911 Prep - Artists at work

[PotatoFieldsForever]

Wouldn't the wind be an issue at that height (~400m) ?

[rachel]

Wouldn't the wind be an issue at that height (~400m) ?

My thinking exactly, particularly as I've found a video series of a guy I'll post up in a different thread, and he goes up the top two days in a row and he comments about the wind on both visits.

[rachel]

Remember the artists Gelitin, the E-Team and their The B-Thing.

It is curious when it comes to Gelitin, the E-Team and The B-Thing. We have this notion:



That on the 19 March 2000, around 6AM on the 91st floor Gelatin, an art group, projected a makeshift balcony out of the tower and had a helicopter take a picture. (Note the numbers: 91 and 19 and 3 and 6.)

And that it coincidently foreshadowed this.

I don't know what you saw, but this is the first tower apparently being hit, from the firemen documentary.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/video/news/ ... tower.html



And this is where the E-TEAM had they "art space".



And this is in the E-TEAM's book they published before 911. July 2001, to be exact, from this post.





Do you not think it is beyond coincidence that the area I think you are telling me you saw jumpers is exactly the area the E-Team were working and in their book published just over a month before 911, they show a picture of a jumper.

Well the coincidences just get better and better. This is their art installation in the months leading up to 911.

[rachel]

Thanks to @DonPowell for the StevenWarRan link. I've reformatted this a bit...as there's nothing like a wall of text to stop people reading it.

...For everyone in the world. It's all there. It's not any of this stuff your looking at. If they have a CD of music or a solar system in a book that's a clue. If they have a week old video with 10 year old theories, that's a clue. I was on substack yelling a "Church of Judy Wood" Character account. Fucking John Hutchinson was in there. His account is Princess something something and he has a wig... They told me the 9/11 footage of the collapse is real. I got blocked for saying "it's not real enough to analyze for answers" and asking them: where was the camera? Where was the antenna? And where was the backup transmitter? And how did all the other stations get that feed?

All of those are real and completely answerable questions. I was power washing today and thought. "Well, where did I read where all that stuff was?" It left me realizing that I can't even prove it happened.

Edgar reports. FAA reports. FCC reports. SEC reports. So many public documents you have no idea exist. Did you know tower one's antenna wasn't decommissioned until 2006? You can see the entire life of that thing. You should see how many towers and antennas they own and the Port Authority owns.

On one of the radio shows and one of the channels they say we "got reports it was a helicopter". If you look for the FAA report they list almost nothing and state on the report it's been turned over to the FBI. On it they list Boston. But they list something I can't remember "M13" you can find it if you web archive enthusiast websites for old airports in Boston. It's closed now and been replaced by buildings and the land is grown over. It has a small runway and a helipad.

The buildings were abandoned and empty. Martina Geccelli photographed them for her art project. I like to think they used them for their insurance claim. LLMC was the source of The B thing. They never tell you they were part of the same LLMC residency of the artist Michael Richards was a part of. That's the artist that made a statue of himself being hit by planes.

Not read this before, since it is from 2010, I thing it's worth copying verbatim.

https://stevenwarran.blogspot.com/2010/ ... i.html?m=1

Martina Geccelli
is a German-born, Italian-surnamed, and London-based artist who specializes in photographing sculptural still-life interiors. At the turn of the millennium, she served a stint with the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s World Trade Center Artists Residency program, which provided studio space on the 91rst and 92nd floors of the North Tower of the World Trade Center.

Her online Martina Geccelli Biography tells us that

• Her project in this secluded building was dealing with vacant office spaces, which were called 'Suites.' Often left in a rush these spaces defined themselves by their markings. The spaces are in a stage of in between: moving out; leaving and restarting. The vacant space is still occupied. Geccelli is dealing with the topography of the space. The events of September 11th have in retrospect imposed on the readability of her work.

The LLMC published a book in 2004 called "Site Matters," that chronicles the residency program in the towers, which ran from 1997 until the their untimely demise in 2001. Geccelli's term from winter of 1999 through the spring of 2000, coincided with that of the most celebrated alumnus of the program—a collective of four young conceptual artists who went by the name of Gelatin.

Suites 8203- Broken Panels, Martina Geccelli

All the artists who participated in the program were directed to work at interpreting the WTC site as a direct experience, which "raised compelling questions about the aesthetic, psychological and political aspects of the World Trade Center." Gelatin achieved a measure of fame in art circles with their plan to remove a narrow fixed window on the the eastern face of the 91st floor of the North Tower, then installing a temporary Juliette balcony, so they could step outside and enjoy a few moments of exhilaration.

Whether they succeeded in actually doing so is open to question. Moukhtar Kocache, the Director of Visual Art & Media for the project, wrote a letter to "categorically deny and refute Gelatin’s (the Austrian art collective) preposterous claim to have removed a window and installed a balcony from the 91st floor of Tower 1 in the World Trade Center," Describing them as pranksters who "thrive on shock value and attention," Kocache exclaimed that "No one in his or her sane mind would believe such an account!"

However, during a FEMA-sponsored symposium in early 2002 addressing the damage and art losses from the September 11th attacks, Kocache took an opposite tack, describing as art

• The wad of red chewing gum that performance art group Gelatin had stuck outside the building on the 91st floor after removing one of the windows, signing or marking the building from the outside, this is an art work that's also gone.

So much for a shared concept of sanity—let alone artistry.

Suite 4047 - Looking out, 2000, 125cm X 100cm, Martina Geccelli

What Gelatin's project accomplished with its daring-do, Geccelli achieved through her sedate political consciousness. It can't have been easy for the program's participants to repay the generosity of their hosts with an ostensible focus on the World Trade Towers as their artistic object. Although I haven't read the book yet, much of the art I've heard described sounds contrived and forced to my ear.

Suite 4047 - Reflections, Martina Gecelli

But not so Geccelli's, as evidenced by my finding online a body of her images taken in the emptied and abandoned floors of a outmoded tower just awaiting its fate. Could she have known what these interiors would portend? Speaking from the perspective of international business and trade, how many other unprofitable floors was she aware of in this downtown office building? Did she appreciate that her own presence on the 91rst floor was liminal, and what it signified from a capitalist standpoint?

Did she know that David Rockefeller and Chase Bank had founded the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council 30 years previously to stimulate development downtown, and that he continued to fund it with millions of dollars every year?

Suite 4047 - Wall panels, 2000, Martina Geccelli

In Moukhtar Kocache's FEMA presentation, she specifically mentions this body of work

• Martina Gecelli, who in the year 2000, photographed abandoned office spaces at the Trade Center that were left in complete disrepair. For Martina, the architecture, the space, and the psychology of the space became her subject matter.

Suite 4047- Long View, Martina Geccelli, 2002

By "psychology of the space" do you think she means appreciation for the underlying truth behind the reality being presented? The Trade Towers had been emptied in 1993 after a clearly preventable act of terrorism occurred—had the FBI agents who were guiding the "perpetrator" only chosen a different outcome to that "conspiracy." But that result was necessary in order for the next planned outcome to unfold.

A May 31, 1998, New York Times article reported that

• "The leases were signed, one after another. Bankers Trust took 274,000 square feet, Aon Risk Services 396,000, Oppenheimer Funds 181,000, Empire Blue Cross and Blue Shield 461,000 and, finally, J&H Marsh & McLennan committed to 361,000 square feet earlier this month. All the space is at one building complex, the World Trade Center..."
  
  "In all, the trade center reached agreements to lease 2.2 million square feet of office space in 1997, or almost a quarter of the 9.6 million square feet leased in the downtown district."

The signing of these leases fell within the design parameters of a secretly planned false-flag terrorist-attack exercise/operation upon the trade towers. They represent the ground work, and then the green light that the plot was good to go.

Cantor Fitzgerald had fired several hundred of their supernumerary voice-bond brokers in advance of the 9/11 hit—some of the floors they leased atop Tower 1 must have looked similar to these here, having been stripped of both human occupants as well as emptied of their famous Rodin bronze tax writeoffs.

Suite 4047-Broken Corner, Martina Geccelli

In her resume's biographic third-person voice, we're told

• The uneven setting, the place of somehow 'in-between,' are the zones of focus. She was interested to catch the facts of the changing and shifting environment. With the camera she documented urban settings behind the official thoroughfares. The little addition around a space, the twist in a smooth setting, the improvised, those locations are representing the every day urban life.

Suite 8203 - Cables, Martina Geccelli, 2002

Despite the damning message these pictures carry to her nominal benefactor, Mr. Rockefeller, Martina Geccelli has earned her reward by creating beautiful images "in this secluded building," which serve a higher power then David's—not that there's anything wrong with him. It is a "suite" force, which I'll loosely describe as being the combined manifestation of truth and justice.

