The Poipoidrom

(Robert Filliou - Joachim Pfeufer)

Robert: Paris, Winter of 1963. One morning I was riding the subway to see my friend, Joachim Pfeufer, I guess I was going to borrow money from him to pay my rent. Jo is an architect. And he paints, too. At that time he spent most of his time with his painting. Today he is perfectly devoted to urbanistics.
On that cold morning I was watching the people on the subway. They all looked sad, worried, angry, and lonely. (I, myself, must have looked the same.) "What shall I do?", I was wondering, "I would love to do something. What? Why? For whom? For these people. But what? And why?", and so on.
I thought of my life. Is my creative activity worth all the effort and discipline? After all, I only feel a tiny little better than as if I had not broken free from the system. And I am not positive even about this one. As Marianne said once when she grew tired of our artsy ways and the continuous hypocrisy: "You are only artists when you are working on something. As soon as your work ends, you stop being artists." And this is true. Creative activity alone is not enough. One can not just stop. One must not do that. That's it, I thought. What I have to let everybody know is the art of the permanent creative activity. The Institution for the Permanent Creative Activity. Based on humor, wackiness, goodwill, and participation.When I finally got to Jo, I told him about my idea and asked him to help. He agreed straight away and we started to work. The Poipoidrom was born out of this cooperation.

Joachim (1972): The Poipoidrom is the functional relation of thinking, activity, and communication. A chair, a work-bench, or an open mind can be a minimal Poipoidrom. The combination of a great number of minimums is not simply many chairs or many work-benches - a great calm. The Poipoidrom is an expression of this. And it is, at the same time, the matrix of two different routes: that of activity and that of thinking - which corresponds to the different dispositions of the co-constructors, Robert Filliou and Joachim Pfeufer 

The optimal Poipoidrom is an instantly realizable building of the size of 24x24 meters. What should be put inside, and how it should be built up became clear during ten years of research. The co-urbanists are now working on the designation of the building's site and they welcome any suggestions coming from anyone.  

Homage (and acknowledgements) to the Dogons

We owe the term 'Poipoi' to this African tribe, of which term we have heard from our friend, the Dutch architect and ethnologist, Herman Hahn. He also made the photos of the Dogon territory situated in the middle of Mali.

When two Dogon meets, they start asking questions each other like:

"How is your meadow? and how is your family? and how are your cattle? and how are your poultry? and how is your house?... etc." The answer to these questions is always a simple "Poipoi" after which they part, or sometimes they start all over again.

The Poipoi Foundation (1975)

The aim of the association: to promote the realization, control and operation of Real Space-Time Poipoidroms as well as to defend their artistic integrity on French territory or abroad according to methods determined by co-directing Robert Filliou and Joachim Pfeufer.

Donations: considering the co-architects' interest in the decentralization and gratuitousness of the creative act... considering the poor financial status of the communities due to which they can not help tightening the belt of culture..., each time when it is possible and desirable, the co-architects will provide, in exchange of a symbolic 1 Franc, the description and the sketches of Prototype 00 as well as any other documents and innovations in accordance with the demands and resources of the given administrative unit.

Presentation of "Poïpoïdrom à Espace-Temps Réel No. 1 / Real Space Time Poipoidrom # 1." to the Hungarian public, Young Artist´s Club, Budapest 17 Septembre 1976, at 7 p.m.

Source of the documents: "1/2 + 1/2 = filliou/pfeufer - Le [ou la] Poïpoïdrome à Espace-Temps Réel Prototype 00" catalogue, Yellow Now, Liège, 1975 (English translation: Bea Hock)