Exquisite Corpses
As in previous years the Interprofessional Studio conceived and actualised a series of events as the means to develop creativity and innovation within spatial performance and design. Through the overlap of various disciplines these events are by default experimental, often unprecedented and confronts the task of making the impossible possible.
This year the Interprofessional Studio initiated three applied events that formed the framework of the creative process. For these events to take place in a professional and deliverable way each performance builds up from project to project and acts as continuation that extends upon the previous experience.
The ‘Exquisite Corpses’ series explores the possibilities of how an interdisciplinary collaboration between the performing arts and design can create a genre defying cultural environment. In April 2011 events commenced with a performative installation at the Matadero, Madrid. In collaboration with the artist group ‘New Movement’ and music producers ‘Boilerhouse Boys’ the projects merged fashion, dance, music and architecture to form one continuously changing environment.
Continuing on from what we learned and experienced at this event we test these performative spaces through installations and constructions in the urban setting of Cologne. The overall project is placed within the specific socio-political environment of the ‘Design Quartier Ehrenfeld’ and questions how these performances and ephemeral structures can operate as ‘Urban Generators’. In Cologne a stage set and a collection of interactive structures became the setting for the extended dance performance of ‘New Movement’ that incorporated the events of Madrid making the performance an assembly that has been transformed.
The series will conclude in a weeklong event in London just before the beginning of the 2011–12 academic year. Through analysis and reflection of the previous events in Madrid and Cologne further conclusions can be made and we will transform them into an overall performance and construction. The events themselves become the bases of a discussion on interprofessional design methods and this debate will take place amongst the programme students, the partners and tutors, members of the Architectural Association and in conjunction with the creative community of London and beyond.