Preface -
Could we imagine an economically sustainable future for Vardø other than a touristic resort, a business island, a militar base? Vardø as the artic terminal for incredible and memorable honeymoons on the ice? A diplomatic capital of the arctic? A financial paradise for oil companies? Is the aim of this competition to solve the Vardø’s local problems or just to cover the real scale of the diplomatic partition of the artic resources? We are afraid that whatever intervention made, aimed to a future development of Vardø, will become accomplice of the Artic´s fatal fate. It will be a trojan horse for the entire Northern Pole. We do not condemn urban interventions - regenerations - in general. We are critical on this specific situation because of its extreme location. The reality is that, whatever action is taken will surely change the existing Vardø, its symbolic essence as the northest Fortress of the world.
The Choice of Myth -
Already this mythological role, was represented in Olaus Magnus´ Carta Marina, a description of the northern countries where the real and the myth coexisted together. The map revealed Vardø´s lost simbolic identity: Vardø was the non-reachable port, a motivation to explore the unknown. The collective unconscious characterized Vardø as the last city of the North, populated by devils, witches, monsters and men praying to the Moon. Colonizing Vardø would correspond to the fall of Myth, to the decay of its own identity: as Odysseus destroyed the Sirens imposing his reason to their irrational song.
Therefore, to reject the logical fate of Vardø we enhance the power of Myth. We do not expect to reverse the machine of rationality but rather to erode its internal processes inserting a worm of doubt.
The Fortress of Vardø -
Vardø’s Fortress is an outpost of rationality.
Placed at the frontiers of knowledge, the Fortress defends the limits of the kingdom, predicts new strategies and directs future expansions. There is an efficient executive hierarchy hidden in the core of the Fortress, and a precise system of control on top, under the dome .The head of the Fortress is filled with books and wise scientists. As a center of progress, there are intense researches on the Arctic, on the ice melting, on the gas and oil treasures hidden under the polar cap.
On the second level, an entire society of workers incessantly produce concepts, projects, strategies according to the rational orders coming from the head. Strictly organized within spatial and temporal costraints, they are forced to subjugate their will and imagination to the directions received. Workers are so embedded within the rational machine that they are unable to oppose with critical judgements.
The third level is the domain of the Spectacle, a society of consumerism. The veil of rationality covers the cruel intentions of capitalism. Through colored boxes and incandescent apparences they seduce other minds, destroying their autonomy, vanishing their souls.
The Egg of Doubt -
The Egg is a floating piece of space, a place without a place, that exists by itself, that is closed in on itself and at the same time is given over to the infinity of the sea. It preserves the odyssey of explorers. There is return in the difference,but no repetition in the identity.
The Myth is revealed from the Egg to the world where it is closest to the sky, through narration, spoken out.
However,the Myth is in every corner, even behind this room (it would be possible to perceive strange noises coming from a remote world just by resting an ear on the wall). In the plan, the skin of the Egg is juxtaposed to the spaces of ordinary life. The distance between the mute observance of the constraints of rationality and the awakening of the imagination is sometimes as narrow as a partition wall.
