"Design by Performance:
Performance and Performativity in Design"
Performance and Performativity in Design"
March 14 - May 30, 2010
presented by Z33: the Belgian house for contemporary art
Ventura Lambrate
via ventura 6, Lambrate, Milan
Atelier NL (NL), Maarten Baas (NL), Pieke Bergmans (NL), David Bowen (USA), Oscar Diaz (UK), Edhv (NL), Front (SW), Martino Gamper (UK), Simon Heijdens (UK/NL), Eric Klarenbeek (NL), Sofie Lachaert & Luc D’hanis (B), Laurent Liefooghe (B), Lawrence Malstaf (B), Bruno Munari (IT), Markus Schinwald (AU), Studio Glithero (UK), Studio Libertiny (NL), Tjep. (NL), Unfold & Tim Knapen (B)
Design by Performance
A new tendency in contemporary design first shown in this currently running exhibitition:
Design by Performance is a showcase for performative trends in contemporary design, which focuses not on the production of a finished product, but on the production process itself: objects whose realisation is a continuous project, affected or formed by either the environment, the specific situation in which they find themselves, or onlookers.
Design
Design by Performance is Z33’s next step in a journey that started in 2007 with the Designing Critical Design exhibition. This exhibit presented two designers and a designers’ duo (Jurgen Bey, Martí Guixé and Anthony Dunne & Fiona Raby) whose work is characterised by a powerfully elaborated and consistent critical vision. Designers who address issues regarding their own discipline, society or technology in their own oeuvre.
%In The Design by Performance exhibition, Z33 brings together a group of designers who push the envelope of the traditional applied arts disciplines in which they work and who allow room for experimentation, research, and reflection in their practise.
Just like critical design, Design by Performance has its origin in an art field-related trend. We can observe a shift from passive to active experiencing and creating of objects. The final product remains important, but the process leading to this end result becomes at least as important.%
Performance
The most important consequence of the so-called ‘performative turn’ of the sixties, writes Erika Fisher-Lichte in The Transformative Power of Performance, was “the transformation of the artwork into an event” (FL:23). The artwork is no longer an autonomous object (like a sculpture or a painting) that contains its significance within itself, but becomes an event, an action, happening or intervention. In performance, the artistic expression no longer exists in terms of representation, the ‘showing’ or depicting of the world, but becomes defined by what an artwork ‘does’, which actions, or reactions it creates. The ‘performative turn’ went beyond the mere performance art of artists such as Vito Acconci, Allen Kaprow, or Marina Abramovic; the emphasis on the performative aspect can also be found in other movements such as minimal art, land art, action painting, or body art. The concept of ‘perfomativity’ lies at the base of the changing approach to art in which the work no longer exists in itself. Space and time and the presence of the audience also become important factors that give the work a unique and singular character.
Design & performance
In the contemporary design world we can presently observe a similar shift towards the event, towards design as performance. This is most obvious in public design-acts by designers such as for instance Maarten Baas who realised his Smoked Furniture by charring classic pieces of furniture live in front of an audience or Martino Gamper who cut up classic Gio Ponti furniture and made new pieces out of the remains at Design Miami in 2007. More and more, design events are embellished with performance acts. Since a year or two you can visit Craft Punk in Miami Basel or Milan and see designers live at work (Studio Libertiny, Maarten Baas, Front, Studio Glithero, amongst others). At Dutch Design week and Experimenta also, design-acts have become a fixed item in the programme. Even though these acts may resemble artists’ performances, they are quite different in the sense that the designers’ actions are aimed at producing a product or object.
Design by performance
Design by Performance not only refers to design performances but wants to address performance as a broader movement within the contemporary design practise. Just as in art, the emphasis shifts from the autonomous finished product to the process: from design objects to design acts. The action locus can be the designer’s body, but also the object itself, or an installation, or a space. The production process also, is often ‘acted out’ in a performance, such as in Panta Rei by Studio Glithero, a machine that continuously produces candles or sleeping Beauty, the lamp by atelier NL that knits its own lamp shade.
Design by Performance highlights performance from different angles (design performance, performing objects, performing machines, and performing space) that share the common characteristic of a focus on time and change as a factor in the design process. The object and the design process form part of the creative process shaped through action and interaction with elements such as time, space, or the visitor.
Other than in the art world of the sixties we find an increased influence of our present-day visual culture in which designers massively spread their ‘making of’ images through YouTube. In their performative acts we can detect the influence of filmic elements such as camera handling, mise-en-scène, or an emphasis on the narrative aspect. Film, theatre, performance, and design mix into a new design paradigm in which time, motion, process, and action become the central elements.