Indeed, "The events of September 11th have in retrospect imposed on the readability of her work," but I chalk that up as proof she conceived outside the conspiracy of dunces who at present, are still calling the shots. I thank her for letting me use her work to make my point, with a creative attribution of course, but without her express permission.


There were no planes,
and no jumpers.
There were no victims,
innocent or otherwise.
No bucket brigades either,
since debris was lacking,
for reasons unknown.
And the "pit" became the "pile."
Searching at Fresh Kills was staged
for the cameras and the overtime.
The heroism was a joke,
and any suffering a lie.
A managed farce,
where nobody worked,
just nobly posed about in images.
The whole story is a mess,
badly told in the media,
by monsters accustomed to
having the upper hand.
Their burns would prove to be minor,
and self-inflicted anyway.
Even the dogs looked confused
and it's no wonder.


Received October 26th, 2011:

• I have noticed you have published an article about myself and my work (World Trade Center- Photographs) on your blog on
  12/01/2010.
  I have never given you permission to publish an article on my work and details about myself. Also you state a poem in this context- looking as it is written by me. This is incorrect and false. This wrong informations are now falsley used by other bloggers.
  I have nothing to do with that poem. I do not like to be seen on websites or blogs of which I do not share any opinion in any way. Your article does my work and my person harm. I like you to remove all parts of that article which are in connection to my person and my work - in word and image.
  I am an artist and do not like to see my work being used for the wrong purposes.
  
  Please follow my wish as you have no legal rights to publish anything without my permission.
  
  Thank You
  
  Martina Geccelli
  London

Critics don't need the "permission" of "artists" to produce criticism about their work, anymore than artists' private emails to said critics need be treated in some privileged fashion. Her art consists of the original prints of photographs wherein she controls the negatives and reproductions. I merely reproduce copies of the copies which she self-disseminated on the internet. This reproduction is wholly noncommercial, and given the broad public interest paid toward the arrival at the truth of the attacks of September 11th, 2001, would seem to fall well within the editorial provisions of the "Fair Use" law.

In fact, I would claim, I've created a new work of art, incorporating pieces of her imagery, which thus transforms her art into a new context revealing a deeper, more resonant value than she may have originally intended---thus, I may even be the better artist.

If Ms. Geccelli cared so deeply about personal control of the images she took of the interiors of the World Trade Center in advance of its destruction, she could have posted said images in any of the proprietary and protective formats which prevent the copying and pasting of images "found" online.

And most importantly, if she were any friend of the truth, she would stop hiding behind the canard of possible "misunderstanding" of her, or my work. Nowhere do I claim she authored a poem, and in all fairness, comments to this blog clarify the fact most clearly. We have no right, nor ability to control, what others do or say regarding our output.

Ms. Geccelli may have better luck contacting Google Blogger directly to have her images removed from this blog. Others have done so successfully despite my opinion and objections. However, the issue is now larger than the sum of its parts. She will not be able to remove the discussion of the work at hand, a discussion which she has joined in on. My personal advice to her would be that she examine her motives and agenda. She won't be able to rollback what art has begun.

StevenWarRan at Wednesday, December 01, 2010

[rachel]

Comments:

ld Monday, April 04, 2011 3:42:00 PM
As for Moukhtar Kocache denying Gelitin's removing a window and building a balcony. I found this article 7 months ago when I was researching Gelitin:

The B-Thing by Gelitin
http://artoftheprank.com/2007/08/02/the ... y-gelitin/
Mr. Koenig now says the balcony never happened and, at any rate, he didn’t see it. The book, which costs $35 and was printed in a run of 1,200 copies, is meant to provoke questions about its veracity, he said.

At the suggestion that the project might have been faked, Mr. Harris seemed almost offended. He produced March 2000 credit card bills bearing charges of $2,167.44 from the Millennium Hilton and $1,625 from Helicopter Flight Service.

At about the same time that Mr. Harris was digging up proof, Gelatin was removing almost every trace of it from their Web site.
Moukhtar Kocache, the director of the studio program, insisted that the photos of the balcony were obviously faked. But digital manipulation experts disagreed. George Dash, the co-owner of Nucleus Imaging on East 30th Street, and a colleague, John Grasso, used magnifying loupes to examine a copy of ”The B-Thing.” Neither could detect inconsistencies. ”The angles are all too perfect,” Mr. Grasso said. ”It looks real to me. Absolutely. I’ve been doing this for 22 years.”

The art of the prank articles is still online. You can find it.

http://www.wtc.window.to/ site where drawings & temporary construction ID is posted.
gelatin the b-thing

I may have linked to this before, the first Wayback capture while the towers were still standing, on 9th July 2001, but Wayback gives us some excuse why it's not going to give us the page.

https://web.archive.org/web/20010709015 ... dow.to:80/

So to the next capture it is:

https://web.archive.org/web/20010923041 ... dow.to:80/

From those links on the left side. It looks like it starts with the story in pictures. Then arguments about whether the story actually really happened.

LINK 01 - gelatin

LINK 02 - gelatin

LINK 03 - gelatin

LINK 04 - gelatin

LINK 05 - gelatin

LINK 06 - gerhard tremmel

LINK 07 - gerhard tremmel

LINK 08 - gerhard tremmel

LINK 09 - gerhard tremmel

LINK 10 - gerhard tremmel

LINK 11 - gelatin

LINK 12 - moukhtar kocache

Dear Colleagues,

The purpose of this letter is to categorically deny and refute
Gelatin’s (the Austrian art collective) preposterous claim to have
removed a window and installed a balcony from the 91st floor of Tower
1 in the World Trade Center, while guests and in residence at World
Views, LMCC’s internationally acclaimed studio program. No one in his
or her sane mind would believe such an account!

Talk about this action has recently taken on plague proportion in the
sensation driven and rumor hungry art world. Rumors and claims that
are concocted by no one else but Gelatin’s adolescent-like members.
Anyone that is familiar with their work knows very well that these
boys thrive on shock value and attention. They are pranksters in real
life and often aim to introduce an element of doubt and disbelief in
their art; they are in fact masters of deception and their real art
for the program at the World Trade Center has been to fabricate this
action and promulgate it as an urban myth.

That is the genius in this work. They have been successful in
addressing the mythological and iconic dimensions of America, New
York and the Twin Towers and to use the system of the art world, a
system they love to critique as a vehicle for the diffusion of their
commentary. And because they are boys and like to play, their project
pays homage to the many daredevils that have either failed or
succeeded to tame this awesome structure and all that it represents.

Again, I would like to reiterate to whomever is concerned that the
above-mentioned action never took place but was simply a figment of
Gelatin’s and our collective imagination. Any visual material that
Gelatin claims as documentation of their action is digitally
manufactured. I urge professionals to test the authenticity of any
document presented to them when it comes to this particular project.
Thank you for your understanding; I hope that this letter settles
this matter once and for all.

Sincerely,

Moukhtar Kocache
Director of Visual Art & Media

LINK 13 - christine kaniak-urban (translated)

My balcony - a starting signal to fly away

Eight-year-old Veronika is a balcony painter. She decorates each of her countless houses, which she creates as symbols of security during therapy sessions, with a massive balcony. Her parents were desperately seeking help for their child because Veronika's compulsory school attendance had become torture due to her separation anxiety. In the third session, I carefully take up the topic: Balconies - are they important to you...? Veronika looks at me beaming: Yes, they are a starting signal to fly away! While I hesitate for a moment, wondering whether Veronika doesn't mean "launch pad", I let the poetry of the starting signal melt on my tongue and shamefully keep my patronizing know-it-all attitude to myself.

Not all children act out their longing to escape from all distress by flying away in their imagination. Some climb over the parapet at an age when they are well aware of the danger and end their short lives in this way. We then speak of child suicide and stand at the grave as helpless as we can at the same time. While young people often appeal to the understanding and help of their caregivers by attempting suicide or even going on a last party in a euphoric mood, child suicides occur in such a way that they look like an accident. In this mysterious production, the balcony is an important prop.

Nobody knows what drives a child to get a chair and use the supposedly protective railing as a jumping off point.

- Do they decide, like adults, that they no longer want to live this kind of life?
- Are they absorbed by the vastness of the sky?
- Do they simply want to try out, with their wonderful ability to imitate, what it is like to escape the entanglements of this world like a bird?
- Is it the dazzling light of the sun that magically attracts them?

We adults, guided by reason, will perhaps never understand what longings, what opportunities, what poetry a balcony embodies and what this starting signal sounds like.

