Wasteland-Disco-Squad Edition No. 1: A Short Report
The Wasteland Disco Squad’s 1st Edition visited the most western point of the northern edge of a former launchway – a structure that leads into Amsterdam’s IJ-canal, and has originally been used for launching and landing boats and ships, or for building and repairing them. Situated between the waters that fill the launchway on its southern, and by a canal on its northern side, the small area has the outlook of a veritable peninsula.
Ever since the Nederlandsche Dok en Scheepsbouw Maatschappij (NDSM) – the Dutch Dock and Shipbuilding Company – went out of business and abandoned the premises in the late 1970s, the launchway has been left to its own devices. Since a decade, however, the area undergoes an ever accelerating redevelopment process. In the waters of the IJ that border the launchway and the adjoining bank, a floating wave-breaker and a marina are in the process of being installed.
Since approximately two years, a bike and pedestrian path leads straight through the former launchway and cuts the top of the launchway off from the remainder. This ‘transection’ informs the idiosyncratic, cosy, almost ‘living room-like’ quality of the launchway’s two outmost points.
Due to deadly weather, the Wasteland Disco Squad’s 1st Edition had to be postponed – whereupon about 70% of the original program dropped out. The remaining 30%, however, made for an intimate, yet windy Sunday evening for the few enthusiasts that found their way to the North.
See also www.wastelanddiscosquad.nl/archive & www.facebook.com/Pirate.Cinema
