Padraic Moore & Gary Farrelly /Dublin

My residency at Gropiusstadt took place in July and was devised primarily to accomplish the following
objectives:

-To challenge my fascination with Modernist architecture by inhabiting an edifice that epitomises
High Modernism, and document the results.

-To investigate narratives (factual and fictional) which could be discovered or created in response to an environment as stimulating as Gropiusstadt.

-To provide other cultural producers interested in the history, environment and spectacle of Gropiusstadt an opportunity to visit this bucolic high-rise conurbation.

-To produce an exhibition/publication in response to observations and findings made during my time at
Gropiusstadt.

The residency proved more captivating than I envisaged and thankfully, I was successful in all the
aforementioned aims. What follows are excerpts from a diary produced while residing at Gropiusstadt.

Day 1.
With Gary Farrelly in Another Green World, Christened in the modern mood.
In this house if in no other past and future may agree. From floor 12 what lies beneath appears as purely defined form. Temptations to leap over the threshold do not fade. But are filed away under ludicrous. Gazing down deep we see, extending from the base of each soaring structure, aprons of lush growth. Lagoons of green from which the sonorous songs of birds emanates. Multi faceted echoes reverberate in waves against rigid cliffs.

Day 3.
Suspicious and secretive. A population nearing completion. In grassy grottoes lie remnants of what was once a meticulously kept garden. Fountains, opulent and majestic have been extracted,
replaced by flower beds from which sweet pollen carries on the air, dries on the lips. You run your tongue over them. Every woman you meet, every man too, must have these sweet lips.

Day 4.
We sing the body electric under the sign of Taylor. The concrete citadel shuffles with life. New children play in the precinct. This habitat is detached, autonomous. As if it were disconnected. Functioning with little external interest or input. We feel safe and at home with new objectivity. Methodical systems and tacit agreements are maintained, but the loneliness/happiness problem remains unsolved. Smiles turn to a bites, an embrace to a deadly grip.

Day 6.
A woman is smoking alone on her balcony. A secretary in the daytime, she wears glass chains
around her neck. This project is ongoing, though we cannot be sure of its success. The clock stopped at the violet hour and so the city dissolves into fields and rural lanes where Aleana Egan and I go walking. Gazing back at the monolith from our distance. Because art is a mission demanding complete
fanaticism, I have a plan. To be healthy and virile, active and useful, balanced and happy.