LINK 14 - david scher

Radiomodelisme

The pursuit of electrical leisure and all the
protection of electrical fencing. Altitude maintained.
She spins, Wing racking, Delay deployment of
Rubberized floatation., balsa strut dancing, request
assistance.insufficient tension, check screw eye,
electric eye, fall falling fallen. Buttocks twisted in
leap to sodden craft, the sea dyed yellow. Paint
dissolving, melts in water, melts in rain. dit dit dit
It’s Jack from Oceanside, do you read me ? I am
bagshot, beergut, I bruise easy. The bony framework of
the head cracking up, I am wet.
Air gap low, so long. Look at the blossoms, let’s go
sniff them. Wait, Here come the worms. It’s wormy and
his friends. The tongues come out at night, tongues
come out. Hold your breath. The on off on off switch
is where? The radio. dit dit dit This is Jack from
Oceanside, some small part of my socks flies to the moon with the
moths. That this is true baby… are you afloat? All
double circle rafts are carefully selected and tested
before delivery under the direct supervision of
specialists with over 40 years experience. Relief.
The small hours close in. the walls are silent gongs.
Sleep. Morning.
"The Daily Pontoon" Gay bass fishermen rescue cruise
ship. Free passengers from South Sea pirates. Sodden
craft somewhat dry after breezy night. This is Jack from
Oceanside, are you still there? Hand held balloon with shadow, Radio.
Mite infested sea bird passes. Clouds look like creeps
stabbing cotton candy. Wires rewind wire hangers wire
Palladin. The economy of mean. My eyes burn like zits.
News to me,the trap has shape. Many things are true,
that you enchant me, that I am not an ogre, that it is
difficult to drive the bulldozer of love without
crushing someone’s toes. This is OK, everything is
just fine. This is Jack from Oceanside. The mountain
was drawn on a yellow legal pad. By daybreak the mud
will freeze. The idling truck’s tailpipe burped eggs
of smoke.
Just shy of the mountain is a feature un-named. Orphan
pipe will do.
We meet at Orphan pipe at 6 am. Don’t let anyone in on
it. You’ll just
ruin it for everyone. I saw the thing sniffing it’s
fingers. I heard it rubbing itself against the
bicycles. You hear everything. The next
morning. They showed up at 6 in their coats. They went
off in twos.
At sea in a world. Don’t make me heave, ho.

LINK 15 - rachel knecht

CATERSKILL FALLing

There’s been an accident up there, gravely said.
Just at the setting out.
We were just setting out, heading up, when we met that
gravity on those faces, headed down.
We climbed, parallel to the mountain stream.
The sky is imperturbably blue, you said.
The water falling from its peak--said to be higher
than Niagara--covered the sound of the walkie-talkies.
We reached the clearing, the onlookers.
From the middle ledge, they said.
We watched:
A dozen people on a single wide rock, at the base of a
waterfall: state troopers, medics, a pair of hikers,
the boyfriend, converged on a pile of orange blankets.
A helicopter circled, hovered, went away.
More medics arrived.
In the clearing, enough time passed for a picnic.
A breast-feed.
Latecomers, just before the helicopter again: two
Hassidic mothers, a dozen pre-adolescent children.
From the middle ledge, we said.
Helicopter again.
The trooper stepped forward, Shield your eyes. Stand
back, he said.
And the helicopter dropped low enough to dangle a
yellow cord to the bending huddle below, and low
enough to blow a giant and steady gusting of twigs and
leaves and grit and bugs into our eyes, so that we had
to watch through our fingers if we weren’t wearing
glasses: watch one after another, two figures in
bright orange gear slide ripping fast down the yellow
cord, swinging in that gusting too.
Wait for the cord to grow taut out of the bending
huddle.
Watch the bundled orange tablet swing, swing, swing,
rising with each swing, falling in each mind, swinging
up, and back down in every upturned shielded eye, up
and up really, and finally, finally into the
helicopter, and away.
The sun will set soon, you said.

LINK 16 - gelatin

b-thing

romantic simple wish to step out and put your nose in the sunday mornig
rising wind beeing the pimple on the buildings eelslippery face

the 2 by 4s do not fit into the freight elevator. carring those huge
toothpicks around the lobby trying to squeeze them into one of the big
ones, that goes up to skylobby on 78. floor.
cutting into halfs, talking to elevatorguys about, yes yes we need lots of
wood, makes one happy up there.
next day comes the backup window, in case we brake the one and only. would
look funny, breaking the glass, how could you ever explain?

testruns at midnight and later. premiere opening of the sesame makes your
heart jump crazy. loud and noisy wind whistles through the first little
gap. people have warned us of the difference in pressure, because beeing so
high up. a local urban myth, but winds do stream up and down the buildings
face and suck from the room as soon as open.
imagine confetti flying in a big bright cloud beeing sucked out and blown
all over the city. looking down, leaning your goggle eyes out for first
contact with nonfiltered air. cold and happy shivers down your back

everything ready, waiting for luvvys lawer only to tell us: do not do it
more testruns make us horny and impatient.

weatherforecast promises pink sunrise
hotel and chopper booked
late night, riding up to 91
sitting by the window, watching friends across in juniorsuite
flashlight contact established, feel like a glowworm
throwing coins who goes first, fastforwarding bens hotchocolatechicks
tapes, half hour naps
slipping into paranoias about lawers little list of things to have on you
when getting caught...remember chocolate bars, 25 cent coins, a blow-up
pillow? pen and paper, telephone, a book, chewing gum, earplugs,...would
not even know where to put all that
masturbating to calm down.
dawn, window goes, telephone rings, chopper is late
sun rises, B slides outside, coincontestwinner steps first
all bodyhair is up absorbing virgin glory morning, air drifts up the
buildings surface, feeling bees and rabbits down the belly. makes one again
belive in first sight love, sunrays in your face looking up, only ten
missing floors to the top, lets you freak of pure beauty while having this
blackholevision, imaging to never ever be again out there and never ever
feel the bees.

LINK 17 - tex rubinowitz

The Loneliness of Raffia

The group Gelatin is comprised of four young men. When one of them speaks
or smiles you can see a gap in his teeth and one of them has broken the tip
of one his incisors. I once saw one of them in a light blue towelling romper suit.
And I don't know the fourth at all. They all have something unaired about them
and so-called 'early morning hairdos'. I assume this goes for the fourth one too.
I know that the one with the chipped tooth once dropped a vast coffee cup and
it broke into a thousand pieces. He painstakingly glued this monstrosity (it was
easily big enough to hold two oranges) back together, piece for piece like
a jigsaw puzzle. He was probably very attached to the vessel having drunk
out of it when he was a baby, or having been bathed in it. Maybe the DIY
aspect grabbed him in the case of that rather worthless object. Even pity?
The Sisyphean aspect of the task with its implicit doom to failure? If just
the tiniest chip is missing then it's no good for drinking out of anymore.
"The Loneliness of Raffia" is a little known short story by Franz Kafka
and, as the title implies, it's about what goes on in someone's mind when
they get immersed in a kind of solipsism, a time-consuming experiment with
unknown results. While in Kafka's narrative an individual wanders through
the labyrinth of possibilities alone, the gentlemen of Gelatin have one
another. They can delegate, discuss, or simply go to the loo in every phase
of their processes, like the Beatles. Loneliness is not an issue then in
their process, or so I assume. But the subversive element, wanting to go
through the wall head first, their resoluteness, their eccentricity are all
shared with the Kafka's fictional figure. The hole in Hanover at the EXPO,
where one could dive five metres down to arrive at a kind of junk room, but
only if you had your swimming togs with you; a little house in a gallery in
Vienna with an elevator, stairs, rooms - a rough piece of carpentry held
together with plasticine. It was wobbly and crooked with shelves, and on
them were mutilated stuffed animals that have been pickled in oil in vast
jars like sour vegetables. A tunnel from another gallery (in Australia),
running right under the road. Underneath a pizzeria at the other side you
could hear the pizza noises; the extractor hood was an exponent. Guests
were given bottles of beer like bricklayers, which irritated the smarter
people in the crowd. And then the surgical intervention in the World Trade
Center in New York City. Everything top secret and illegal of course. In
days of conspiratorial work, somewhere on the 148th floor and using
building site refuse they had tediously smuggled into the building under
their pullovers, they constructed a functioning load-bearing balcony. In a
long complicated process they scratched putty from the tall heavy window,
which couldn't be opened. Then they extracted it using suction pads,
shunted the balcony out, posed on it at 6 in the morning and had themselves
photographed there from a helicopter for their nearest and dearest back
home. They kept very mum about it all, because if word had crept out about
their coup they could have been fined very heavily for sabotaging a
national treasure. Even if it was built by the Japanese. Incidentally, as
proof that they were there, there is now a piece of old chewing gum stuck
to the outside of the building at a dizzy height. The next thing that they
are planning is to knit a kilometre long hare and have it dropped
somewhere. The Russian space station MIR (Peace) is now being taken out of
commission. Is it really? I'm sure Gelatin could come up with an idea for
it. One question remains unanswered though: why didn't the one with the
chipped tooth glue the missing bit back on again?

