Brussel [b̥ʁyˈsɛl]

Brussels just happens to be where the Constant offices are. Or does it? The following series of Constant projects and publications holds together an underlying but consistent interrogation of the urban context. This surely isn’t coincidental. A persistent and ongoing thread can be traced through their work that relates to the specificity of Brussels. By playing with ways of: speaking, hearing, watching, mapping, teasing, walking and archiving the city, Constant’s work brings to light unexpected facets of the capital. Through its varied approaches, the city that emerges is not smooth or simply functionalist, it’s not only shaped of competitive, innovative, smart or branded components. What emerges is not a single city but a bumpy, lived-in city of many layers, full of actions, affects and encounters that mark it in unexpected and sometimes very discrete ways. It’s a city that shapes and shelters collectives and collaborations that in turn shape the city. This flurry sets the ground for an enquiery into the non-human co-habitants of Brussels.

1.

Speaking the city

Far beyond the: ‘official languages’ of the already bi-lingual city, a rebellion of local dialects and turns-of-phrases resonate through the city from St Giles to Schaerbeek. They unveil a very multi lingual soundscape of hybrid languages always in the making. This city speaks in many tongues.

Spreekt u sint gillis ? Parlez-vous Saint-Gillois?

Est une base de données sonore composée des mots particuliers entendus dans le quartier Bosnie à Saint-Gilles, Bruxelles.
https://www.spreektu1060.be/

https://gallery3.constantvzw.org/var/albums/Super-vlieg-Super-mouche/IMG_9360.JPG?m=1454587772

Publication: ‘Spreekt U Sint-Gillis? Parlez-vous Saint-Gillois?’ Constant, 2015

La Langue Schaerbeekoise / De Schaarbeekse Taal

Is a collection of the words used by different groups around the Place Verboekhoven, aka La Cage aux Ours, to create a sound dictionary of the twenty-first century specific to this neighborhood.
http://www.lalangueschaerbeekoise.be/

Publication: ‘Mots de la Cage aux Ours, la langue Schaerbeekoise’ Constant, 2012

2.

Hearing the city

Lending an ear to the city as an instrument, brings out how it resonates and echoes with sounds. Attuning the human body to an embodied experience of the city, goes some way in blurring the boundary between the elements that make up a city: life forms, matter and the relations between them. This city is made up of changing relations.

3.

Watching the city

The city is not a fixed entity. It is constantly evolving. The introduction of CCTV cameras and their gaze on the city was quickly was intercepted by Constant … their work on CCTV cameras is on going. The legislative role of Brussels in Belgium and on a EU level gives this kind of work an important reach. While legislation marks the city in a very particular way, its inhabitants do challenge the course of things.

Brussels Map of Surveillance Cameras 2001

De bewakingscamera’s maken integrerend deel uit van het stedelijk landschap. Hun aantal is evenzeer gegroeid als de graad waarin ze ons onverschillig laten, mateloos dus. Constant komt met het voorstel, een inventaris op te maken van deze elektronische ogen in Brussel.
http://archive.constantvzw.org/events/survcam/

4.

Mapping the city

Mapping, unmapping, remapping the city. Representations of the city abound. Each attempt to capture the city, brings out different elements and obscures others, never fully rendering its depth and width. The process of mapping itself also builds new connections with the city fabrics, layering the experiences of it and therefore its individual but also shared collective perception.

5.

Teasing the city

Brussels has a playful side that both welcomes and entices play. The vernacular way in which the city is shaped, fixed and customised by the DIY attitude of some of its inhabitants, are particularly striking to the new comer. This series is collected and revisited in a blog by Peter W. that rouses giggles, intrigue, and invites more play and immagination. It matters what elements of the city are reproduced. It matters what images of the city are shared.

Brussels Anomalies (Peter Westenberg)

http://westenberg.constantvzw.org/

6.

Walking the city

If city life is marked by reoccurring daily, weekly and annual routines, it is just as shaped by the interruption of these regular rhythms. The diversions proposed by this set of walks through the city are led by curiosity and act as a reminder that there is nothing predictable about the city.

Routes + Routines, 2016

Wandelingen in Brussel Promenades à Bruxelles Walks in Brussels
http://constantvzw.org/site_dev/-Routes-Routines,5-.html?lang=en

Busboîtescartesmaps

Walks were conducted by several guides who imagined different experiments to understand space and urbanism differently.
http://constantvzw.org/w/?u=http://www.towards.be/busboitescartesmaps

7.

Archiving the city

It matters what histories of the city are (re)told. Some histories are often repeated, others are readily forgotten or left by the way side. So, connecting back to some of the ‘small’ histories that tend slip through the net or story telling, brings about important new associations that are necessary to challenge the ‘master narratives’ of dominant ‘big’ histories. Here in the traces of Paul Otlet, the history of the Mondothèque in Brussels is recounted.

Constant in other cities

Constant doesn’t work exclusively in Brussels : occasionally it branches out to other cities too. By doing so it draws temporary or lasting connections and associations based on shared interests. What’s striking though is to notice that Constant wouldn’t be Constant as it is, anywhere other than in Brussels. Constant would be something else. Something other. Because Brussels and Constant are inextricably reciprocally shaping each other in small by significant ways.