4 May 10 2014

What Kind of Flock House?

May 9 – 10, 2014, Bemis Center of Contemporary Arts

In Omaha we will build two Flock houses.  One will be in the vest pocket meadow across from the Bemis Center of Contemporary Arts.  The second will be at Carver Bank.

Mary shows slides of existing Flock houses, living structures moving around New York City. Floating structures. A Flock house on a barge. We break into groups and begin to Blue Sky, pouring out our visions for the Flock house. Our group tables are right next to the very Flock house first built at the port of New York.  Now, part of a growing Flock of houses, it migrated to Omaha, to a Bemis gallery where much of Mary’s stuff stands bundled by twine.  All her stuff, including her Apple computer, tied into a perfectly visible burden of modern life.  All the stuff we keep and store and move from place to place.  Mary balled it up and rolled it along the sidewalk to a van, and in the van to New York Harbor.

There is stuff – recycled material that Mary Mattingly and the Bemis staff and residents have located around the building, in the alley and about the city.  Wood flooring, plastic molded lighting, doors – there are many, many doors, and metal panels.  There is a workshop in the basement at Bemis and a fabrication/construction space across the street. I am excited to think we would build a structure, a Flock house, from recycled materials.  Stuff discovered piled here and there, awaiting a second life.

Flock houses, what are they?

They are self-sustaining.  They are portable, easy to break down and move to a new site. Not too heavy. Not boxy, but more organic in design. They should open up, be adjustable and connected to the outside. Planters and plants. They should catch rain and hold it  to water plants.  They need toilet facilities and waste treatment.  Energy from wind and sun. As we speak I am trying to imagine urban agriculture, urban cabins, urban exposed plumbing and energy generation.  A world part hippie, part Steam Punk, part technical genius.  An infrastructure supporting creative thinking and problem solving, art making, and generative community. An image by Janice Jong of Thekla jumps to mind  .

Thekla by Janice Jong Thekla –  Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino

“What is the aim of a city under construction unless it is a city? Where is the plan you are following, the blueprint?”

“We will show it to you as soon as the working day is over; we cannot interrupt our work now,” they answer.

Work stops at sunset. Darkness falls over the building site. The sky is filled with stars. “There is the blueprint,” they say.

At 3 am, Mary, sleepless, began making a model of a blue triangular structure.  Inspired. Reflecting triangles that kept surfacing in our first envisioning.  We see it and affirm, ours will be triangular.