Tex Rubinowitz, February 2001
Translation Jonathan Quinn

LINK 18 - rainer fuchs (translated)

The balcony project – notes on an intervention by Gelatin
at the World Trade Center (New York)

Project progress

On March 19, 2000, at sunrise, between 6:15 and 6:30 a.m., the artists of Gelatin - one after the other - stepped out onto a self-built and self-installed balcony on the 91st floor of the World Trade Center (WTC) in New York. The balcony was just big enough to accommodate one person at a time. It was prefabricated from wooden parts and pushed out into the open after a glass wall of the facade had been removed, with its rear extension serving as a counterweight in the room. After exactly a quarter of an hour, when the tour was over, the balcony was brought back in, dismantled into its parts and the glass facade closed again. Unnoticed by the public and leaving no trace, with this action a project that Gelatin had only been able to plan and realize in strict secrecy had literally gone over the ramp.

The story began with the group being invited to use one of the studio spaces managed by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, which are located in the WTC. Instead of simply using the allocated space as a workshop and studio, the artists decided to create an open space to the outside through an architectural intervention in the closed building, in order to inscribe or precede the existing structures with their own autonomous field of action, which could also be understood as an interpretation of the given space and building. With their roughly constructed provisional structure, Gelatin countered the perfectionism, the technoid smoothness and the claim of powerful monumentality and presence of the WTC with a commitment to provisionality, spontaneity and willingness to take risks. With their balcony, they implanted a kind of escape hatch into the gray concrete desert of everyday urban life, locating the real adventure exactly where it is not actually intended, or where one would expect the exact opposite.

Because it would have been pointless to apply for official approval for such a construction project in advance, the only option was to carry out a secret operation. The slightest suspicion of planning unauthorized reconstruction work would have resulted in significant legal consequences in the WTC, which is subject to the strictest security measures. Precise timing, meticulous preparation work in secret and foresighted calculation regarding possible incidents were prerequisites for such a "construction project", which as an architectural intervention also amounted to an intervention in the social functional context represented by this architecture. The project description prepared by Gelatin therefore reads like a conspiratorial document to be kept under lock and key, with a shorthand-like sober or contractually concise formulation. And significantly, it ends with the clause that refers to the regulation of possible legal disputes in the event of discovery: "nobody but gelatin is officially involved into the project / there will be an attorney telling gelatin how to behave / there will be an attorney responsible to handle the case for gelatin." (Gelatin)

In order to ensure secrecy, silence had to be maintained throughout the entire course of the project, controls had to be circumvented and deceptions had to be carried out. Neither journalists nor other members of the public were informed or invited on purpose, and Sunday morning was chosen to avoid the gaze of curious onlookers in the still-sleeping city. The dimensions of the balcony were such that it was not visible at first glance from the street. Apart from a photographer stationed in the "Millennium Hilton" opposite and the helicopter crew that produced a video documentation of the process, no one was involved in this operation. The fact that the photographic and film documentation materials should be published for the first time in this publication was a declared aim from the outset.

In order to install the balcony, it was first necessary to manage to sneak the building materials through the security devices in the entrance area unnoticed. By deliberately distracting the house staff, the entrance controls were bypassed and the wooden elements, some of which were large, were smuggled into the studio. The risk of removing and reinstalling a wall-forming glass surface without causing any damage at a dizzying height and in conditions of wind and pressure that were difficult to predict, required detailed preliminary investigations and the procurement of a large-scale replacement glass, which also had to be brought inside unnoticed.

Once the wood and glass had been stored, the work process had to remain undiscovered and the people living in the other studios were not allowed to find out about Gelatin's true intentions. To this end, the balcony project was camouflaged by another one, another creative measure that was visible and perceptible to all was presented as the actual project: Gelatin built a spatial installation along the walls of their studio using cardboard boxes and crates. In a figurative sense, this spatial treatment itself fulfilled a boxing and protective function, it concealed and covered the balcony project from outsiders, thus essentially forming its prerequisite and external framework, so that one could speak of a two-stage or double-shell art measure. The boundaries of the space were blurred both internally and externally in a parallel process. The inadequacy of the rigid spatial and functional specifications appeared to be a basic motive for both the projected work and the projected balcony, which together formed a single, nested framework of action. Inscribing a lively, broken system of niches and cells into the stereometric, sterile space and at the same time exposing oneself to an unfathomable freedom from this space were essentially complementary dissident ways of behaving and interpreting the space and its function.

In their preparatory research, the artists at Gelatin had found out that the free-standing sculptures erected around the building not only served to aesthetically enhance the public space, but were also camouflaged access barriers designed to block bomb attacks by suicide squads. In the course of an art project based on distraction and deception, it became clear that the art related to the WTC building was itself in the service of deception and camouflage. The trivialization of defensive weapons as works of art and the semantic charging of these works of art as weapons went hand in hand here. Those responsible for art at the WTC had - unintentionally - shown that art, however harmless and insignificant its external appearance may be, is never actually harmless, which was demonstrated not least by the fact that it was misused as a means of trivialization.

The art that was thus simulated on the outside was given an interpretive counterpart on the inside through Gelatin's approach. Using art to camouflage not just something else, but art itself, defined this camouflaged art itself as a kind of weapon and countered the trivialization of art with its potential warlike cunning. Preventing terrorist access to the building through camouflaged art did not find a mirror image in Gelatin's approach, but rather a disarming counterpart. Gelatin recognized that using secrecy and camouflage to make use of precisely those mechanisms that serve the social functionalization of art in the area of ​​the WTC was a possible prerequisite for an art that would dismantle this functionalization (the conventional use of the studio space would also have corresponded to this functionalization). Defeating systems of power and control with their own strategies seemed more effective here than open confrontation and the failure that would be associated with it from the outset.


Excursus: Nesting and differentiation of space

The inclusion of the body, the channeling of movement and physical well-being, all the way to conscious irritation and claustrophobic experiences are characteristic of some of Gelatin's works. Recoding the familiar space, abolishing the usual staging and corseting of the body and its identity, working against this in order to gain a reflexive view of it, is one of the basic intentions of the artistic approach. Overcoming distance as well as the emotionalization and intensification of experience associated with the acceleration or deceleration of physical movement are consciously staged components.

Anyone who moved through the labyrinth that Gelatin had built in the "art office" using old furniture and squeezed through the narrow, winding caves and passageways was deprived of orientation and certainty about the position of their path. The otherwise small and easily manageable space was transformed by the complete construction into a seemingly endless and hopeless cave labyrinth. The knowledge of the true "size" of this room and the experience of an almost impassable space accompanied the path of the recipient/user. As the identity of the room disappeared, so did their own self-confidence in relation to this space, the architecture became a metaphorical housing for their own body and its state of being: nesting and constant shifting of perspective, laboriously achieved orientation and the constant need to find their way between wrong paths and dead ends with physical contortions, sensitized people to the architecture of their own body as an inescapable identity housing. Claustrophobic impressions and the desire to move undetected along hidden paths proved to be linked during the visit. Nightmarish and pleasurable experiences became recognizable as changing, merging phenomena. The deconstructed space and one's own exposure within it became a metaphor for social space and the need for its constant new penetration and construction. Contemplative viewing was a thing of the past here; viewing became an indispensable act of discovery and orientation, a constant, concentrated search for and finding of accessible open spaces and loopholes.

When an underground space was designed at the Expo in Hanover that could only be reached by diving ("Wonder of the World"), the aim here too was to cross a border, to break through it, in order to experience a new and different spatial quality beyond it, to reach a place outside of the known coordinates. To reach a hidden space as a "Wonder of the World" by diving through a lock and then returning to the starting point did not simply mean designing a one-way system from one place to another or offering a journey beyond reality, but rather required the linking of separate places into a single, differentiated space of experience. The space outside the space evoked by this work remained an imaginary topos, which nevertheless helped to tear the interior of the existing, real space away from an internalized view and in this sense to remove boundaries.

Defining spatial experience not least as an opportunity to break out of a homogenized and one-dimensional understanding of reality and space (as in Hanover) or inscribing another space into an existing one, or rewriting it in order to make walking in the space a journey of discovery of an as yet unknown interior (as in the "Kunstbüro", Vienna), could be compared to the concept of the skyscraper balcony. Here, too, a space was left, but also in order to gain new perspectives on the space itself or on one's own perception of it - in the literal and figurative sense. Gelatin's approach to spaces corresponds in this way to a new illumination and opening of existing spaces through other and new spaces. The concept of deconstruction, as developed by Jacques Derrida, seems revealing for this type of definition of space: "It is not about stepping out, about the violation of the law by crossing boundaries, but about 'opening' a space within the old space. This opening does not create a new space that can be occupied, but rather it creates an opening in the idea of ​​space, a gap that is not a passage with its own boundaries, but a kind of pocket that is hidden within the old meaning of border." 1) Gelatin's works do not simply address the escape from real circumstances into a different or better world, but rather they signal the approach to space as a potential and concept, as a variable and contextual figure that can be shifted within itself. For Gelatin, the theme is stepping out, crossing the border itself as a movement of approaching the starting point or reassessing it from a dissident perspective. Leaving spaces to enter others, or occupying spaces through other spaces, means, among other things, making one and the same thing different from itself, and proposing the search for distance and detours as a goal-oriented measure, as well as claiming displacement, movement and dislocation as actual places of residence and knowledge.


