PQ 011_Day Two

Day two began with a wander through the sprawling market district of ... where the purchase of a small day bag (somehow forgotten) was successful despite my frailties in the Czech language and a market seller determined to try to charge 10x the price I was willing to pay!

One of the architectural installations I had been most excited about was the 'Boxes' an intervention on the Piazetta of the National Theatre. This outdoor showcase formed a central part of the Intersection (Intimacy & Spectacle) 'undisciplined' programme of events. The highlights were the audio installation for one person by Hans Rosenstrom, and Monka Pormale's beautifully simple installation of two local performers frozen in embrace in a glass box. While you had to be a PQ accredited to gain entry into the intervention, two public spaces a cafe / bar and open air cinema for the evenings are perched over the top of the boxes. Here I met the architect of the pavillion Oren Sagiv, who gave his insight into the project and after two years planning, he was clearly excited about its inhabitation (though he had mixed feelings that the building would last only 10 days). An enjoyable morning was topped off by a birthday lunchtime treat of a beer & Czech pasty in the sunshine.

Rushing from the Piazetta I made it in time to get a seat in the packed spatial lab for the lecture from Charles Renfro (of Diller Scofidio & Renfro), who romped through the backcatalogue of the practice's projects, drawing a thread from architectural / performative installations to their current multi-million dollar commissions. While he was hugely engaging speaker and showed off an enviable array of projects (how could anyone fail to make a great project of the High Line!), not everyone in the audience (including me) was convinced about the theoretically-lite terms he explained the dramatic leap from installation (eg. blur building) to the huge museum constructions in Boston & Rio in particular.

Despite all of this, the unexpected highlight of day came from Voicequake, who used the streets and passageways around the Piazetta area to put on a walkabout piece that comprised of from a musical / choral troupe and physical theatre / clown troupe, whose performances intersected as we made our way through the city. The sizable and diverse audience (which grew and shrunk as we twisted and turned through the narrow streets) were guided simply by a lead and rear megaphones (!KEEP WALKING!), and were entertained by vignettes that were at one moment comedic and hauntingly beautiful the next. And of course, the flashmob-style appearance of 100+ people suddenly arriving outside of a restaurant of public square kept the passers-by confused and entertained.