-Z33
presented by Z33: the Belgian house for contemporary art
Ventura Lambrate
via ventura 6, Lambrate, Milan
Atelier NL (NL), Maarten Baas (NL), Pieke Bergmans (NL), David Bowen (USA), Oscar Diaz (UK), Edhv (NL), Front (SW), Martino Gamper (UK), Simon Heijdens (UK/NL), Eric Klarenbeek (NL), Sofie Lachaert & Luc D’hanis (B), Laurent Liefooghe (B), Lawrence Malstaf (B), Bruno Munari (IT), Markus Schinwald (AU), Studio Glithero (UK), Studio Libertiny (NL), Tjep. (NL), Unfold & Tim Knapen (B)
Design by Performance
A new tendency in contemporary design first shown in this currently running exhibitition:
Design by Performance is a showcase for performative trends in contemporary design, which focuses not on the production of a finished product, but on the production process itself: objects whose realisation is a continuous project, affected or formed by either the environment, the specific situation in which they find themselves, or onlookers.
Design
Design by Performance is Z33’s next step in a journey that started in 2007 with the Designing Critical Design exhibition. This exhibit presented two designers and a designers’ duo (Jurgen Bey, Martí Guixé and Anthony Dunne & Fiona Raby) whose work is characterised by a powerfully elaborated and consistent critical vision. Designers who address issues regarding their own discipline, society or technology in their own oeuvre.
%In The Design by Performance exhibition, Z33 brings together a group of designers who push the envelope of the traditional applied arts disciplines in which they work and who allow room for experimentation, research, and reflection in their practise.
Just like critical design, Design by Performance has its origin in an art field-related trend. We can observe a shift from passive to active experiencing and creating of objects. The final product remains important, but the process leading to this end result becomes at least as important.%
Performance
The most important consequence of the so-called ‘performative turn’ of the sixties, writes Erika Fisher-Lichte in The Transformative Power of Performance, was “the transformation of the artwork into an event” (FL:23). The artwork is no longer an autonomous object (like a sculpture or a painting) that contains its significance within itself, but becomes an event, an action, happening or intervention. In performance, the artistic expression no longer exists in terms of representation, the ‘showing’ or depicting of the world, but becomes defined by what an artwork ‘does’, which actions, or reactions it creates. The ‘performative turn’ went beyond the mere performance art of artists such as Vito Acconci, Allen Kaprow, or Marina Abramovic; the emphasis on the performative aspect can also be found in other movements such as minimal art, land art, action painting, or body art. The concept of ‘perfomativity’ lies at the base of the changing approach to art in which the work no longer exists in itself. Space and time and the presence of the audience also become important factors that give the work a unique and singular character.
Design & performance
In the contemporary design world we can presently observe a similar shift towards the event, towards design as performance. This is most obvious in public design-acts by designers such as for instance Maarten Baas who realised his Smoked Furniture by charring classic pieces of furniture live in front of an audience or Martino Gamper who cut up classic Gio Ponti furniture and made new pieces out of the remains at Design Miami in 2007. More and more, design events are embellished with performance acts. Since a year or two you can visit Craft Punk in Miami Basel or Milan and see designers live at work (Studio Libertiny, Maarten Baas, Front, Studio Glithero, amongst others). At Dutch Design week and Experimenta also, design-acts have become a fixed item in the programme. Even though these acts may resemble artists’ performances, they are quite different in the sense that the designers’ actions are aimed at producing a product or object.
Design by performance
Design by Performance not only refers to design performances but wants to address performance as a broader movement within the contemporary design practise. Just as in art, the emphasis shifts from the autonomous finished product to the process: from design objects to design acts. The action locus can be the designer’s body, but also the object itself, or an installation, or a space. The production process also, is often ‘acted out’ in a performance, such as in Panta Rei by Studio Glithero, a machine that continuously produces candles or sleeping Beauty, the lamp by atelier NL that knits its own lamp shade.
Design by Performance highlights performance from different angles (design performance, performing objects, performing machines, and performing space) that share the common characteristic of a focus on time and change as a factor in the design process. The object and the design process form part of the creative process shaped through action and interaction with elements such as time, space, or the visitor.
Other than in the art world of the sixties we find an increased influence of our present-day visual culture in which designers massively spread their ‘making of’ images through YouTube. In their performative acts we can detect the influence of filmic elements such as camera handling, mise-en-scène, or an emphasis on the narrative aspect. Film, theatre, performance, and design mix into a new design paradigm in which time, motion, process, and action become the central elements.
-Z33
