Project 19: My Book of Projects
I. Kabakov, Graphic Artist, Moscow.
It is now the end of the century, and there aren't many who maintain the illusion that invented projects, even the most noble of them, can bring some benefit to a large number of people, virtually to all of humanity, that they can actually be realised and embodied in reality. It is most likely just the opposite; precisely those projects which have been embodied in life with such enthusiasm have rendered innumerable misfortunes and the more grandiose a project appeared to be, the more victims corresponded to its size. Knowing and having lived through this sad, and for many people, tragic experience, the end of the century represents a mirror image of its beginning, but with the opposite sign. This time, beginning with the illusion of a radical change in life, with small and large utopias, is ending with disillusionment in their results and scepticism toward any utopia or utopian creation in general. But, the elimination of utopianism - alas, is also yet another form of utopianism. The creation of projects, project thinking, the formulation of all kinds of utopias is immanently inherent in us, our consciousness, and furthermore, it rests, as a stimulus and as a basis or any of our actions as long as we remain human beings. In other words, we can exist only in the mode of the creation and realisations of utopias, no matter what they might turn out to be in actual fact. Creating this paradox, thinking through it, isn't it possible to find a place for some project, remaining project-oriented in essence, that would insist with its obstinacy on being realised, and hence would avoid the inevitable catastrophe and damage inflicted on the environment? Of course there is such a form - it is the project which remains, which is fixed in the form of the project itself, in the form of its description, an outline, a summary or its conception and goal... Such a project or a multitude of such projects existing in the form of a book, having fulfilled their creative function, would freeze forever in their glass sarcophagus, remaining an object, and they could be used and unfrozen only with the greatest caution.
Instructions
1. Make a case out of hard plastic (plexiglas) which will cover the book from above (120 x 60 x 25 cm).
2. Make a special table for the book (150 x 75 x 72 cm).