MERCS and Video screenings in April

While I'm in Mexico I'll be working on my new research project entitled MERCS...

Here is a brief introduction

The Mobile Entropic Rapid Concourse System or MERCS, for short, was a concept for a new type of Metropolitan Rapid Transport System that emerged in response to architectural trends and material development in the 1980s. The project was conceived and was the most developed transport system proposed by TEnT (a cutting edge collection of scientists architects and thinkers, which stood for Technology for Entropic Transportation). MERCS was a direct response to a growing possibility of moving architecture and the growing use of public concourses. Taking its basis on a transferral of approaches from 'Entropy in Information Theory' to develop systems for public transportation, it was conceived on the foundation that there was a growing move toward building larger complexes which would house offices houses gyms shops restaurants etc, all linked by enclosed public space. Mercs was a transport system that was for the individual and formed in an entropic manner. Its creators saw it as vital in order for buldings to fully attain their growing infrarstructural role.

The idea was for concourses to be mobile - much like mobile walkways - but where the whole building or area would be following a trajectory. Yet within this movement which, depending on the scale of the architecture, small pods or shuttles would rapidly commune between these moving platforms. If MERCS were to have been constructed we would no longer map our cities with stationary systems but reconfigure the possibilities of city growth to reflect models of information exchange. 'Places' would be defined by their content not their geographical location and this is the basic principle of Entropic Transportation. This would mean that cities would no longer be restricted by geology in their development and could expand upwards, diagonally, or in any direction which was structurally possible - cities would form around human exchange rather than through traditional forms of layout and horizontal planning.

MERCS was often related to a growing interest throughout the 1970s in Personal Rapid Transport or PRT. This was a combination of kinematic theory and public transportation and consumption. PRT was about the bringing together of transport systems and the luxury and privacy of the auto-mobile. They would work like small cars where the destination would be programmed, a car would arrive and take the user directly to their destination without stopping. It was a highly feasible and desirable solution provoking much research and development. MERCS preached the same idea - yet the destination would be determined by content of the place and not its geographical position. MERCS was transportation that related directly to the individuals needs proposing that the areas one travelled too could be matched as closely as possible to where the user would most likely want to be, rather than where they thought they should go.

Video Screenings.

As part of the MERCS project I have chosen some Artist's Videos which I am screening at St. Martin's in April/May - here is the provisional programme:

14th April

Industrial Synth - Seth Price

The B.C. Corporate Story - The Bernedette Corporation

Minor Threat - Dan Graham

21st April

Post Modern/Post Script: British Video - Program II

Warning, Attack and Recovery - Clive Gillman

Shot Dead in Armagh - Simon Robertshaw

War Machine - Duvet Brothers

Blue Monday - Duvet Brothers

Strike - The Enemy Within

Death Valley Days - Gorilla Tapes

Beatnik - Marty St. James and Ann Wilson

Wardrobes of the Mind - John Scarlett Davis.

Who Knows the Secret? - Judith Goddard

Accidents in the Home: No. 17, Gasfires - Graham Young

28th April

All Wrongs Reversed ©1982

Romance - Seth Price

5th May

ALAN BERLINER - MYTH IN THE ELECTRIC AGE

12th May

BUREAU OF INVERSE TECHNOLOGY - SUICIDE BOX

If it's too bad to be true, it could be DISINFORMATION - Martha Rosler