Historically,
there has always been a distinct separation between the
space of the home and that of the street. In many respects,
modernism focused on the divisions between the private and
the public arenas, as well as the relationships between
the individual and the crowd The writings of Charles Baudelaire
and Walter Benjamin on the nature of urban mobility formed
the basis for our late 2Oth-century concepts of this essential
geographical separation.
With our collective evolution into postmodernism, the divisions
between public and private seem to be continuously challenged
and blurred. With urban homelessness on the rise, the street
seems to have taken on many of the characteristics of an
inverted interior space. Shopping carts become family station
wagons, cardboard boxes act as living rooms and the sight
of someone's private activities in a public space has become
increasingly commonplace.
Andrea Zittel's A-Z Travel Units are moveable living spaces
which can be personalized and taken on the road. For the
show at the San Francisco MoMA, her three custom-made trailers
were hitched to trucks and driven from San Diego by three
groups of urban travelers. Each couple took different routes,
all eventually driving up to the museum in which the trailers
are now on view.
The travel units are dark green with interiors that include
eating and sleeping areas, compact kitchens and bathrooms,
as well as objects that serve as personal mementos. They
are easily hitched to the back of a pickup truck which can
transport them to their next destination. The ease of operation
and minimal design of the living spaces encourage constant
travel. Home, as a concept, is both metaphorically and physically
in flux. The notion of interior space is relative to the
ever-changing outdoor scenes. Thus, the construction of
the interior, private space is always dependent upon the
enveloping, ever-changing public space.
The individual within these living environments takes on
a unique relationship to their surroundings. Home becomes
a shifting symbol which is not related to place but rather
to a series of interrelationships. The travelers and the
homebody are melded into a single individual. Personal identity
becomes an ever-present urban slippage between the public
and the private.
Trailers and motor homes were once a symbol of middle-class
affluence in the United States. They were the mark of a
certain ease of living and mobility that signified freedom
and economic stability. As family units, they provided a
way for people to travel without ever leaving home. Seeing
the Grand Canyon or Yosemite without having to part with
your suburban dream. Within the last ten years, however,
mobile homes have become an outpost for the poor who have
taken on urban nomadism as a means of last resort. Escalating
costs of housing have forced many to turn to movable forms
of shelter as desperate ways of keeping intact the separation
between public and private life.
Zittel's A-Z Travel Trailer Units are part of a legacy
of artists and architects, such as Kasimir Malevich and
Walter Gropius, whose projects attempt to combine functionality
with aesthetic issues. While Le Corbusier's "machines for
living" were based on sophisticated theories of scientific
rationalism, Zittel's work comes from her own childhood
memories. As she writes, "architecture and design are the
arenas for experts, house trailers are the medium of enthusiasts."
Her enthusiasm in the current economic situation looks more
like a social activism which continuously blurs the lines
between art and life. |