Sabotage as new exposure

Punching through a glass façade at the WTC, whose mirror surfaces are intended to shield the interior from views from outside, could be interpreted as a plea for ventilation and transparency with regard to hermetic and airtight-restrictive systems. Breaking out of the burglar-proof pinstripe architecture of the skyscraper in an unauthorized manner violated the framework, but at the same time it also brought to light the inevitability of conditions and dependencies - even if these were imposed by the building itself: "the balcony is about the feeling you have when you stand on it and about the pleasure you absorb, when being totally dependent on a structure and atmosphere you have created yourself." (Gelatin)

The unexpected freedom and extreme exposure, the pleasure of breaking the norm and the fear of being caught culminated and interfered at the moment of stepping out. The self-made balcony as a platform for individual experiences in the middle of the uniformly monotonous facade seemed like a symbol of dissidence that had become reality in the midst of urban hermeticism and anonymity. But even to achieve this, as already mentioned, it was necessary to follow a system of rules that had been designed by the building itself and that was also indirectly determined by the environment.

Balconies are basically a kind of substitute landscape, they usually embody a transitional area between the interior and exterior, between the residential and urban landscape. They are both a lookout and a stage, places from which one can see others and at the same time be seen by them. In this way, they illustrate the intertwining of the private and public spheres and provide habitable symbols for the public nature of the private: they are an architectural form of open space and a kind of landscaped architecture at the same time, or a real symbol of how much the so-called private open space literally and symbolically hangs in the real air and is tied back to the social organism of architecture. Seen in this way, all balconies are like open cages that provide access and freedom and at the same time testify to the conditions and limitations of this freedom. This ambivalence is also inherent in the balcony of Gelatin. In the absurd constellation of its tiny dimensions and its solitary existence in the context of the seemingly immeasurable façade, this ambivalence appears as an explicit theme.

The sabotage-like intervention in the WTC, which as part of the "landscapes of power... represents a visible order of the dominant economy and culture" 2) also meant, by opening up new perspectives to the outside or from the outside back onto the building, a possible allusion to misuse as a principle and corrective inherent in architecture. For Jean Baudrillard, architecture that is used against its original intention is a model for the continued existence of architecture-related utopias and thus for "architecture" itself: "... if architecture is only supposed to be the functional and programmatic transcription of the constraints of the social and urban order, then it no longer exists as architecture. A successful object is one that exists beyond its own reality, which also creates a dual... relationship of abuse, contradiction and destabilization with the users." 3) If Baudrillard speaks of an "unintentional radicalism" when "the masses... in their own way... assign to the object the unforeseeable purpose that it lacks" 4), then, continuing these thoughts, one could describe Gelatin's intervention as an intentional radical measure by an artist collective that temporarily and symbolically revealed an architectural deficit through sabotage. The WTC, which Baudrillard himself cited in a lecture as an example of "the fact that, as early as the 1960s, architecture was already announcing the profile of a society and era that was already hyperreal, if not electronic, in which the two towers looked like two punched tapes" 5), was subjected to gelatin in an act that could be described in Baudrillard's terminology as a "poetic behavior" 6) and that can be cited as a radically pleasurable invention on site "against this universal cloning of people, places, buildings, against this intrusion of a universal virtual reality" 7). For Baudrillard, the twin towers of the WTC represented the dominance of the virtual in architecture as a perspective-less "repetition of itself". (...) "One could say that one (the twin tower) is the shadow of the other, the exact replica. But it is precisely the shadow that they have lost. The shadow has become a clone! The part of otherness, of secret, of mystery, whose shadow is the metaphor, has disappeared, giving way to a genetic copy of the same. But the loss of the shadow means the disappearance of the sun, without which, as we know, things would only be what they are." 8) Gelatin's balcony in the rising sun can be seen in this context as an illuminating reanimation. His shadow on the facade of the WTC shed light on a dilemma and at the same time showed its pleasurable overcoming.


1) Mark Wigley: Architecture and Deconstruction – Derrida's Phantom, Birkhäuser Verlag, Basel – Berlin – Boston, 1994, p. 153

2) Peter Noller: Globalization, Urban Spaces and Lifestyles – Cultural and Local Representations of Global Space, Verlag Leske + Budrich, Opladen 1999, p. 137 [landscapes of power: The term comes from Sharon Zukin (S.Z.: Landscapes of Power: From Detroit to Disney World, Univ. of California Press 1991) "These landscapes refer not only to the physical environment of a city, but also to an ensemble of social practices and symbols (...) They also refer (...) to the architecture of social classes, gender relations and races as they are articulated in the formative perception of an urban landscape. In a broader sense, "landscapes of power" means the connotations of an entire panorama that we see: the landscape of the powerful (skyline of bank towers, gentrified areas) as well as the powerless in the neglected or decaying city districts." (quoted from: P. Noller, op. cit., p. 137)]

3) Jean Baudrillard: Architecture: Truth or Radicality?, Literaturverlag Droschl, Essay 40, Graz-Vienna 1999, p. 15

4) Ibid., p. 17

5) Ibid., p. 8

6) Ibid., p. 20

7) Ibid., p. 37

8) Ibid., p. 35

9) Ibid.

LINK 19 - anthony robins

from
Robins, Anthony, "The World Trade Center",
Omnigraphics, Inc. and Pineapple Press, Inc, 1987

(...) the tower windows, similar to the narrow windows in Yamasaki´s Michigan Gas Company Building in Detroit, were narrow for the same reasons. With floor to ceiling windows. Yamasaki felt comfortable only if the window width was narrower than his own shoulder span. According to the Roths, Yamasaki had a full-scale model of the window in his office, and by way of demonstration pushed Malcolm Levy into it; Levy´s shoulder stuck. (...)

minoru yamasaki

LINK 20 - ID

publishers
https://web.archive.org/web/20011130011 ... verlag.htm

gelatin website
https://web.archive.org/web/20010923041 ... window.to/

[rachel]

On that publishers link, at the bottom of the last post, from the Wayback first wayback grab after 911, 30 Nov 2001, there is a picture of Asger Jorn 1914-1973. It looks like it is a picture of a book cover, a biography.

https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/asger-jorn-1375

Asger Oluf Jorn (3 March 1914 – 1 May 1973) was a Danish painter, sculptor, ceramic artist, and author. He was a founding member of the avant-garde movement COBRA and the Situationist International. He was born in Vejrum, in the northwest corner of Jutland, Denmark, and baptized Asger Oluf Jørgensen.

The largest collection of Jorn's works—including his major work Stalingrad—can be seen in the Museum Jorn, Silkeborg, Denmark. Jorn willed his property and the works of art located inside to the Municipality of Albissola Marina (Savona), so the Italian museum called "Casa Museo Jorn" was created for displaying his works.

I just noticed this one, it made me laugh...I think I've got a sketchbook with a load of works of art.

Letter to my Son, 1956–7, Asger Jorn

What interested me was the avant-garde movement COBRA and the Situationist International.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COBRA_(art_movement)

COBRA or Cobra, often stylized as CoBrA, was a European avant-garde art group active from 1948 to 1951. The name was coined in 1948 by Christian Dotremont from the initials of the members' home countries' capital cities: Copenhagen (Co), Brussels (Br), Amsterdam (A).

History
During the time of occupation of World War II, the Netherlands had been disconnected from the art world beyond its borders. CoBrA was formed shortly thereafter. This international movement of artists who worked experimentally evolved from the criticisms of Western society and a common desire to break away from existing art movements, including "detested" naturalism and "sterile" abstraction. Experimentation was the symbol of an unfettered freedom, which, according to Constant, was ultimately embodied by children and the expressions of children. CoBrA was formed by Karel Appel, Constant, Corneille, Christian Dotremont, Asger Jorn, and Joseph Noiret on 8 November 1948 in the Café Notre-Dame, Paris, with the signing of a manifesto, "La cause était entendue" ("The Case Was Settled"), drawn up by Dotremont. Formed with a unifying doctrine of complete freedom of colour and form, as well as antipathy towards Surrealism, the artists also shared an interest in Marxism as well as modernism.

Their working method was based on spontaneity and experiment, and they drew their inspiration in particular from children's drawings, from primitive art forms and from the work of Paul Klee and Joan Miró.

