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| The Old Mine, Lars Von Trier, Dogville |
I had first watched Lars Von Trier's film, Dogville in 2011, while studying in Germany. I was immediately captured by the unique filming style and set design but confused by the story. I knew there was something much deeper to the film but I had not yet possessed the tools required to break it down adequately.
I had watched it several times since then, after having watched several other of Von Trier's films including Melancholia and Anti Christ. I did know his films always tackled the complexities and intricacies of human nature.
Since starting my thesis preparation term I have also caught on to the work of the situationist, focusing on Guy Dubord and Constant Nieuwenhuys (New Babylon). Furthermore my studies have lead me to the work of the French philosopher Michel Foucault and his concept of the Heterotopia. In his essay 'Of Other Spaces' (1967) Foucault useses the pre existing concepts of Utopia (no place) to set up his concept of the Heterotopia. The Utopia is an idealized vision of reality, which even attempts to exist through certain built examples; the prison, the boarding school, the hospital, the gated community, the insane asylum etc. These are settings which attempt to project an ideal way of life of the inhabitants (willingly or forcibly). The Heterotopia on the other hand is 'a place of otherness', the inbetween. Although it requires a physically defined space, or object(s), these are merely there as devices to access a (more endless) mental space. Examples of Heterotopias are the hotel room, the museum, the library, the garden, the mirror.
This reading has allowed me to view Von Trier's films in a dramatically new way, allowing me to see an environment as a controlled space, what are the boundaries, what are the internal and external forces at play, which frames have the ability to generate contemplation. This is where (for me) the idea of the heterotopia and the utopia enter into the architectural or urban discussion, these concepts can then tested against the realities of the contemporary condition through an architectural intervention.
However, scaling down even further, past the architectural or urban I want to discuss 'Utopia' on a much smaller scale. For me the concept of Utopia has always existed on the scale of the society or the city, but for me it is inherently present in literally every human thought. We are continuously attempting to improve our condition, we can dream and imagine the way things could be. The most important moment is when these thoughts become strong enough to provoke an action, and where the idealized thought is tested and eroded my the realities of the physical world. This brings me to the title I have chosen for this post 'Dictum ac factum', found written across the Old Mine in Dogville. This phrase roughly translates as "No sooner said than done'. This is a phrase which I will hold very close as I approach my final thesis term of the masters program. A thought, no matter how perfect, is nothing until it enters the real world, through this conversion lies the unknown, the unexpected - the things which we can not control that create circumstances and situations which truly carry us forward, a define the very foundations of how true knowledge is generated.
