An imaginary extension
Of this place
To reconnect with a new understanding
http://timeboxbeirut.com
"TIMEBOX Beirut" is a public art project in Beirut, Lebanon, a trail of stereoscopic boxes holding century-old archival images of 10 different locations around the city. Each box holds one archival stereograph at the location where it was originally taken 100 years ago. Passers by experience that same street a century back in 3D. TIMEBOX was installed in 10 locations around the city from June 1st to October 1st, 2015.
A series of walks were organized around the trail in direct action against neoliberal policies that have changed the oldest part of the city into a privately owned, governed and operated commercial district. Each of these images is an intimate, visually and physically immersive experience of how people owned the streets of Beirut: as street vendors, street performers, pedestrians and public transport commuters. By collectively crossing highways, being foot traffic that is not shopping, taking shortcuts through endangered ungoverned sites of modern and ancient ruins and staircases, these walks collapsed the gap between exhibition and demonstration, art and activism, the City and its dwellers.
*a stereograph is the right-eye and left-eye view of the same scene that together create a single three-dimensional image when placed in a stereoscope.
Foch Street, 1920, Stereograph*, Matson (G. Eric and Edith) Photograph Collection, Library of Congress
TIMEBOX was produced in cooperation with Heinrich Böll Stiftung MENA Office (Beirut) and was launched on June 1st, 2015 at the Beirut Design Week with four walks across the urban trail.
Another tour today at 4PM meeting at Ferrari Showroom, Saifi Village
Posted by Timebox Beirut on Monday, 15 June 2015
product design by Lotfi AlSalah
TIMEBOX is a modern plexiglas stereoscope specially designed to mount on a street pole. It holds two 5cm x 5cm positive slide film prints of the original stereograph.
Beirut Design Week specials: #designers feast your eyes! and talk to our product designer Lotfi.alsalah@gmail.com for your questions and collaborations! #beirutdesignweek #speaking #internationaldesignconference #live
Posted by Timebox Beirut on Tuesday, June 2, 2015
art walks as demonstration
Each timebox places the viewer's point of view within the perspective of the original stereograph, instigating an instant visual and spatial juxtaposition between past and present - and possibly a glimpse into the future?
A three-dimensional image creates a tactile-spatial visual imprint; timebox places it in its original context to provoke a sense of how Beirut’s urban public space has changed in the past century.
The act of walking through the trail of 10 timeboxes around Beirut or simply stumbling upon a timebox while passing through a street aims to revisit our experience of Beirut’s public spaces and how it has changed.
A series of walks were organized around the trail as a direct response to neoliberal policies that have changed the oldest part of the city into a privately owned, governed and operated commercial district. Each of these images is an intimate, visually and physically immersive experience of how people owned the streets of Beirut: as street vendors, street performers, pedestrians and public transport commuters. By collectively crossing highways, being foot traffic that is not shopping, taking shortcuts through hidden sites of ancient ruins and staircases, these walks collapsed the gap between exhibition and demonstration, art and activism, the City and its dwellers.
an urban toy
timebox is an urban toy; a pleasant surprise; an interesting way of reconnecting with the street; and with the image.
Looking into the timebox, the viewer is immersed in scenes from the 1900s. One viewer with one image, an intimacy often lost in our photo-sharing world. The transparency of the media used enhances the illusion of depth but also allows a layering of past and present. An illusion and disillusion. It aims to maintain a nuanced observation rather than enchantment; it is rather a disenchantment from the collective nostalgia for the days of tramway Beirut and a realization that things have changed, are still changing.
an urban trail
A selection of 10 stereographs from the Matson (G. Eric and Edith) Photograph Collection, Library of Congress and The Fouad Debbas Collection were mounted across Beirut.
Each timebox is geotagged on a timebox Beirut Google map, a user-friendly urban trail of the entire installation. Printed maps were distributed in Beirut's public libraries, cultural centers, bookstores and cafes.
© Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, the G. Eric and Edith Matson Collection, LC-DIG-MATPC-01185, -01186,-01187, -01188, -02215, -05992, -10591
© The Fouad Debbas Collection
TIMEBOX Beirut at Sursock Museum
Sursock Museum commissioned a special edition of TIMEBOX to be installed permanently on their fence looking into their central garden.
Want to see what the original Martyrs’ Square monument looked like in 1930? Look through the newly installed Timebox...
Posted by Sursock Museum on Friday, 25 September 2015
TIMEBOX Beirut at the Sursock Museum is a time place portal following Youssef Howeyek’s iconic Martyrs Memorial, also known as The Weeping Women. Look inside. From a mandate-commissioned public memorial to an art piece in Sursock Museum’s permanent collection. How did it get here? Why was it replaced? A man poses in front of the memorial to the camera. Is it a memorial out here and a work of art in there?
© Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, the G. Eric and Edith Matson Collection, LC-DIG-matpc-05991
YOUSSEF HOYEK
b. 1883, Helta, Lebanon – d. 1962, Helta, Lebanon
[Monument aux Martyrs, dit Les Pleureuses]
Martyrs Memorial, also known as The Weeping Women
1930
Limestone
Gifted by the Beirut Municipality, 1993
On May 6th, 1916, sixteen opponents to Ottoman rule were executed on Cannons’ Square in downtown Beirut.
In 1930, Mandate authorities commissioned Youssef Hoyek, the leading sculptor of the period, to create a statue in commemoration of these martyrs. The monument, which came to be known as Weeping Women (Les Pleureuses), was unveiled on December 19th, the ten-year anniversary of the proclamation of the state of Greater Lebanon, signaling the French’s ambitions to legitimize their rule.
Originally 6 meters high, the statue was placed on the sidewalk of Martyrs Square, renamed to commemorate its placement.
A Christian and Muslim woman sit facing each other, reaching for a funerary urn symbolizing the martyrdom of their sons. The urn is symbolic of Lebanon’s Phoenician history, where cremation was a common practice.
The statue’s portrayal of maternal sorrow, with perceived connotations of defeat, was heavily criticized as inadequate in honoring the martyrs’ memory. There were recurrent demonstrations calling for its removal, finally resulting in its attack with a hammer in 1948.
In 1953, the Beirut municipality ceded to these demands, removing it from the square. Despite an open call competition, plans to replace the monument were delayed until the government consensus on the artist choice could be reached. Italian sculptor Marino Mazzacurati was finally selected. The new memorial with its overt masculine connotations of heroism and victory was unveiled in 1960.
(from Sursock Museum's caption)
TIMEBOX Beirut - installation, geotagged urban trail, artist-led walking tours, online interface - 2013-2015