MARTIN RODRIGUEZ : AURAL HISTORIES 

Intervention within the framework of CHANTIER

A project by Jean-François Prost with collaborators, presented by Skol

August 18th – September 30th, 2022

August 18th – Lancement du projet

On the vacant lot at 6919 Marconi St.

Project description

Aural Histories proposes a sound meditation as an automated answering system. When curious callers dial the number on the billboard they are directed to one of three audio recordings in either French, English, or Spanish. The callers are met by a voice guiding them through a sonic reflection on the history of the space, asking listeners to consider their engagement with the location and their own relationship with the territory they are inhabiting.

About CHANTIER

CHANTIER is an artistic, political and social investigation of the conceptualization and creation of a large display device situated on a vacant lot at 6919 Marconi in Montréal. For more than a year, this proposed structure will serve as a support for the realization of a series of collaborative, artistic and civic interventions.

6919 Marconi, starting point of the CHANTIER project, is located in a hybrid urban zone (residential, industrial and commercial) along a train line. For many years now, Prost individually and collectively initiated on this 1 800 ft2 lot different types of occupations, such as workshops, projections, launches and urban camping. Today, many city dwellers are challenged and drawn to this vacant lot as a space-time of stopping, slowing down and spontaneity in an era of acceleration and increased control.

Unlike entertained-animated spaces that are overly programmed and codified, as we know nowadays, the vacant lot stays wide open for imagination (without dictating how we behave, move and travel). According to the theoretician Benjamin Delmotte, this allows “multiple never-ending beginnings.”

For the CHANTIER project, Jean-François Prost will initiate an intervention offering a support on which other individuals can act and contribute to define its character and specificity in transformation. This participation and (co)definition process suggests an eventual negotiation about the land, which is vital for democracy. As the urbanist Jane Jacobs said : “Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody.”

The proposed actions will explore the theme of the vanished, existing and prospective urban diversity, as well as the vagueness of the place, and the unfinished aspect of the construction site as a vector for co-defining the city.

It is in this spirit that the CHANTIER project is being developed. More news will follow soon about the planned actions.

Discover the program HERE

We thank FEED for the design of the Adaptive Actions (AA) font and Nathalie LeBlanc for her contribution as an audio consultant.

Description /image credit: the display device of CHANTIER. Photo: Jean-François Prost