Week 2: Design and Concept Research

This week while working on my models I also began some research into others design work that interest me and to help guide my next steps and stabilise my ideas. I’ve begun to think about the type of space I want to design and create in the Fort Lane space. I am interested in the immersive state an audience experiences while watching film where they sit in between the threshold of reality and fictional world, where their physical surroundings disappear and they become immersed in the film. It’s almost like being in the film without actually being in the film. I’ve been looking at how I can create this idea within a space, creating a sense of that threshold, being physically in a film. The first idea that came to mind was a pop-up style theater performance. This idea would allow me to mix the ideas of physical and mental immersion of film. I also am quite interested in this idea of performance as a way of immersion of the audience.

After a discussion with Sue about my current ideas, I got some good ideas on some design works that may interest me and broaden my search. First was Withdrawing Room by Diller Scofidio + Renfro (below)

This work for me engages my idea of a temporary pop-up theater space. I am quite interested in people and public being a part of my design and also the contrasting ideas of fictional space between and audience and behind-the-scenes crew members. I like the movement and shifting in this work, specifically the corer beds/sofa. I like how the space exists as the same but is manipulated by the shifting of objects within it.

Another work that I was suggested to look at was and was also done my Diller Scofidio + Renfro was Jet Lag (below).

This work was very interesting and I love the variety of mediums Diller Scofidi + Renfro explore their ideas through. Jet Lag is a style of storytelling through space which creates a sense of fiction, theater, and performance. This work began to engage my interest further in the idea of perfoemance in space.

One other suggested research point I was given was Jennifer and Kevin McCoy, specifically their piece Traffic #1: Our Second Date (below).

This is essentially a miniature film set that includes cameras which are used to project an image onto a screen. I really like this work because it displays fictional space from both a zoomed out whole view as well as a framed close-up image on a screen side by side and I believe it shows the true magic of film.

After this initial research, I began to expand my ideas on the type of space I want to crate and the type of qualities I want to display through this project and brief. I have begun to become interested in fictional space and performance and expanded to possibly looking into a variety of live performances, not just theater and possibly an interactive performance, I have always had an interest in people as a material and having interactive qualities seems important with the people factor in my conceptual film ideas.

I have also begun to think about performance in less traditional ways and how broad the term is. I have thought about possibly looking performance through recorded/film projections as well a possibly the performance of material through movement and the wind rather than performance of people.

While looking through the Diller Scofidio + Renfro website I came across some other projects that piqued my interest. One of these included How Wine Became Modern (below).

I like this work because it focuses around interactive qualities between the project and the audience. It made me think about how my project could relate to the site. Fort Lane is very much currently a place for the night life of bars and restaurants. Maybe I could explore this aspect of the site through using food and drink as a material, like How Wine Became Modern, creating an interactive performative design.

One other project I found during my own research was Moving Target, also by Diller Scofidio + Renfro (below).

This project was one of my favourites in terms of this part of my research. Yet another display of Diller Scofidio + Renfro’s variety, Moving Target uses a combination of performers, light projection, and reflection to create an dimensionally immersive stage performance. One part of this work I like is the use of projection as a material and how people react and interact with it. Projection is something I might look more into in my future developments as it has for so long been an important part of film consumption. The other aspect I like about this work is that it challenges the idea of separation of audience and performers in traditional theater. Although there is separation through stage and seating, the mirrors and projections along the performers movements from a variety of view points creates a different level of connection between an audience and the performance. I’ve talked about interactive qualities likely being a part of my design and this work has sparked the idea to have the audience/occupants in my space become part of the performance themselves, taking away the separation of a stage.