Coming together as an amalgamation of the Dutch group Reflex, the Danish group Høst and the Belgian Revolutionary Surrealist Group, the group only lasted a few years but managed to achieve a number of objectives in that time: the periodical Cobra, a series of collaborations between various members called Peintures-Mot and two large-scale exhibitions. The first of these was held at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, November 1949, the other at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Liège in 1951.

The group is notable for having a Black artist member, Ernest Mancoba, who was married to Sonja Ferlov Mancoba, a Danish sculptor who was one of a few active women in the movement.

In November 1949 the group officially changed its name to Internationale des Artistes Expérimentaux with membership having spread across Europe and the United States, although this name has never stuck. The movement was officially disbanded in 1951, but many of its members remained close, with Dotremont in particular continuing collaborations with many of the leading members of the group. The primary focus of the group consisted of semi-abstract paintings with brilliant color, violent brushwork, and distorted human figures inspired by primitive and folk art and similar to American action painting. CoBrA was a milestone in the development of Tachisme and European abstract expressionism.

CoBrA was perhaps the last avant-garde movement of the twentieth century. According to Nathalie Aubert the group only lasted officially for three years (1948 to 1951). After that period each artist in the group developed their own individual paths.

Manifesto
The manifesto, entitled, "La cause était entendue" (The Case Was Settled) was written by CoBrA member Christian Dotremont and signed by all founding members in Paris in 1948. It was directly speaking to their experience attending the Centre International de Documentation sur l'Art d'Avant-garde in which they felt the atmosphere was sterile and authoritarian. It was a statement of working collaboratively in an organic mode of experimentation in order to develop their work separate from the current place of the avant-garde movement. The name of the manifesto was also a play on words from an earlier document signed by Belgian and French Revolutionary Surrealists in July 1947, entitled "La cause est entendue" (The Case Is Settled).

https://www.wikiart.org/en/asger-jorn/stalingrad-1972

Stalingrad, 1972, Asger Jorn

Under the cloak of WWII, guess what...Marxism. The Netherlands purposely separated? I also find it interesting the acronym CoBrA. Where do we know of another COBRA acronym in use today?

https://www.instituteforgovernment.org. ... cobr-cobra

COBR or COBRA is shorthand for the Civil Contingencies Committee that is convened to handle matters of national emergency or major disruption. Its purpose is to coordinate different departments and agencies in response to such emergencies. COBR is the acronym for Cabinet Office Briefing Rooms, a series of rooms located in the Cabinet Office in 70 Whitehall.

[rachel]

Another link from that StevenWarRan blog post, a 26 November 2010 grab.

https://web.archive.org/web/20101126180 ... te_matters

SITE MATTERS

LMCC’s World Trade Center Artists Residency, 1997-2001
In 2004, LMCC published Site Matters: The Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s World Trade Center Artists Residency, 1997-2001, a book that chronicles the residency program in the World Trade Center edited by Moukhtar Kocache and Erin Shirreff, including texts by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, Erin Donnelly, Tom Healy, Moukhtar Kocache, Olu Oguibe, Liz Thompson, and Anthony Vidler and documentation of works by all participating artists.

Site Matters chronicles the celebrated artists residency program in the World Trade Center sponsored by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (LMCC). From 1997 to 2001, more than 130 artists worked high above New York City in the upper reaches of Tower One, each responding in a unique way to the spectacular views and potent socio-political context of this landmark site. Brought together here for the first time, these exciting and, now, historic works range widely – from panoramic cityscapes to new-media performance.

The WTC complex was much more than an international center of commerce, and for four years the LMCC artists-in-residence strove to unearth a fuller, more sustained portrait of the towers’ inner life. They explored the hallways, elevators, basement and retail spaces, and worked together with tenants and building staff on complex site-specific projects. During the life of the program, these works raised compelling questions about the aesthetic, psychological and political aspects of the World Trade Center. Looking back, and looking forward, they fuel an important dialogue as the Twin Towers’ legacy is debated.

Site Matters is dedicated to Michael Richards, 1963 – 2001

— Site Matters, 2004

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/132 ... ityReviews

Site Matters: The Lower Manhattan Cultural Council's World Trade Center Artist Residency 1997-2001

Stephan Apicella-Hitchcock (artist), Naomi Ben-Shahar (Artist), Monika Bravo (Artist), Patty Chang (Artist)

From 1997 to 2001, over 140 artists set up studios in temporarily vacant space provided by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey in the upper reaches of the World Trade Center's Tower 1. In an atmosphere of conceptual risk-taking, they produced a broad range of work, from panoramic cityscapes and discrete sculptural objects to physically integrated site-specific projects and new media performance. The residency was initiated to serve emerging and mid-career artists and encouraged conceptual and aesthetic experimentation. In this program retrospective, Site Matters documents an exceptional and atypical breadth of projects by some of today's significant young artists, including Stephen Vitiello, Paul Pfeiffer, Naomi Ben-Shahar, Monika Bravo, Gelatin, Patty Chang, John Pilson, Nadine Robinson, Sanford Biggers, Lucky DeBellevue, Emily Jacir, Jennie C. Jones, Kristin Lucas, Jennifer & Kevin McCoy and Olu Oguibe. Punctuating art documentation are residents' snapshots of daily life at the World Trade Center, offering a more intimate portrait of the Twin Towers post-9/11. The residency program is currently located on unused floors in the historic Woolworth Building, also located in Lower Manhattan.

320 pages, Hardcover
First published December 1, 2004

Just a little bit of history from the 2010 version of the LMCC (Lower Manhattan Culture Council).

https://web.archive.org/web/20101126091 ... ut/history

OUR HISTORY

Humanizing the World Trade Center
Flory Barnett, a savvy fundraiser with a penchant for the arts wanted to humanize the Financial District. Shortly after the completion of 1 World Trade Center in 1972, she started an arts council, giving workers in the area reasons to leave the office for lunch. In 1973, with generous support from David Rockefeller through Chase Manhattan Bank, and the New York State Council on the Arts, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council was born into the non-profit world.

LMCC grew with the Financial District, cultivating art and culture in and around the World Trade Center. From lunch time concerts and evening performances on the plaza, to installations in the lobby windows of banks (the Art Lobby project), to outdoor sculpture exhibitions, the Council transformed Lower Manhattan into a cultural destination more important than the sum of its parts.

We expanded our reach boroughwide with our Manhattan arts grants: Manhattan Community Arts Fund began in 1984; The Fund for Creative Communities began in 1998; and Creative Curricula began in 2003.

By the end of the 1990s, we had not only moved our offices into the World Trade Center, we had transformed it into a cultural anchor: World Views offered studio space to artists in the upper floors of the North Tower; Evening Stars brought free dance to the WTC Plaza; and exhibition spaces throughout the complex showcased the work of artists of all disciplines.


September 11, 2001
On September 11, we lost our home, performance venue, studio and exhibition spaces, and nearly 30 years of archives when the World Trade Center was destroyed.

Most significantly, we lost an artist-in-residence, Michael Richards, who perished along with thousands of others. The World Views residents were nearing the end of their session, and had been working feverishly towards the culminating open studio event. Michael had spent the night working his 92nd floor studio, where he was creating a sculpture inspired by the Tuskegee Airmen, which bore an eerie resemblance to that day's tragedy.


What Comes After
Without a permanent office, LMCC moved nomadically for the next several years before finally finding a new home at our current address on Maiden Lane.

With our residency studios destroyed, we were fortunate to receive an outpouring of generosity following the attacks. Donations from real estate owners allowed us to create New Views, a site-specific residency in DUMBO, Brooklyn and at the World Financial Center. The City of Paris helped establish a special six-month residency in Paris, France for New York City-based visual artists, a program that continues today.

The losses directly affected the focus of other new programs. The Michael Richards Fund provided support for emerging visual artists from the Caribbean or of Caribbean descent. Cities, Art, & Recovery considered how people remember and rebuild after tragedy and how the arts have been crucial to such recovery. Our Gulf Coast Residency offered a temporary residency in Lower Manhattan for 15 artists displaced by Hurricane Katrina.

In 2005, we received a $5 million grant over 3 years from The September 11th Fund to support and sustain the arts community in Lower Manhattan. With this support, we launched the Downtown Cultural Grants initiative, comprising six new programs that provided grants to support arts and culture south of Canal Street and in Chinatown. These programs proved critical to the ongoing recovery and growth of the Lower Manhattan cultural community.

Through all of this change, our mission remains consistent: we believe the arts and artists play a vital role in maintaining the spirit of downtown. Our Workspace and Swing Space programs carry on the spirit of World Views; we distribute more than $550,000 to artists and organizations through our Manhattan arts grants; our public programming continues to stoke the cultural life of the city; and our Training, Networking, and Talks offer professional development programs to artists and arts groups.

