THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE TOWER OF BABEL IS AN EVOLUTIVE AND INFINTE PARTICIPATORY ART INSTALLATION WHICH IS A MONUMENT FOR CIVIL RIGHTS, DIRECT DEMOCRATIE AND THE FREEDOM OF SPEECH.IT CREATES A UNIQUE AWARENESS OF THE INTERACTIVITY BETWEEN INDIVIDUAL AND SOCIAL BODY AND CONVEYS A UNIQUE EXPERIENCE OF UNITY IN DIVERSITY.

WE WOULD LIKE TO INSTALL THESE EVOLUTIVE SCUPLTURES AT PUBLIC PLACES AND INSTITUTIONS, WHICH HOST IT PERMANENTLY AND GUARANTEE ITS ACCESSIBILITY FOR THE GENERAL PUBLIC.

Le babel Projet sur l'ile Maurice a l''Institut Francais

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contact: babelartproject@gmail.com

General Description

Babel is everywhere, Babel is the Home of everyone, the Tower of Babel is the affirmation of the birthright of every Human Being.

Bricks of many different origins, showing inscriptions of poems, words, philosophies, in any language and writing, are sent from people from all over the country, of all races, social and religious backgrounds, to the organising institution, which assemble them in a appropriate space which is accessible for anyone who wishes to participate.

New bricks, paint, chalks and other material invite the visitor to the evolutive sculpture to share a message, a symbol, a personal expression in any form, with the general public. After the participant has created his brick, s/he installs it into the assembly of all other bricks. Thus this installation/sculpture changes its ppearances with every participant. The participants or visitors are alowed to change the form of the sculpture by reorganising the bricks in the space as they wish.

The visitor/user to the museum, artinstitution, etc are entering the space and can work on an imaginary building, change what they meet, a building (tower) which does not have to strive towards height but to broadness and variety, a building to which everyone is architect and owner. The user may develop new views, new affirmations, new systems. He may destroy to transform, always knowing that what he achieves, might again be transformed by another authority, which might add to his views and affirmations and realisations.

The users may read the many different messages, poems, words in languages from many origins, from all continents, take a brick in his hand, feeling earth from another part of the Globe, as close to him as any other part. It is a physical existential and intellectual and mental exchange and encounter , with whom, who has written the text and posted the brick. An enormous variety of encounters will be possible, infinite meetings might happen.Videocameras are installed at several places to document the development of the « building », the arrival of new bricks, etc.  Digital cameras may be used by the visitors to document important parts, they treasure especially, feeding a databank, sorting these photos according to date and place, thus giving a documentation of the development of the tower through the eyes of the users. This databank should be made accessible by internet to everybody.

.towerofbabel

Comments can be written on big blackboards mounted on the walls with chalk, which also have no permanent life, but which might be crossed over by other visitors, every changing comments in also many languages as the exhibition might travel from one place to the other.In all it is an evolutionary system, which can be built on by visitors from any social level, any level of education (reading might be inspired by it, but is not necessarily a condition of participation, bricks with symbols or signs are also incorporated), any race, religious belonging, of any language, of any nation. It does not have a meaning as a finished building, as a symbol or as a statement, but takes it strength and effectiveness from the existential fact of being set up , by it’s constant creative potential.

Background and Thoughts

The Building of the Tower of Babel is a universal image, symbol which exists in one or another form in every religion and culture. The principle content of that image forms the basis for the institutional fact and authority of most religions, governmental and corporate systems. The legend of the building of the Tower of Babel states, that to achieve ultimate truth, ultimate power, to "unite men with God", humanity needs to speak with one language. That means also that everyone needs to be subordinated to one view which is supposed to be true. The affirmation of the pyramidal system which hands down knowledge and power from the one "supreme source".

The present art project states the contrary: to achieve those goals of truth and supreme knowledge, love and power, we need the multitude of languages, we need the diveristy of expressions and human creativity, we need the free expressions from everyone, to be true, to be able to evolve n the right direction, to be socially and spiritually right and complete. It is through the interaction of the infinity of expressions where we capture and realise the reality of human existence, where we design an evolutive path towards a future civilisation.

From the first moments of our childhood (in the western civilisation) we are teached and communicated this image. It communicates, that we are insufficient for the Divine, that we may not achieve the Supreme by our own individual effort and aspiration, but that only by our « suffering » and « subordination » we might achieve a Grace, which must be transmitted to us by our spiritual institution or interlocutor.

According to that cultural image God punished men by the multitude of languages, so that they would not understand each other anymore, so that they would not be able to finish the Tower of Babel, which is being built to touch Him to be with Him.   This indicates, that in fact everyone should subordinate himself to one language, to one way of seeing truth and reality, to one institution which represents the one and only God, who certainly does not want to be touched and be recognised, which thus stays a constant far and unreachable promise, enabling the institution to execute a constant and unending power over the individual.  Thus the ideology is being manifested that the multitude of cultures is an obstacle for the happiness of men and realisation of the highest idealistic goals of men ! To this we owe wars, extermination camps, cruelties, genocide, and the worst crimes men was being enabled to commit by such an ideology.

But not only on this social level we are touched by this age old image, also our intimacy is being touched :the moments of our procreation, of our birth & of our death are being named undivine, our flesh would be undivine and the biological needs we live would be apart from the Supreme !  Women are being subordinated socially by this , since they are too close to these processes. The Creator created sex & attraction, the game of attraction on all levels of His creation, creation would not exist without it, so the closeness of these functions with the Divine are evident. (the contrary is therefore evil) There are a whole variety of other effects based on that principle, which are at the base of true suffering of men.

We are presented with an unchangeable unreachable authority to which we would have to subordinate ourselves to realise ourselves and that this authority would be the essential and at the base of our world and our image of the world and our existential truth. A construction of authority beyond the individual reality which enables him to delegate all responsibility to this unseen foreign authority, which represents unchangeable ever firm definitions of good and bad , up and down, juste and unjust. It is the cultural and spiritual rejection of the creativity of men, of the responsibility of men for his acts, what allows him to  be a perfect instrument for any power which presents herself  as representation of that «highest authority» (see Bush in his speeches and other members of our political and spiritual leadership throughout the 20th and the newly 21st century).

With this project we may affirmate the creative impulses of men, affirmate the multiculturalism, multi-nationalism, multi-rasicm, multi-ideologism, and that the highest and really only possible responsibility is the individual responsibility ! The highest possible realisation of the Divine happens in the spiritual being of the individual Self beyond and untouchable by any institution or social leadership. In fact any institutional authority which declares taking responsibility for the individual is doomed to falsehood and must be seriously questioned.  Any unchangeable authority, may it be institutional  or individual, which does not support transcendental aspirations and the approach of the unknown, the realisations of realities beyond the present, are an obstacle to the evolution of men. Evolution happens from the individual, reality is being seen through the eyes of the individual. The institution is the death of any spirituality, for it suppresses it. The institution should  just have organisational social rights. The social should be at the service of the individual.

My principle of the merging Authorities is at the base of this project. As by nature's capacity to changes it is being demonstrated, spiritual, physical , cultural flexibility means the incorporation of the unattended, unknown, unexpected, foreign in one’s own consciousness of being and reality: one actually needs the foreign, the unknown, existentially, to realise one's own Self. For at that moment, Love appears, Joy appears, unquestioned and beyond reason, as an existential fact.

Babel Project in Mauritius