TERRAIN VAGUE : EMPTY SPACE
Terrain Vague : Empty Space began as a performance-excavation of one square block, between Main and Spring, Second and Third, in Downtown Los Angeles, where I lived for many years in the 1910 Higgins Building, a block from City Hall. It's mostly parking lots and vestigial Main Street buildings. All but our historic landmark building are tear-downs, bought up by the parking lot people.
In June of 2023, I moved to Detroit, Michigan, where there is a lot of empty space where homes — sometimes full neighborhoods — once were. It's not all-year asphalt and concrete, like Downtown LA. It's verdant and lush and tenacious here: stuff grows. In Terrain Vague : Detroit, I focus once again on where I live, here, in the tiny historic district of West Village, which houses a total of about 250 structures, spanning just four streets, each four blocks long.
The phrase terrain vague (French: idiomatically, "empty lot") was coined by the Spanish architect Ignasi de Solà-Morales to celebrate the unbridled possibility of empty space — absence / availability !! — at the center of a metropolis. He says that before plans, before blueprints, before permits, anything is possible.
My performance work is a mashup of deep research and stuff I make up.
Terrain Vague consists of live walking tour/performances. To reach an ongoing audience, beyond the live work, individual sites are marked with durable plaques with the story of the place and a QR code linking to video of my performance about that place. Visitors are invited to leave thoughts, drawings, ideas about what should/could be the future of the place.
Terrain Vague : Empty Space began as a performance-excavation of one square block, between Main and Spring, Second and Third, in Downtown Los Angeles, where I lived for many years in the 1910 Higgins Building, a block from City Hall. It's mostly parking lots and vestigial Main Street buildings. All but our historic landmark building are tear-downs, bought up by the parking lot people.
In June of 2023, I moved to Detroit, Michigan, where there is a lot of empty space where homes — sometimes full neighborhoods — once were. It's not all-year asphalt and concrete, like Downtown LA. It's verdant and lush and tenacious here: stuff grows. In Terrain Vague : Detroit, I focus once again on where I live, here, in the tiny historic district of West Village, which houses a total of about 250 structures, spanning just four streets, each four blocks long.
The phrase terrain vague (French: idiomatically, "empty lot") was coined by the Spanish architect Ignasi de Solà-Morales to celebrate the unbridled possibility of empty space — absence / availability !! — at the center of a metropolis. He says that before plans, before blueprints, before permits, anything is possible.
My performance work is a mashup of deep research and stuff I make up.
Terrain Vague consists of live walking tour/performances. To reach an ongoing audience, beyond the live work, individual sites are marked with durable plaques with the story of the place and a QR code linking to video of my performance about that place. Visitors are invited to leave thoughts, drawings, ideas about what should/could be the future of the place.