We remain committed to being the leading voice for arts and culture Downtown and throughout the borough.

Interesting how the artists are tied into "free money' and the financial district. Got to fancy all the artists are someone's son or daughter. It isn't going to be average Joes, is it? Also a nice French Connection...oh, isn't that a film.

The French Connection (1971) Review

[DonPowell]

Great job. Great write up. That Steven Blog is amazing.

I got the list of photo contributor's to the book This is New York. It's supposed to be random people contributing photographs.. All professionals. I haven't found one unique name that isn't a film or photo. Or connected.

Book - Contributing Photographers
This is a list of all the photographers who have pictures in our book, for a full list on contributors, visit our contributing photographers page.
Sean Thomas Ackley
Ron Agana
Christophe Agou iN-PUBLiC
William Alatriste NYC Council Media Unit
Maryse AlbertiFrench cinematographer
Angelis Alexandris director
David Allee artist website
Renate Aller https://renatealler.com/
Randy Anagnostis https://randyanagnostis.com/
Roy Anderson film director
Eric Andrus govt
Monica Ani
Jerry Arcieri L'AQUILA LLC
Melissa Arden-Wong artist
Bill Armstrong
Madeleine Hope Arthurs artist
Andrea Artz
Eli Ashkenazi
Jane Evelyn Atwood
Ross Babbit
Robert Barber
Jane Barrer
Megan Barron
Ananda Bates
Claire Beckman
Michael Beirne
Maureen Beitler
Marian Benes
Georgine Benvenuto
Csaba Bereczky
Richard Bergman
Nina Berman
Nancy Bernhaut
Todd Bigelow
Maclean Ports Bishop
Frances Blanche
Julie Blattberg
Jacob Blickenstaff
Andrea Booher
Elsa Borrero
Christopher Bosch
Jeanine Boubli
Robert Bowen
Robert Boyer III
Tim Brace
David Bradford
John Branch
Zana Briski
Kyle R. Brooks
Christopher Brown
Ken Brown
Phillip Buehler
Pete Burke
Tom Burnett
Gary Byrne
William Byrnes
Limarie Cabrera
Susan Callahan
Andrew J. Camacho general air force
Dawn Carey
Charlie Carson
Antrim Caskey
Chris Cawley
Phyllis A. Chillingworth artist
Shui-Fong Chong
Emil Chynn
Peter Ciszewski
Jeremiah Clancy
Fernanda Clariana artist
Rene Clement
Richard Cohen
Richard H. Cohen
Seth Cohen
Leita Hensen Cohn
Michael F. Collarone
Cynthia Colwell
Alice Connorton
Cary Conover
Jennifer H. Cooke
Justine Cooper
Josef Corso
Natalie Coulter
Nigel Cox
Gibson Craig
David Cwirka
Oliver Daehler
Kevin N. Daley
Matilde Damele
Isabel Daser
Sally Davies
Diane Day
Colleen Delaney
Giovanni DelBrenna photographer?
Lou Dembrow
Anthony DeVito
Benjamin Donaldson
William Drakert
Pete Dressel
Rod Dubitsky
Samuel Dufaux
Gary Dunkin
Cheryl Dunn
Jeff Dyksterhouse
Aristide Economopoulos
Thom Eichinger
Cynthia Endredy
Jeffrey B. Evans
Gary Fabiano
Timothy Fadek
Lisa Fain
Evan Fairbanks
Enid Farber
George Farinacci
Abigail Feldman
Brian Finke
Dominick Fiorille
Chuck Fishman
Regina Y. Fleming
Peter Foley
Ronald Force
Adam Forgash
Glenn Foster
Jimmy Fountain
Maria Fountoukis
Gudrun Frady
Harald Franzen
Mike Freeburg
Andrew Garn
Asya Geisberg
Len Gelstein
Fred George
Russell Gera
Bruce Gilden
Julia Gillard
Kathleen Gillespie
Kevin Goggin
Nicolas Goldberg
Wendy Gordon
Michael J. Gorman
Gina Grad
Monika Graff
Barbara Grajewski
Grace Graupe-Pillard
Jennifer Greene
Pamela Griffiths
Lori Grinker
Susan Grosse
Paul Grossman
John Jonas Gruen
Idrissa Guiro
Howie Guja
Matt Gunther
Christian Hague
Katrina Hajagos
Doug Hamilton
Meg Handler
Hazel Hankin
Jane Hanstein Cunniffe
Deborah Hardt
Jennifer Harrington
Regina Harris
Peter Harron
Mariko Hashimoto profeasor
Tracey Haynes
Jonathan Hayon
Katja Heinemann
Sean Hemmerle
Johnny Hilares
Edward Hillel
David Hinder
Thomas Hinton
HINY HINY
Marianne Hirsch
Steven Hirsch
Thomas Hoepker
Samuel Hollenshead photographer
Gillie Holme
Sabrina Howell
Benjamin Martin Hoy
Kim Hubbard
Christopher Hubble
Lisa Hull
Brad Hunter
Gisa Indenbaum
Jehuda Ish-Shalom
Hatice-Nazan Isik artist
Kalin Ivanov
Brooke Jacobs
David Jacobs
Bill Jacobson
Jeff Jacobson
Michael Jacobson
Ellen K. Jaffe
Gerald Janssen
Shan Jayakumar
Greg Jensen
David Jimenet
Kirsten Johnson
Linda Johnson
Matthew Johnstone
C. Bronston Jones director
Clark Jones
Paul Kane
Heera Kapoor
Holger Keifel
Brian Kelly
Sara Kendall
Siobhan Kennedy
Lisa Kereszi
J. Mickey Kerr
Niall Kingston
Virginia Kinzey
Sang-Hoon Kish Kim photo
Attila Kiss
Tammy Klein
James Knapp
Michael M. Koehler
David Kohn
Antonin Kratochvil photo journaling
Edward Krebser
Hugh Kretschmer photographer
Andrian Kreye
Andy Kropa
Barney Kulok
Beth Kunzler
Maki Kuramochi
Catherine Kwan
Jeffrey Ladd
Nicholas Kane Landry
Bettye Lane
Salim Langatta
Mark LaRosa
Catherine LaSota
Mike Lass
Karine Laval
Victoria Leacock
Raymond Learsy
Alan Leder
Benjamin H. Lee
J. Bo Young Lee
Jin Lee
Phyllis Leibowitz
Emilie Lemakis
James Leritz
Catherine Leuthold
Henry Leutwyler
Rachel Leventhal
Stuart Levi
Meg Levine
Serge J-F Levy
Janis Lewin
Charles Libin
Andrew Lichtenstein
Bob Linhart
Yujian Liu
Peter Lucas
Luis Lujan
Ken Luymes
Graham MacIndoe
Francesca Magnani
Malika
Brenda English Manes
Paul Manes
Jay Manis
Linda Mann
Joanne Mariner
Laura Marsh
Jerry Marshall
Paul Matulis
Patrick McCafferty
Darren McCollester Getty photo
Kevin McCrary
Iain McInnes
Tom McKitterick
Greg McNulty
Lara McPherson
Alex Medina
Rebecca Meek
Felicia Megginson
Thessy Mehrain
Susan Meiselas
Charlie Melvin
Abraham Menashe
Barbara Mensch
Doug Menuez
Jeff Mermelstein American phot journ
Jack Merrill
Michel Mery
Peter Millard
George Miller
Neil Miller
Robert Miller
Tetsuro Mise
Melissa Molnar
Susan Moriguchi
Rachel Morrison
Margaret Morton
Laura Mozes
John Muggenborgbsrch photo
Edwin Mullon
Blerti Murataj
John Murphy
David Murrow
Ed Muscio
Sam Myers
Shalom Nachshon
Jason Nakleh
Catherine Nance
Sally Narkis
John Patrick Naughton photo wbsite
Eric Nederlander
Carole Newhouse
Jasmina Nielsen
Erik-Anders Nilsson actor
Thomas Nilsson
John Noonan
Noqontrol
William D. Nunez
Beth O'Donnell
Per-Olof Odman
Adria M. Olender
Marco Olivo
Petra F. Olton
Suzanne Opton
Ben Ortman
Lyle Owerko
Hila Paldi
Stefano Paltera
Robert Palumbo
Philip Parker
Suellen Parker
Pamela Parlapiano
Daniel Parrott
Ari M. Patz
Craig Paulson
Robert Peacock
Anne Pears
Jeanne Pearson
Gilles Peress
Pascal Perich
John Perry
Stephanie Pfriender
Niko Plaitakis
Spencer Platt
Michelle Poire
Cathy Potler
Kyri Poveromo
Gus Powell
Vincent Poydenot possible not a faggot
Jake Price
Kelly Price
Igor Pusenjak
Ian Quay
Ambreen Qureshi doctor?
Roberto Rabanne
Greg Rachwalski Kohler?
Joe Raedle
Harold Ramos
Lisa Rayman
Piotr Redlinski new York times
Lorraine Reinstein
Brandon Remler
Janet Restino artists owner
Jaime Reyes
David Reynolds
David Rhodes
Roberto Ricci
Michael Rieger
Alexander Roche
Alex Rodrigues
Antonio Rodriguez
Joseph Rodriguez
Jose Rosario
Mel Rosenthal
Shaun J. Rubel
Frankie Ruiz
Sherry Russell
Richard Rutkowski cinematography
Linn Sage
Carolina Salguero
Gulnara Samoilova
Charlie Samuels
Tony Savino
Greg Scaffidi
James Scannell
Saskia Scheffer
Ciro Frank Schiappa
Ken Schles
John Schneider
Elliot Schwartz
Frank Schwere
Paula Alya Scully
Stefanie Sdanowich
Amy Seibert
Mark Seliger
John Senzer
Grant Shaffer
Gina Shamus
Bill Sharp
Alyson Shatsky
Rachel Shaw
Jason Sheldon
Michael Shulan
Gerrit Sievert
Lauren Silberman
Jennifer Silva
Jeffrey Silverthorne wiki photographer
Laurie Simmons
Steve Simon
Gianluca Simoni
Peter Slack
Christopher Smith
Jennifer Smith
Sharon Smith
Sharon Socol
Keren Solomon
Tim Soter
Tom Sperduto
Shannon Stapleton
Ron Sterling
Joel Sternfeld
George Stiros
Robert Stolarik
Margaret Stratton
Leah Streetman
Carrie Struch
Corey Struller
Gabrielle Stubbert
Johan Stylander
Patrick Sullivan
Richard Sullivan
David Surowiecki
Robert Swanson
Ramin Talaie
Mario Tama
Brian Tang
Michael Tapes
Jorge Thacker
James Thomas
Alison Thompson
Judy Sidonie Tillinger
Denton Tillman
Cynthia Moran Timms
Erik Tischler
Margaret Tomanelli
Jonathan Torgovnik
Larry Towell
Quyen Tran
Charles Traub
Paola Trizio
Linda Troeller
Michael Trueblood
Jeanny Tsai
Carson Tsang
Gregory Tuck
David Turnley
Peter Turnley
Lesley Unruh
Matt Valentine
Dennis Van Tine
Hanneke Van Velzen photo oroduction
Winston Vargas photographer
Enzo Vollmer
Sacha Waldman on
Tom Walker
Alex Webb
Louise Weinberg
Mike Weingartner
Todd Weinstein
Katie Weisberger
Marty Weiss
David Weller
James Wentzy
Lee E. Wexler
James Wheeldon
Susan Wides
Rebecca Wilkowski
Alfred Will
Adam Woodward
Sher Wouters
Megan Wrenn porn star not really
Melvin Wright
Tony Wurman
Christopher Yasiejko phot bloomberg
Erin Yokel
Yoshi
Mark Youngberg
Soo-Hwa Yuan
Evan Yurman
Jaroslaw Zajac
Harry Zernike
Charlyn Zlotnik
Matt Zuckerman director
Lisa Zwerling
Copyright © 2004 here is new york. All rights reserved.

