An Artist In Prague Wants To Artificially Grow Gigantic Caves

This article was originally published on Vice Czech/Slovakia (thank you to Pavel Cejka for the tip!)

Jakub Jansa has a vision: he wants to build a cave on a plateau in the Swiss Alps. Sure, who wouldn’t? But there’s a catch—Jansa wants the cave to build itself over a period of time.

Though it may sound like a foolish utopia, this could actually happen with the help of intelligent material that will elevate the terrain on the basis of pre-programmed parameters. Called Engstligenalp, the proposed project requires twelve inverted, cone-shaped devices to be inserted 40 meters into the floor of a plateau in the Alps. Each device is filled with layered capsules of cellular bacteria which will be activated by the flow of accumulated water, yielding monumental holes and shapes that will form artificial caves alongside natural ones, all on the same plane.

“Caves fascinate me and so does the process of how they originate," said Jansa. He continued:

"I contemplated whether such a cave can be created and why someone should want to create something like that. I have a feeling that the next step in the branch of design, architecture and art, is to design things that grow and form themselves in a model determined by man – it is a strange perversion that I want to investigate. It is in all of us, we constantly need to make our own system. The monument that will originate in the mountains, will be a monument of this tendency."

The project would take years to start, and then literal centuries to actually notice any changes in the earth. So to support his vision, Jansa's idea is being getting supported by an exhibition in the Colloredo-Mansfeld Palace, which allows visitors to dream about this bizarre and unique proposal. To clarify the ambitious plan, Lukas Kijonka, who guest curated the exhibition with Monika Doležalová, answered some questions for us.

A map of where Jakub Jansa wants to build his artificial caves.

Jansa at the plateau in the Swiss Alps.

The Creators Project: Jakub Jansa has an idea to build and program a device that would build, on its own, a complex of caves in several thousand years. It’s really hard for me to imagine this. How will it all function?

Lukáš Kijonka: Jakub’s long-term interest is in the control of natural processes. For example, the programming of flowers. Building a cave is related to the invention of a programmable segment—of a certain type of intelligent rock. Individual segments know their location and position within the scope of the overall composition. The process of origin would resemble natural processes rather than commonly used building procedures.

Are you going to interfere in the on-going process in any way, or are you just going to activate it and then just watch how it’s growing on its own?

Basic parameters should be set and the “construction” should then function automatically. Jakub would need to find a suitable site. After that, water and grains would grow the sediments automatically.

To what extent will the whole system be intelligent anyway? I cannot imagine an increase of IQ in a rock.

The main problem and utopia in the context of current knowledge is the securing of the actual energetic core of each segment. The programming of the position itself is not such a distant concept.

So you want to use technology for the purpose of man going back to living in caves?

Anything could be made from this small programmed particle, for instance a pair of glasses. It is basically like another phase of a 3D printer. Jakub is very interested in the meaning and development of the functionality of various attributes of architecture. In the development of materials and technologies that used to serve strictly as a technical aid, but gradually acquired aesthetical meaning. I think that the metaphor of a cave is well readable in this context.

Prototype image of the devices that will be buried underground.

What is the connection between the cave project and the essence of the exhibition?

The exhibition introduces Jakub’s project but it uses various programs to clarify things for viewer. If you play the very lapidary game [at the Colloredo-Mansfeld Palace], it will program your movement. In the second part of the exhibition, you can get acquainted with Jakub’s existing research and put together your own story from a certain diary of the author. There is also some self-irony apparent here, as well as a clearly admitted exaggeration in relation to the topics of the exhibition. The third room will offer a look into the past. It would be a shame to reveal the rest.

How much will the entire cave cost?

It is all a question of development. It’s like when hardly anyone believed ten years ago that it will be possible to make a touch screen cheaply and in quantity.

Why did you have to go all the way to Switzerland with the cave anyway? Wasn’t it possible in the Czech Republic?

The location was selected intuitively, but it fulfills the basic parameters for construction.

When would you like to commence this and when will the ribbon be cut in the finished cave? Will I live to see it?

Jakub has already started and I think that attempts to change the rules and settings that appear to be unsurpassable are going on not only in genetics. There is a chance, then, to see the cave in several decades, and perhaps other exhibitions about this non-existing technology and experiments in using it.

See a video on the project, too:

Further information can be found at: www.ghmp.cz, https://www.facebook.com/startupghmp