Reality is submerged by the sharing and spreading of digital information and visual content through global networks, which create relatively abstract virtual environments and communities. Grasping reality is now only possible through the endless use of representational mediums, which have essentially out-balanced reality’s status leading to a society, which has lost its ability to distinguish reality from its simulacrum. This egalitarian condition allows for a new observation: the ‘post-truth era’.

As artists and architects, through Portable Us, we tried to research the existing tension and movement between the natural and the artificial, between the truth and a simulation of the truth, with an emphasis on how to represent these tensions. The airport and the connecting/disconnecting airplane is not only considered in our work as an economic-architectural space but as a manipulating politico-sexually charged space. Overall, the project showcases smaller and larger scenographic models, performances and three-dimensional drawings that challenge and confront viewers with what reality is.

Moreover 'Portabe Us' turns out to be extremely relevant considering the present-day situation. In the frame of the project we grounded a (hand-cut) passenger aircraft, allowed people to travel from home and even quarantined ourselves, turning our home into a broadcasting studio. Now, most people experience home-confinement, home traveling while indeed most passenger aircrafts are ground…