The Strange Case of the Bunker and the Asteroid
The search for the fantastical in the "The Strange Case of the Bunker and the Asteroid" stood stark in the face of the solemn militaristic backdrop of the Albanian bunkerization. With war once again underway in Europe, Benjamin Vanmuysen and Chuck Diep revisit their hybrid asteroid-bunker drawings and their translation from digital to physical artifacts, at once more tangible and more at risk in the world. In doing so, they ask us to hold in mind the breadth of this world's realities while still looking now and again to the stars.
The current military actions in Europe resonate with Albania’s communist history. Even though Albania was never besieged, it did prepare itself against invaders through its bunkerization project. Under the rule of Dictator Enver Hoxha, the country installed 700,000 bunkers between 1967 and 1985.
The Strange Case of the Bunker and the Asteroid in PLAT’s sixth issue – Absence – used Albania’s military history to create a drawing series which questioned design authorship. While the original drawing set was preoccupied with the process and its concurrent design maneuvers, a new postscript series emerged years later which prioritized the outcome. The didactic annotations and latent geometry were discharged to offer a new reading of our doppelgängers. In other words, the second generation of drawings favored appearance over content. Despite their digital nature, the new drawings were also manually relief printed on 12.375” x 12.375” sheets of paper. This process didn’t only liberate our drawings from the screen, but also produced a series of unique prints. With the continuous rise of the digital and NFT’s, our prints want to promote the physical and the tangible.
In contrast with our written contribution to PLAT Journal, the drawings have taken a life of their own. They have evolved into independent and tangible items which, to a certain extent, are disconnected from their process and history. On that account, PLAT 10.5 offers a great platform to reflect on the past, but perhaps also to project into the future. With all the uncertainties in the world at the moment, where do we go next?
