Cristian Rusu

The Cliché Space

Cristian Rusu’s project at Künstlerhaus Büchsenhausen explored the concept of clichéd space, which he interpretes as “a specialized means of distributing information”.

Cristian Rusu writes: “The cliché emerges from the need for efficiency in communication and fulfils two functions: on the one hand, it superimposes the sum of information on the system that has brought it forth (constructive aspect) and on the other, it semantically uncovers this summum as it may reproduce itself over and over. This attribute leads to an erosion of information (destructive aspect). The cliché is produced by cultural entities/groups and accepted by them, also through the generation and development of methods for its distribution. Thus the emergence of a cliché is founded on the reactivation of several layers in the collective memory that are able to establish instant connections between different areas of our collective experience. […] A cliché comes about through the efficient mingling of various information structures, its validity depending on its probation period. I am referring to well-known photographs, graphical identities and icons of world culture—all of them disseminated through the media. The reading and reprocessing of these images are in themselves successful techniques. […] Because of the background of my activities—as an artist and stage designer—I explore spaces. Whether it’s living space, the city, the stage, sound spaces, or trans-geographic spaces, I take them all as experiences through which to reexamine space in itself. My research project concentrates on the following questions: can the three-dimensional structure of space become a space cliché, as frequently happens with two-dimensional images? Does space have a realistic chance of becoming a cliché? Which cultural preconditions must it fulfill and which components of the recipient’s collective memory does it have to encounter for a plastic-visual system to emerge, allowing it to be defined as a cliché? Which innermost regions cause a spatial structure to take on meanings in terms of a cliché?”

Cristian Rusu participated in a lecture series at the Department for Architectural Theory at the University of Innsbruck during the 2007 summer semester.