Space Interface

Abstract

Space Interface is an AV performance presented to an audience that embraces the problem of: 1) space-blindness, 2) buildings limited by unimaginative conventions and 3) rigid procurement laws. Iteratively developed over three years and five venues spanning Germany and UK, the research contributes to architectural design through the synthesis of situated cognition and new media interfaces.

Host buildings are digitally re-configured to alter the perceived fixity of their space to rehearse new spatial realities through technical and temporal means. Disruptive AV cues are spatialised into dissonant mediascapes by pairing video, sound and performance to enhance the immersive transmission of affect that inverts architectural space from its previous function to reveal new potentials. The outcome is the video documentation forming an experiential archive for popularizing this new approach.

The project constructs architectural interventions from a disruptive methodology to establish a dissonance between physical and virtual space which functions as a hyper-reality ‘stent’, warping the existing space into a different dimension. When the overlay reality is reversed, a spatial afterimage continues to exist to promote an immersive understanding on how to re-purpose existing environments into speculative architectures and under privileged forms of spatial experience. Eberhard Kranemann, co-founder of Kraftwerk was an invited contributor to the performances. Space Interface received funding from Arts Council England and Kulturförderung & Dinnebier Licht GmbH. Performed at Weithorn Galerie, Düsseldorf (2015), Lichtturm Solingen, NRW (2016), KARST gallery, Plymouth (2016) and The Atlantic Project, Plymouth (2018).