The Aerotrain is an air cushion vehicle conceived by the engineer Jean Bertin at the beginning of the 60’s. Two tracks were built. The first one, in the south-west suburbs of Paris between Gometz and Limours, was 6,7 km long. The second and proper experimental track, located in the north of Orléans, between Saran and Ruan, was 18 km long. It was built on piles which were between 6 and 7 meters high above the ground. The tests of the different prototypes took place from 1965 to 1975. They were very successful and the “I80 Aerotrain” reached the speed of 428km/h. But the SNCF, that was partner of the project, decided to invest totally on the TGV. The Aerotrain saw an ally in the Pompidou government, which decided to build a line between Paris and Cergy. But the next government cancelled the project. Bertin died in 1975. The tests were financed by the Bertin society until 1978, when due to low budget and lack of outlets, the whole project of the Aerotrain was halted. The I80 Aerotrain stayed in its warehouse till it burnt in March 1992. (1)
In 2001, the 6,7 km experimental track of the Aerotrain, between Gometz and Limours (south of Paris) is still visible, but it is partially covered by the vegetation. Between Ruan and Saran (north of Orléans), the second experimental track of 18 km still runs through the fields and the Chevilly forest. It runs parallel to the current railway track and to the N20.
The Aerotrain, just like Buckminster Fuller’s Dymaxion car for example, is not the kind of project an artist could add to, it is too fascinating in itself. One might say that an artist could bring back this project to the present time, give it a new lease of life. That was not our intention, we were clear on the subject from the very beginning. As a matter of fact, we discovered the site before the vehicle, we started the project from the experimental track, not from the Aerotrain. The Aerotrain does not have an actual life, it only exists in pictures (2). All the different Aerotrain prototypes were shred to pieces until very recently, when one of them was reconstructed and shown at “Retromobile” fair. The track on the other hand is real, people see it through their train windows or cars every day, farmers work on their fields just next to it. The Aerotrain track is an object in the landscape, it is now part of this landscape. This structure is not a proper ruin. In his famous « tour of the Monuments of Passaic, New Jersey » Robert Smithson describes the ruins in reverse : « This is the opposite of the « romantic ruin » because the buildings don’t fall into ruin after they are built but later rise into ruin before they are built. »(3) It is part of this strange category of the modern ruin : the unfinished projects… these « monuments » so close in form to their sisters -the actual ruins. What hypotheses could we draw from that ? We could see these « monuments », these aborted projects as the witnesses, the testimonies of the constructions of dream, of utopia ; a monument of utopia, etymologically u-topos, i.e. non-site, we could see in them a passage from the « imaginary site » (a site eternally beyond the map) to the « site of the imaginary ».
The Aerotrain track is the engine of a double motion : of the body and of the imaginary. It was that first observation which gave us the idea of constructing a new vehicle for the site. A vehicle that should function as a mirror, an object of analysis within the image of the site. Our Pentacycle should also be the generator of a double motion. We could bring back to the present something that has never been of the present time. Because this is one of the main aspects of the whole Aerotrain story: the fact that it missed its own time. The Aerotrain is an « assemblage of heterogeneous times », as George Didi-Huberman would have said. It is a temporal ball of tangled up threads. The Aerotrain, as in science-fiction, anticipates a future that only reflects the technology and the yearling of its own time, or even of an already past time. One is constantly reminded of Lawrence Alloway's weird observation « yesterday’s tomorrow is not today » This is the second characteristic of this site : the fact that it is suspended between a multiplicity of times that never meet. It was essential for us to think of a vehicle that would underline that particular feature. We needed to produce an image of that temporal complexity. That is why we gathered material, images of very different types of cycles from their very beginning to the present day, and then did a collage of shapes, techniques and times. Finally, what attracted us to that project was its reference to another ambiguity of the site, i.e. the track as a fragment. This structure was meant for a road, a track, directional space leading from point A to point B. Left unfinished, the Aerotrain track does not lead anywhere but to itself; “Like a small work of art, a fragment must be totally detached from the surrounding world, and closed on itself like an hedgehog” (F. Schlegel). It is both a closed space and part of the space. Here again we thought our Pentacycle should respond to that fondamental ambiguity, and should be built to refer to a function it will not have, being a vehicle.
1. For more details:
http://perso.libertysurf.fr/LFEY/ANNEES60.html http://aernav.citeweb.net/Aerotrain/M_Aerotrain.html
2. Up to very recently all the different Aerotrain prototypes were spread into pieces, sommeone worked a great deal of time to rebuild one of them, it was showed at “Retromobile” fair in 2000.
3. The writings of Robert Smithson, Ed. Nancy Holt, 1979, New York University press, p.54.
Raphael Zarka and Vincent Lamouroux are artists. They live in Paris.