On Thursday 1^st of September, Venue 5 of the Mobile site took place on the car park of the botanical gardens, behind the Bordeaux-Lac velodrome. The goal of Venue 5 was to analyse the highlights of the Mobile site.

WORKSHOP

The afternoon started with a refreshing display of all kinds of mobile units on the site itself:

The Bordeaux Mobile library (www.bordeaux.fr), that goes out to meet potential readers in remote parts of the city.

Joël Coutance’s organ-lorry, a charmingly rustic device created by the showman to accompany a carousel. Joël never conceals his enthusiasm for spreading joy around him with his barrel organ, whose melodious and very festive jingles punctuated the day.

With his pizza van, Gilles chose geographical and financial freedom, and is happy to imagine the many surprises that his nomadic life still holds in store.

Chris and his ‘La dinette’ snack bar were stationed every day near the movable bridge, and offer a hearty catering service in periurban areas where it is usually lacking.

Jean Mayer, who has always been a 2CV car lover, presented a colourful sample of his collection: an off-road 2CV with camouflage bodywork and a green “trellis” 2CV, on which vine has been meticulously grown.

Finally, Jojo Bulle (www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zf56Ldw3lU) delighted us with his quirky and ingenious mobile constructions. He arrived on Thursday in a giant mobile trolley built entirely with his own hands and housing on the occasion a genuine farmyard. His sidekicks rode two motorbikes that seemed to come straight from the black leather and metallic science-fiction world of Mad Max. The public was invited to take a bike ride… or just blow a few soap bubbles.

FORESHADOWING

Eric Dordan and Wen Cai from the ‘Nous sommes’ collective presented their research named Architecture à emporter, capacité maximale – moyen minimum (Take-away architecture, maximum capacity – minimum means). After having listed 21 mobile units (22, including our site) during a “safari” through periurban areas, where the nomadic and autonomous structures above make up for the lack of catering services, ‘Nous sommes’ then created their own mobile, participatory, and functional unit: a long barbecue-bike where the public was invited to cook its own kebabs.

The artist Stefan Shankland (http://www.stefanshankland.com/) then presented his project to include contemporary artistic practices in urban mutation and development. For several years, he has been trying to make the artist’s workspace a part of reality, thereby proceeding to cast aside the object-work, and encouraging the creative processes and meetings, which lead to the completion of an artistic project. Let us note his interest for the recognition of workshop results, with ‘HQAC’ (Haute Qualité Artistique et Culturelle), and the ‘Trans305’ project (as part of the ZAC du plateau in Ivry sur Seine), whose goal was to progressively materialize the idea of the site as an actual workshop and of the mobile workshop itself.

WITNESSES

Results of the request for proposals:

Autocool (http://www.autocool.fr/) is an association that encourages car-pooling: a sustainable, green and cheap way of getting around, based on the alternate use of a collective vehicle.

Le Musée Imaginé – The Imagined Museum (http://www.lemuseeimagine.fr/) is an association that tries to bring art within everyone’s reach by taking works of art out of museums and exhibiting them in unusual places, closer to the people, hoping that they will then choose to visit the museum of their own accord.

Guidon futé (http://bordeaux-tourisme.com/pl/visites.pl?lg=fr&id=600) proposes an unusual vision of Bordeaux to the public. This is achieved by biking through the city, with a participatory dimension. Guidon futé now has about fifty bikes in its ranks.

Sénac peintre (www.over-blog.com/profil/blogueur-2730363.html) creates an art based on recycling, putting together picture books with magazines, newspapers, and flyers. The artist’s goal is to turn consumer objects into temporary objects, in which the reader may well become a watcher, thereby opening up to a whole new range of reactions towards the object.

Grégory Seguin and his association Le Caboulot (http://www.myspace.com/lecaboulot/blog) influence local development, notably by creating shared gardens in the Caudéran area. Grégory Seguin is also a lover of poetry and improvised speech, of which he made a demonstration on Thursday.

In his “shaping workshop”, Damien Billet (http://ceciestunexercice.wordpress.com/category/developpement-durable/) practices an original form of recycling by making skateboards from salvaged snowboards: yet another good example of sustainable mobility!

EXCHANGES

The exchanges were focused on the theme of Cultural Mobility: from the centre to the outskirts/vs/ from the outskirts to the centre, towards a participatory culture. On Thursday, a great number of participants were invited to the Mobile site’s round table: Pierre Mahey (architect, town planner, coordinator of the ‘Arpenteurs’ association, and administrator of the Association for democracy and local and social education); Stefan Shankland (artist); Jean-Louis Sagot-Duvouroux (philosopher, writer, journalist, and playwright); Anaïs Théviot (doctoral student in politics, expert in the question of participation on the Internet); Luigi Coppola (artist, representative artistic director of Evento 2011); Sylvie Violan (director and programme planner of the Carré-Colonnes des Jalles in Saint-Médard-en-Jalles and Blanquefort); Eric Chevance (creator and ex-director of the Tout Nouveau Théâtre of Bordeaux); Cyril Jaubert (director of the ‘Opera Pagaï’ theatre company in Bordeaux); Gabi Farage (architect, artist, co-director of the ‘Bruit du Frigo’ organization in Bordeaux, and associate curator of Evento 2011); Damien Mouchague (director of the Counsel for Sustainability of the CUB, and coordinator of the group on the town’s identity); Monique Potiron-Noguès (representative of the network of mutual knowledge exchanges in Gradignan); Cécile Cano (in charge of visual arts at the Department of development and artistic action of the city of Bordeaux); Yvan Detraz (co-director of the ‘Bruit du Frigo’, Bordeaux).

The intention of this round table was to discuss participatory culture, a notion that needs to be renewed by questioning its primary function: how can we be together? The diversity of experiences, actions and research that the participants shared with the audience enabled a highlighting of the current issues raised by the notion of participation and the exploration of potential territories that this issue calls for: the fluctuation between institutional and popular actions, the current evolution of participatory culture and the nature of the bond between culture and its audience. In this case, it is considered from the point of view of the venue, setting, contents, language, quality, or the personal and collective commitment that such a move towards open participation implies.

ILLUSIONS

As from 22.00, on the occasion of the Cinésites, the ‘Jean Vigo’ association (http://www.jeanvigo.com) organised an outdoor screening on an inflatable screen of a great classic of its kind: George Millers’s Mad Max (1979). The screening came with popcorn baked specially for the event on the ‘Nous sommes’ collective barbecue.

To conclude the evening of Venue 5 of the Mobile site, Nicolas Pradeau and Arnaud Castagné from Betamax proposed Des voitures et des hommes, a new audiovisual creation in relation to the theme of Venue 5: a particularly stimulating sonic road trip, fantastically coupled with the pair’s cinematographic brainwaves… Let us note Enzo G. Castellari’s incredible production, The New Barbarians (1983), a mix between a science-fiction movie and a spaghetti western, a new and cheerful take on the second part of Mad Max… and a delightfully perplexing experience!