https://911digitalarchive.org/collections/show/260
Notice untitled and no citation. It's because they are all well known in photography or public
I busted a real fake mountain and a real fake rock formation. Day one of Mountains are fake. Seriously. And it was a made a conservation area so we pay taxes on it's up keep. It's just a mountain of mining rubble. The world sucks.

[pasterno]

Main conclusions is just that the exploding floors were not used daily.

Just a bunch of druggy artists hanging out.

Would be easy to say; these 2 weeks we are closed and install the bombs.

[rachel]

You seem to be quick to draw conclusions @pasterno, they are not druggy artists at all. That's a cover they use...these types of people always get access to everything, and they always have access to a magic money tree.

If you didn't notice, the arts council was set up as soon as WTC1 was open for business, in a port authority building that was built on reclaimed land (man-made, not from God), which is pretty clear, is not in the legal jurisdiction of the State of New York, therefore is not under the control of Congress, but instead is Federal property. And I think it is a fair guess to suggest the papacy is at the top of that Pyramid.

Pyramids are real @DonPowell. ...Administrator, Creditor, Debtor. Is this the real AC/DC?

Trust Law

https://lmcc.net/about/history/

LMCC was founded in 1973 as Lower Manhattan Cultural Council with the belief that artists and communities are interconnected, each contributing to a more just, equitable, and sustainable society.

For almost five decades, we have advanced our vision to serve, connect, and make space for artists and communities in NYC through programs that deepen artists' creative practice and afford them opportunities to share their process and work with local communities.

In practice, this includes our Artist Residencies programs that provide studio space, professional development, and networking opportunities to enable artists to develop their work (Workspace, Extended Life, and The Arts Center Residencies), and our Grants programs to artists and organizations that support hundreds of local and neighborhood arts projects (Manhattan Arts Grants and SU-CASA).

Our support of grassroots local arts programming created by recipients of our Manhattan Arts Grants, and our own self-produced Public Programs (River To River Festival, Open Studios), bring performances and artistic experiences to hundreds of thousands of audience members annually.

In 2019, we opened our newly renovated and expanded The Arts Center at Governors Island, a 40,000 square foot arts space that fully connects to our vision of making space and serving artists and communities, while offering much-needed programs for all, all for free.

Read on to learn more about the rich legacy of LMCC.


1973 - 2001: Birth of LMCC
Founded in 1973 by Flory Barnett with support from David Rockefeller, Sr. and Chase Manhattan Bank, New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA), and other local business and civic leaders, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (LMCC) was built on the premise that artists were pillars of resilience and inspiration and therefore vital to New York City.

Our organization’s core mission included forging meaningful connections with individual artists, arts groups, public officials, community groups, property owners and developers, and other employers as well as stakeholders in the downtown and cultural landscapes at large.

Using public plazas, parks and atria, LMCC brought communities together by sponsoring free lunchtime concerts and evening performances on the plaza, installations in lobby windows, and outdoor sculpture exhibitions. LMCC grew with the Financial District, cultivating art and culture in and around the World Trade Center. Soon after our inception, we published a monthly calendar of area cultural programming, Downtown, that included local lectures, walking tours, concerts, and other myriad events.

By the end of the 1990s, we had not only moved our offices into the World Trade Center (WTC), we had transformed it into a cultural anchor: our programs now included World Views, which offered studio space to artists in the upper floors of the North Tower; Evening Stars, which brought free dance to the WTC Plaza; and exhibition spaces throughout the complex showcased the work of artists of all disciplines.

LMCC also expanded its reach boroughwide with Manhattan Arts Grants, where we regranted funding to local arts organizations and individual artists for diverse programs and presentations: Manhattan Community Arts Fund began in 1984; The Fund for Creative Communities began in 1998; and Creative Curricula began in 2003.

In these years, demand for LMCC’s programs among artists and audiences flourished, and in response, the organization grew in programmatic scope, community impact, and capacity.


2001 - 2011: 9/11 and Lower Manhattan’s Recovery
On September 11, 2001, when the World Trade Center was destroyed, LMCC lost a home, a performance venue, studio and exhibition spaces, and nearly 30 years of archives. Most significantly, we lost an artist-in-residence, Michael Richards, who perished alongside thousands of others.

In the years following, we focused on arts-driven resiliency and cultural revitalization in the Financial District. Funds provided support for emerging visual artists from the Caribbean and of Caribbean descent, and the Gulf Coast Residency offered a temporary residency in Lower Manhattan for 15 artists displaced by Hurricane Katrina. In 2004, LMCC was awarded a five million dollar grant from the September 11th Fund in order to restore and sustain the activities of Lower Manhattan's cultural community. Over the next three years, we distributed those funds to small and mid-sized cultural organizations and activities in Chinatown and below Canal Street through our Downtown Culture Grants Initiative.

We also launched Workspace, a nine-month residency program that provides emerging artists with free studio space and professional development, and began the Paris Residency. This partnership between LMCC and the Mayor’s Office of the City of Paris provides a New York City artist with the opportunity to live and create at Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris for six months.

During these years, LMCC continued re-grant the highest amount of city and state arts funds to artists and organizations in Manhattan through our Manhattan Arts Grants. In 2002, we also became a founder of the River To River Festival, the largest free arts festival celebrating artistic diversity and site-specific performances in Lower Manhattan that continues today.

Perhaps the most significant and visible growth was our creation of The Arts Center at Governors Island, which established yearly artist residencies and summer public programming in Building 110 on Governors Island.

Michael Richards, "Winged" Exhibition at LMCC's Arts Center at Governors Island, 2016

Books always have to balance...so none of this is free at all...someone pays as these people degrade society, and who do we think that is?