LEM (Ludic Environment Machine)
1972-1974
Happening
Materials:
The LEM is a machine with which images can be printed on the ground. Made in a metalworking company in Huizingen, near Brussels, it consists of a frame on which three pressure rollers are mounted and a container that can hold 150 litres of paint. When the machine moves forward, powered by a Vespa engine, it leaves an imprint on the ground. For Mass Moving, it is the perfect way to take control of their ultimate means of communication: the street.
First, they print flowers on the asphalt in different cities. When a highway threatens to cross through the Brussels commune of Schaarbeek, they use the LEM as a means of protest and fill the streets with prints of banknotes. On the occasion of the 'Venus' exhibition in the Centre for Fine Arts in Brussels, the silhouette of the Venus de Milo is printed and, during the Beethoven Year in Bonn, the latter's bust.
LEM is also the abbreviation for Lunar Excursion Module, the lunar lander of NASA's Apollo space programme. Between 1961 and 1972, NASA tried everything in its power to land 'Man' on the Moon.
