Associação Cultural Videobrasil

To the artist Haig Aivazian, the inauguration of the Burj Khalifa building – the world’s tallest, located in Dubai – is the emblem to a global logic. Having lived in the country for ten years, Aivazian retraces the genesis of his piece, which sets out to bare the connections between architecture and economics. He discusses the disturbing experience of living everyday with the city-state’s construction policy, whereby shiny towers completed devoid of relation with the surroundings are erected on the sand, built by a legion of expatriate workers fleeing the poverty-ridden Southeast Asia. He says he is not speaking of Dubai specifically, but rather trying to oppose the notion that architecture is a local phenomenon brought about by regional political and economic conditions. On the contrary, according to him, a building like the Burj Khalifa owes its existence to the interests of a global financial network. He also tells of how even before its construction, the building was all over Dubai through a fabulous advertising scheme that turned it into a true ghost, a sort of futuristic ruin.