Obfuscation and the city

At the behest of the English-speaking women’s club in Gent, I did some volunteer work for the University of Gent on Sunday. Volunteers were needed to help run a large symposium, “Making sense of the city” that brought together people from all over the world to discuss concerns about urbanization. Concurrent with the symposium was an art exhibit on the same theme, and I volunteered to help monitor the exhibit to ensure its safety.

The first part of the opening ceremony was held in the assembly hall they call the AULA, an interesting 19th century building in the heart of Gent. At the heart of the building is a dramatic, round auditorium with a high, domed ceiling, but as a volunteer I also got to see some of the more private rooms in the building. They spoke of a former grandeur, with heavy, somewhat frayed golden curtains covering high windows, cracked panels with detailed botanical carvings covering the walls, and a beautiful parquet floor. I sat on a bench with a thick velvet cushion waiting for the other volunteers, looked at the wires that had been added some time after construction to modify the ornate chandeliers for electricity. Some of the wires were hanging off the wall slightly, and I couldn’t help but notice that a number of holes had been punched through the wall panels at one time or another, and not been repaired. A frigid draft whipped through the panel behind me, and considering the scale of the building and the fact that it leaked cold air like a sieve, I never did take off my jacket for the rest of the day. It would have cost a fortune to actually heat the place.

The art exhibits leaned heavily towards the very modern. For example, in one curtained alcove a short black-and-white film played to some high-pitched techno music. A woman in a black leotard, with no expression on her face, was jumping up and down in a concrete, steel, and glass building. Because each jump exactly replicated the last, I surmised that they had filmed one jump, and had looped it. Over about five minutes, two additional scenes were added to the montage, until three different people were all jumping up and down monotonously. Then it would start again. Other exhibits included blurry pictures that had been Photoshopped to incomprehensibility, and a sculpture of a skull with little heads for teeth. There was a small pamphlet that listed the artists and their works, but most of the works were not actually labeled, so we all played a guessing game as to which was which. Ultimately, it all seemed to obfuscate the relationship of man to the city more than anything else, and the techno music gave all of the volunteers a headache.

After the first “We welcome you to Gent” speech was over, they had a reception in the main hall, handing out wine and drinks to all of the attendees. If I had known what was coming next, I would have grabbed a drink myself. They were an interesting crowd, though. Many of the women had artistic asymmetric hair cuts, and wore flowing, unique outfits with (as is required in Belgium) very exciting boots. All of them were thin, elegant, and looked very urbane as they wandered around looking at the art exhibits cradling glasses of champagne and wine. One gentleman from Algeria was wearing a white suit printed with photographs. A young man all in black leather with blue hair who looked vaguely like Trent Reznor, had on a green badge, which signified that he was one of the artists. I asked him which piece was his, and he handed me a flyer to “Meta bo”. That’s the musical show of “neuro techno” that finished off the whole conference on Wednesday.

Anyway, the next step for the volunteers was to direct all of the participants to a _different_ theater a few blocks away. The brilliant way they decided to do this was to dress us all up as ambulatory, demented traffic cones, so we could stand on various street corners and direct everyone. Yes, I was given a bright orange vest, a bright green construction helmet, and a blinking orange traffic light. They paraded the volunteers out in front of the mingling crowd, and advised them to follow us…at which point the head man of Meta bo took out his digital camera and immortalized us in our outlandish gear forever. But this is not the end, NO! Sunday was the last day of the last shopping weekend before Christmas! The streets of Gent were literally packed with thousands of shoppers. As I stood on my appointed corner, directing conference participants towards the NTG Gent theater, it seemed like each holiday reveler that passed me stopped short for a moment, and then examined me curiously with a look of mingled horror and amusement. Small children goggled and pointed. An attractive woman in a magenta scarf shook her head when she saw this awful display, and quickly rushed past me with her bags. A drunken man from a nearby bar stopped and heckled me in Dutch. At that moment, I would have given anything to be one of the people rushing by with the last of my Christmas shopping neatly tucked under my arm, or at least, I would have happily given the vest, the hat, and the blinking traffic light.