Michel Lorand

 

6 Skies
—  

2006

LIFE VIDEO INSTALLATION

The Société du Logement de la Région Bruxelles-Capitale (“Brussels Region Housing Association” – SLRB), through its programme 101e% and the Foyer Jettois assigned to Michel Lorand the task of performing an art project on the social housing site known as “Esseghem I & II” in Jette – Brussels.

This project is named “6 Skies”.
It begins in 2006, with a duration of 6 years

The artistic project involves the residents (1,200 persons) of 2 social housing blocks constructed in the 1970s: “Esseghem I & II”. These residences are located in the outskirts of Brussels (Jette).

A video monitor is embedded in the ceilings of each series of 6 lifts contained in the buildings. These are linked via the Internet to a camera placed in an international city, filming the sky 24 hours a day, seven days a week and broadcast live. Every year for 6 years a camera will capture the sky of a different city: Santiago in Chile, Hanoi, Quebec City, Tangier, Bucharest, Kinshasa.

Choosing the most confined, closed-off space of a residence, its lift cabin. Choosing the observation post for surveying the sky, not that above our heads, but rather that which is beneath our feet, from the other side of the planet. Experiencing the vertical movement sensation we feel in the lift and observing that between these two skies, it is an entire world that we are crossing.

6 Skies