Largely unreported by everyone is a fringe architecture festival scheduled at the same time as the Venice Biennale; also staged in La Serenissima, this Slamdance of the star-studded exhibition is titled Not There: Architecture Beyond Building. Advanced media previews sent to the cut-and-paste cognoscenti suggest that an installation involving a milking rotary will likely be showstopper. Displaying a surprising mastery of artspeak, the Betsky-rejected farmer-artist from Des Moines, Iowa tells us that this event performance considers the current world food crisis; the grotesque beauty of technological efficiency; agriculture as a legitimate art practice; and farms as sites of experimentations and thus possible ground zero for new and alternative theories of landscape architecture. To attract attendees, carry bags will be given away.
