemporary performance of the self as the
boundaries of public and private as well as cultural and natural
blur. Whether considered as realisable or just a suggestion, the
proposal works as an affirmative opening for discussion and re-signification.
Both as a conceptual and a concrete intervention it makes space
for experience that troubles the structures and norms that shape
the social realm and our participation in it.
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