Editorial

Elina Axioti & Toni Moceri

Origin: Static Issue 04
Content: Text

No place and every place accommodates us.

Adolfo Bioy Casares, in his novella The Invention of Morel (1939), tells the story of a man who tries to accommodate himself within a ‘fictional’ present, constructed by somebody else… Within his novella, Casares offers a paradigm of the paradoxical manner in which we accommodate ourselves. Morel’s effort is an unconventional way to inhabit a place; he pervades and shapes the ‘reality’ on the island. Fundamental to such an effort is the feeling of a lack of place, whether virtual or material, literal or fictional…

To be Unaccommodated involves movement, progress, motivation, process, and creative expression. At times, it is marked by extreme and radical phenomena that include departures, displacements and constructions of new environments and produce paradoxical inhabitations. Many works by architects, artists and theorists demonstrate sensitivity towards the spatial impacts of these phenomena. They present an immense variety of alternative strategies available in order for us to review our relationship with the places we inhabit.

New forms of urbanism already shaping the 21st century—contemporary migration patterns, utopic spatial approaches, strategies of intervention and introspection, the ‘instant cities’ of China and Dubai—enjoy a common point of reference. The desire to reshape environments expresses a mutual devotion to addressing the ‘unaccommodated’. By conceptualizing, theorizing and discussing approaches to space this issue of Static examines and presents a variety of these stimulating results of the Unaccommodated.  

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Editorial Team:

Elina Axioti is an architect focusing on topics of theory and design. She has recently completed a Master of Research in Humanities and Cultural Studies at the London Consortium after graduating from the University of Thessaly in Greece. She has participated in several architectural competitions and exhibitions. Recent works include: Marginal Boundaries, a design project that negotiates 'limits' within the problematic of the theory of topology (http://marginalsurfaces.blogspot.com/) and Inhabitating the Bathroom, a theoretical work attempting to deconstruct the concept of ‘hygienic space’ in modernity.

Toni Moceri is a cultural researcher focusing on topics of urbanism. She graduated from the University of Michigan with a Bachelor of Arts in American Culture and Anthropology and has recently completed a Master of Research in Humanities and Cultural Studies at the London Consortium. Her MRes dissertation explores issues related to memory, locality and civics in the Detroit suburb of Warren. Toni is a frequent collaborator with artists and architects. She has worked on Shrinking Cities, a project funded by the German Federal Cultural Foundation and participated in the Bauhaus Kolleg VI, Transnational Spaces, in Dessau, Germany. Currently, she works at [ s p a c e ],  a studio provider and visual arts organization in London.

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