Prelude at Dr. Gancevici

Project in an abandoned house in Bucharest, Romania. In collaboration with: Tudor Bratu (RO/NL), Illeana Faur (RO), Alice Gancevici (RO), Andreea Peterfi (RO), Remus Puscariu (RO)  ---- After the discovery of the amazing Dr. Gancevici, who unbeknown to us lived amongst our midst in the center of Bucharest for almost 50 years, we have worked on indexing and archiving the wonderful inventions and discoveries that the grand Doctor left behind before his untimely death. An eccentric at heart and a visionary of mind, Dr. Gancevici has throughout his life attempted at improving the quality of the human condition. This "human condition" gravitates as we know around issues of life and death and birth and decay and it has been Dr. Gancevici's legacy to provide us with new and unexpected answers to profound and ancient questions. The accidental discovery of Dr. Gancevici's legacy in his former house on 31 Henri Coanda Street came about when during a sunny Sunday afternoon whilst strolling the neighborhood and enjoying the spring air we found the door at Nr. 31 open and, on a whim, decided to have a look inside. It took but a glance to find ourselves dumbstruck in awe at the marvel that awaited us. Not attempting at generating a classical archive, our labor consists mainly in reinventing and reassembling Dr. Gancevici's legacy, endeavor made difficult due to the fact that the house had been numerously vandalized after his death and prior to our discovery. As a consequence all the Doctors writings and inventions had been torn apart and scattered all over the place, dismantled and dysfunctional. Our labor became thus twofold: first, to document, index and archive the Doctor's life work, second, to attempt at an understanding of the range and intellectual scope of the great Doctor's oeuvre. During our work we found ourselves not only retracing the steps of Dr. Gancevici's inventions, but also reinventing the original atmosphere of the moment of creation, which to us seemed to be the essence of the wonderful world Dr. Gancevici had been erecting throughout his life. We wish to now open the House at 31 Henri Coanda Street to a larger audience, through this first attempt, the Prelude, a presentation of our efforts and Dr. Gancevici's combined.