Are gears light on their feet when they dance?
The project started with a fascination for performative quality and drama in architecture. Black and white, dark and light, determine the atmospheric effects, present in the space. Within the process of this work, I have been exploring the quality of performative architecture, through the use of mechanization, in which inanimate objects take on a sort of life. The notion of rotation formed a point of focus as a research towards motion in architecture.
Each drawing shows the next act, with a performance in movement. Grande Jeté is the final in the series of drawings, where the different acts are all assembled. With the umbrellas in mid-motion, we find ourselves between the interchanging stage-set. In this space, the architecture that would normally serve as backstage, and in that way would normally serve the object we ought to be the protagonist, now becomes the subject of focus. I tried to give expression to mobility and the magic sense of transformation as well as our mechanical, artificial sensibility. I eliminated any human presence, in order for the mechanical constructions to present themselves in an allusive way as engaged bodies. Pulled by the strings like marionettes, the movements are performed while jumping, as if the mechanisms activate themselves.
To conclude my work, I would like to refer to Notes on the Theatre, written by Fortunato Depero; where he imagined the transformations of the dancer as events taking place within a simultaneously changing environment. These observations have been the focal point within all my drawings.
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