Post Psevdo-Prozrachnost (PPP)

[Post-Pseudo Transparency]

By David Brodsky

7 August 2020

David Brodsky and Natalia Romik produced designs for the IRL piraMMMida exhibition, initially to be realised in S.a.L.E. docks during the 2020 Biennale of Architecture. We present Brodsky's designs here, together with his short description of the ideas behind them.

in my very quick imagination, at the entrance of S.a.L.E. docks you can see an image of a triangle illuminated from the inside. the triangle is open, inside you can see a very long wooden table covered in black and around the table there are long benches. around the triangle there is a hanging black curtain that creates a contrast with light. when you enter inside the triangle the sides of the “pyramid” are created with simple transparent polyethylene which can be glued onto the main wooden structure. there are hanging lamps that shine spotlights on the black table and create an atmosphere suitable for discussions and other activities. on the opposite side of the entrance you can see an existing wooden staircase and stand with a projector behind. all this can be associated with a large tent but not a military one 🙂, a tent where people come together, like “otkritaya shtab kvartira” [an untranslatable phrase coined by Brodsky which might be awkwardly translated as “open apartment headquarters”, playing on the pyramid-tent’s military associations; but also symbolising “post pseudo-transparency” and “pseudo-openness” by emphasising the strange coincidence between the Russian words for military headquarters and private apartment]. somehow I didn’t want to create a literal translation using the same materials from which post-socialist architecture is made. p.s. perhaps to keep the contrast the entrance (the image of the triangle) can be much smaller than it is on the sketch.