In our research and practice we are developing a new perspective on collectivity that is constituted by built elements, space, bodies and virtual presences. The cohabitation of these entities generates a temporary choreographic community, in which social codes, behaviours and materialities mutually influence one another, and the emerging affective potential of architecture for cohesion is revealed. In this shared space there is constant tension and negotiation alongside a sense of belonging and affinity.
We propose creating a live architectural setting for embodied action and discussion that explores and reflects on how the interdependent relations between these entities can engender collectivity. The setting would be activated through informal occupation of visitors and structured discursive events with participants. The setting would adapt to its context and be continually devised by its inhabitants, practicing a collectivity that is playful, restless, discursive and rogue.
The image shows a setting titled ‘A Nodding Acquaintance’ 2017 commissioned for ‘Parallel (of Life and) Architecture’ group exhibition with Turner Prize winners Assemble & Simon Terrill, The Decorators & Goig at Edge Arts, Bath. The architecture of the setting is structured by notions of association. The work invites visitors to become active protagonists in a shifting choreography of objects, bodies and architecture. [Photograph by Peter Blakemore]
One element is a timber structure for talking or idling whilst sitting, leaning or standing. It is designed as a framework for the body and inspired by proxemics, Michelangelo Pistoletto and Alison & Peter Smithson’s ‘cluster’ concept for housing design. Inclined surfaces suggest posture and orientation of individual bodies and groups. The structure is one of five frameworks in progress that could create a larger setting and be configured in multifarious ways for inhabitation and discourse.
A live overhead camera view is presented on a floor-based monitor, writing the viewer into the architectural plan view of the setting and activating a mediated presence of the physical elements and an infinite virtual pool. The overhead view shows one part of the analysis of the behaviours of people within the space that furthers understanding of the mutual affect of the physical and mediated presences towards collectivity. [Photograph Pete Brandt]
We draw on experience of creating other discursive settings and events. The international event series ‘Utopian talk-show line-up’ was commissioned by ResArc, Sweden & Moderna Museet, Malmo, Bilgi University, Istanbul, Eastside Projects, Birmingham and ICIA, Bath. In each location participants chose and read texts that ‘imagined the architecture of Utopia’ in a rapid-fire format. The hybrid game/talk show and anthology of recordings celebrated multiplicity and the co-existence of difference
‘Rogue Game’ created an architectural setting within a gallery for informal and structured play and discourse around the individual and collective negotiation of space. Three sports were played in the same space simultaneously within a series of formal games. The action was studied, critiqued and edited live in the adjacent ‘mediated’ setting by TV editors and audience. The playing arena hosted discussions and a symposium, each speaker reconfiguring all bodies present in the space.
