Topic
Performative Attention in Liquid Spaces
Lecturers: Prof.Dr.Karmen Franinovic, MA Clemens Winkler, MA Moritz Kemper
Duration: 12.November - 29.November 2013
Space: SQ310
Topic:
A pulsating light on the sea sends a signals to a lost boat, a noise of the traffic diverts your walk to a quieter street. Objects and events in our surroundings make us perceive and act. sometimes we do this intentionally. Sometimes we are unaware that something or someone changes the way we move through space.
When designing any spatial experience: an installation, a sound walk through the city, a public service or a responsive scenography, we shape the inhabitants' experience by creating various objects of attention, or so-called perceptual attractors. We can design such objects of attention by shaping their spatial qualities such as brightness or size - an illuminated large door in a dark room that leads our way out. The temporal qualities such as speed can also divert or attract attention - we may notice a branch of a plant suddenly breaking down (short term response), but not see the growth of the same branch and how us not watering the plant led to its damage (long term response).
In this course, we will study how such attractors shape our experiences within existing urban contexts, and we will create new spatial experiences by designing such attractors within a performative setting - an installation or a dance scenography. Students will develop their own methods to capture, research and understand attention and movement in space, as well as have a possibility to work with motion capture systems, haptic floors and smart material sculptures. We will use the notion of Liquid Space to explore different ways of shifting between perceptual textures and objects, backgrounds and foregrounds.
The course will culminate in the workshop organized by a research project called Raüme der Aufmerksamkeit (Spaces of Attention) which will take place at Gessnerallee, in collaboration with students, researchers and dozents from music and performing arts.