"New Babylon is above all a social utopia based on Homo Ludens"

In 1963, the situationist artist Constant Nieuwenhuys drew his plans for the New Babylon over Antwerp maps. This illustration of the unitary urbanism utopic and futuristic city created connections and layers of collective spaces to offer the citizens unpredicted situations, new possibilities of interaction and meeting. 

Using the transformations that will take place with the ring capping as a starting point, we want to stress the relation between the possible and the desirable urban situations with unexpected uses of the public spaces. 

Our aim is to unveil the imaginary of New Babylon over Antwerp, designing collectively a new cartography to represent the pre-existences, emergences and desires of its actual inhabitants.

Over a public space in Luchbtal, directly on the urban ground, we will draw with cray and paint our version of a gigantesque New Babylon map to building an ephemeral situation of play that will discuss connections and interactions on Antwerp nowadays. 

This ephemeral cartography will be designed and debated by students and local young people through participatory dynamics and a hands-on urban intervention. Like a hopscotch, it will stimulate a joyful and playful situation for the direct interaction of the inhabitants with the representation of their city and expected situations.

The story of Luchtbal

Making the environment around Luchtbal, a multicultural northern district in Antwerp, more pleasurable for inhabitants and attractive for external visitors, was central during a week of brainstorming, prototyping and realization.

Children and their way of transforming different elements into games and ways to express their imagination were also a very important part of this week’s workshop - that's why we created interactive floor art for these little creators of joy.

We created three artworks in different locations in the neighborhood. Each drawing is a hot air balloon drawn around present elements on the street. We connected them by drawing arrows on the sidewalks. Inhabitants can go on a quest throughout Luchtbal to find the different paintings. We used a striking blue painting as it's a strong recognizable visual language to create the artworks and arrows. 

In the beginning, we traced the general shape of all the balloons and used semi- permanent blue paint. This formed the base for our little creators to unleash their inner artist and to join us in filling in the blank spots. 

Ultimately, every balloon was a piece of art, but also an interactive game for these children to play with. We used childhood games that evoke intuitivity while still calling for their imagination to come up with new games.