HeHe (Helen Hevans and Heiko Hansen) artwork
The artwork Panorama by Hehe can be seen at the Brucity Administrative Centre of the City of Brussels (Rue des Halles 4 - 1000 Brussels).
Panorama, 2022
Artist: HeHe
Paris-based artist duo composed of Helen Evans, 1972, Great Britain & Heiko Hansen, 1970, Germany.
Live and work in Le Havre.
The Panorama installation establishes a visual link between the remains of the past buried in the earth of the river Senne submerged banks and the future of Brussels. The work consists of a series of utopian forms, inspired by Brussels' architectural heritage, engraved on copper integrated circuit boards, affixed to the ceilings of the entrances to the roof terrace.
The artist duo uses a 3D representation of Brussels as source material. In this 3D model, every building in Brussels was modelled to form a database. The artists selected some of the city's architectural shapes and created new ones. Panorama can be perceived as a puzzle to be solved because all the original shapes that inspired the imaginary forms are recognisable in the real urban landscape.
The city's future inevitably stems from its past. These fictitious architectural buildings lost their original function. They are both enigmatic and absurd. Panorama humorously projects a futuristic vision of the city built and rebuilt on a skyline drawn from its past. With this work, the artists also evoke the 'smart city' idea where the city's administration and governance of the city will function by combining artificial intelligence algorithms and databases. This digital utopia exists only in software, in electronic code.
