16 TONS: The Caseros Prison Demolition

16 TONS: The Caseros Prison Demolition
Talk by Seth Wulsin
Thursday, 7 January, 7 - 8pm
Eyelevel BQE, 364 Leonard St, Brooklyn

Wulsin will examine the transformations of a decomposing emblem of modernist dystopia, exploring themes of architectural immanence, historical resonance and the human survival complex through the lens of the 16 Tons: Caseros Prison Project.

16 Tons was a direct action on the 22-story Caseros Prison building that sought to connect the scales of human perception and cosmic movement through the filter of demolition architecture. After five weeks of on-site work, the artist created 48 faces spanning 18 unique stories, visually formed across the rows of windows that line the prison's exterior. The countenances themselves—inscribed in a pixel-like system on the gridded windows, knocked out or left intact—were evoked regularly with the coming of the day's light. Over the course of the following year and a half, the building was demolished floor by floor—and with it, these images.

http://platformed.org/programs/16tons.html