Bains::Connective

[els]

dear les bainers,

to give an impuls to get to know each other a bit, in the scope of our arcitectural meetings, i would like to give an image of my personal history with les bains.
(It is written in flemish english; don't expect liturature, nor correct dates, nor admiration lectures and big thank you's for the people who made the miracle les bains survive so far)

the first time ever I walked in les bains was at its very first public event, +-10 years ago:
I think to remember that the Malstaf brothers, Vincent and Lawrence, Meg Stuart, Davies freeman, Christine Desmedt were the people I knew to be involved. It was dark and cold. The building was to be entered going through the garage, dirty and wet. Minimal lightning lead me through the pump room, the mechanical rooms, the long dark bathroomcorridors, to the main swimming pool. No daylight, no fresh air, remainings of the former nightclub spread around, as if people had just fled for a razzia.
I think to remember Vincents experiments with hidden sounds to capture with headphones here and there, and his spitting in a bucket, standing on the diving board. and beer.

Not too long after that, daylight came in: the false black roof that covered the glass pyramid, had been removed. I believe the building itself must have been relieved and very grateful for that. light and air came in ,
and rain...
I saw performances and try outs now and then, followed the les bains stories from a distance.
I captured some of the content discussions about being an artists connective not a collective, and anti-capitalistic visions on how to deal with peoples propositions. Artists who wanted to use the space for something should give it something in return: renovation work or materials.
no money transfers.
very idealistic. beautiful idea's.
probably way too idealistic.

Q-o2, ensemble for experimental contemporary music, started to introduce concerts in Les bains, initiated by Marie-Hélène Elleboudt's impro concepts, musiclab and Abstract Adventures. I put up the light for some of these evenings, and was very happy with the movable grid after inventing all kinds of bricolages and scratching the balcony ballustrades.

In 2000, I was first involved in an artistic project in les bains myself. Subject was 'the negativ', it took part in the 2000 Brussels cultural city event, in Q-o2's years series of concerts.
I set up a small installation (EIKI) with two film projectors (one negativ, one positiv) pointed at one screen-no screen, on the stairs going from the bar to the offices upstairs. To develop the films, I built a small darkroom in one of the bathrooms downstairs. Two russian artists who debarked in les bains that time, helped me connecting the drainage. I remember wonderful conversations through the bath tub evacuation hole. I'm happy to see that this darkroom is still in use.

More personal interventions followed the years to come: a video for Phil Niblocks concert, a first film installation for the event 4x4 (does distance slow down), a second film installation for 4x4 (5 screens), video impro's on music.

The garage, in the mean time, became a storage space for many artists left overs, also mine: big black projection boxes, iron posts, screens... they are still there, (the loads of meters of electricity cable I gave in return are not)

Because I explored the les bains space from many sides now, in my own work and also as a visitor (one major experience to mention would be the Sauna in Exile event), I chose this time to withdraw back to the most naked space, the pump room, in my memory not too much examined.
It remains the space I once walked through to enter les bains for the very first time.
Not to close a circle in time,
thus to make a spiral?