Station 5: Diorama Themroc

“Will anyone believe that such houses exist?” This is how Rainer Maria Rilke opens his description of the wall of a condemned house in Paris in the early 20th century, still bearing traces of the lives of its former residents. Ruins such as these were created by Baron Haussmann’s radical urban renewal programme designed to improve the city’s layout. In the legendary film 1973 Themroc Michel Piccoli breaks through a Parisian house wall and turns his home into a cave. In 1975, the artist Gordon Matta-Clark created Conical Intersect – a series of circular openings – in a condemned building in Paris. Eyal Weizman writes that nowadays Israeli army special forces plan their attacks on Palestinian terrorists through a series of breaches through walls and roofs.

Recalling these different forms of breaches, our diorama presents views of various circular openings. From an attic, we move on to a dilapidated living space in an adjoining building. A mirror reflection shows fragments of a musée imaginaire of ancient knowledge and desire.