Washing Line Situations

WASHING LINE SITUATIONS

WASHING LINE SITUATIONS Masterarbeit 2020 Anna Syrianou T.U. Berlin Bühnenbild_szenischer Raum Betreuung: Tom Duncan, Maria Wolgast

Exposé

“Washing lines situations” is a design research project. The project started with a quest which involved three elements: everyday life, performances and the city. Therefore, it integrated sociology, performance studies and spatial theories, design practice and study of performative projects. The initial intention was to find out if and how temporary performative installations engage passers-by and positively impact everyday life in the city. Through the research was established: everyday life is a practice that involves performances by the city-dwellers in the urban environment. Urban space, however, both forms and is formed by these practices. Then, a three-core concept shapes a schema for a performative project: Presence, absence and re-presentation. Simultaneously, visual research is carried out upon laundries as an everyday life activity in the city. In ”Washing lines Situations”, laundry-doers become performers, washed clothes arise as scenic objects and urban environment hosting laundries becomes a dramatic character. It is a concept for a scenographic walk that transcribes the laundry process in space.

Three installations foster encounter and develop spatial and material relations between these bodies, objects and environment. Inspired by the laundry process, its spatial elements and materials create four spaces with different dynamics imposing three ways of being: the Presence plane, the Absence spot, the Threshold in-between and the Re-Presentation space.

“Washing lines situations” ist ein Design-Forschungsprojekt. Das Projekt begann mit einer Suche, die drei Elemente umfasste: das Alltagsleben, Performances und die Stadt. Es integrierte Soziologie, Performance-Studies und Raumtheorien, Designpraxis und das Studium performativer Projekte. Mit der Annahme, dass das alltägliche Leben eine Praxis ist, die Performances der Stadtbewohner*nnen und die urbane Umwelt sowohl formt als auch durch diese Praktiken geformt wird, war das ursprüngliche Ziel herauszufinden, ob und wie temporäre performative Installationen Passanten mit einbeziehen und den Alltag in der Stadt positiv beeinflussen. Dazu wurde ein Schema entwickelt, woraus ein performatives Projekt generiert werden kann. Dieses Schema dreht sich um drei Kernkonzepte: Präsenz, Absenz und Re-Präsentation und wurde parallel zur visuellen Erforschung von Wäschereien als alltägliche Lebensaktivität entwickelt. In “Washing lines Situations” werden Wäscher*nnen zu Performenden, gewaschene Wäsche entsteht als szenische Objekte und die städtische Umgebung wird zu einem dramatischen Charakter. Entstanden ist ein Konzept für einen szenografischen Spaziergang, der den Wäscheprozess in den Raum übersetzt. Drei Installationen fördern die Begegnung und entwickeln räumliche und materielle Beziehungen zwischen diesen Körpern, Objekten und der Umgebung. Inspiriert durch den Waschprozess, seine räumlichen Elemente und Materialien werden vier Räume mit unterschiedlicher Dynamik geschaffen, die drei Daseinsformen aufzwingen: “the Presence plane”, “the Absence spot”, “the Threshold in-between” und “the Re-Presentation space.”

Contents

A. Introduction I. Project description II.Ontology and epistemological approach III. Methodology IV. Terminology

B. PART A: Literature Review I. Performing Identities: Everyday life “as� performance II. Space: a topological approach towards performative spaces

III. Sum up and Expand C. PART B: Design Practice Documentation

I. Overarching design concept II.The Presence plane III. Threshold In-Between

IV. The Absence spot

V. Re-presentation: The bougada project

INTRODUCTION

I. Project Description Τhe theoretical part of my master thesis is a qualitative research project on everyday life activities as performances in the urban context. I wish to see if/how temporary performative interventions could positively impact everyday life in the city. A practical part, with a design proposal inspired by these ideas follows as a second integral part.

It is a social phenomenon in the sense that it revolves around human relations with themselves, with other people in the frame of society but also space. Therefore, it is a quest in theories about human behaviour and space. For the first aspect about human behaviour, I approach the topic through performance studies theories, non-representational theories and sociology. The part that involves space, is approached through theories that conceptualise space as a social construct and as an existential aspect of human activities and thus performance. The quest has a direct relation to the art (in the verge between applied and free) of scenography as a way of generating spaces that are time-based, narrative and are concerned with the ephemeral qualities of transformation and atmosphere. Additionally, scenography as a practice is approached in its expanded practice that does not relate directly to theatre, but rather to a space of encounter founded on spatial and material relation between bodies, objects and environments.(McKinney and Palmer, 2016:**) To sum up, it is about:

• everyday life as performance

• performative spaces in the urban context The relationships among these elements are tangled in this research and are then integrated

in a design proposal. The puzzle posed here is on the first approach rather an experiential one because it seeks the way we encounter everyday life as individuals in space. On a secondary level though it is also developmental because it aims to explain how this social phenomenon unfolds. The main research questions were: • How is an everyday life activity “as” a performance?

• How is restored behaviour influencing the performance of daily life?

• Which person and how arises as a performer?

• Are objects performing?How? What part do they play?

• Is the individual’s life and activities expressed in urban public space? In what sense? Where?

• What is the atmosphere? How is it formed and what does it convey?

• What is urban scenography? How is it shaping experiences?

• How is an urban scenography/performative project structured and designed?

•Could micro-practices bring up an everyday scenography of city spaces and foster communities?

In order to gather material on an everyday life activity with performative character in the urban space, I chose laundry doing and started a website: The Bougada Project .com; it engages people to participate in this performance and document it. That way an open format is created, where I can observe how laundry doing can become a performative act. The complexity of spaces and the aspect of performativity demand a deeper understanding of space and performance theory, therefore I elaborate on the relative theories. In my interpretation, laundrydoers become performers, washed clothes arise as scenic objects and urban environment hosting laundries becomes a dramatic character.

I then interpreted laundry performance forming a structural three-core concept: presence, absence and re-presentation inspired by Lefebvre’s writings. More specifically, the original performance is when the performer is present; namely hanging their laundry to dry. While the laundry is hanging to dry, it underlines the absence of the performer; not only in poetic terms of empty clothes that await bodies to fill but also in the sense that they stand on behalf of the original performance as object-events. And, finally, all the material produced by the participants in the project (who are in essence documenting their performance) is a form of “re-presentation.”

These hybrids are operating between fact and ideal re-presentation rendering themselves performative by re-working the final result as an original.

The written documentation consists of two parts:

• an introduction to the research, a literature review covering performance and expression of identity, space and scenographic practice in order to convey the current stand of

performance and scenography scholarship, and some conclusions drawn in order to form the theoretical ground upon which my design proposal is built.

• The second part consists of reflections on my design practice and the developed artistic concept based on the theoretical background as mentioned above.

II. Ontology and epistemological approach The nature of the phenomena I explored is social and spatial.

Therefore, the ontological properties to be taken into consideration are:

• people, social actors, humans, non-human lives

• time, space, place, atmospheres In order to study the above, I engaged to: A)Critical theory1, because in my initial approach realities and knowledge are socially constructed entities that are under the constant influence of historical process and power relations. I based my literary review on the theories and thoughts of Lefebvre and Soja that have worked in length on these issues highlighting the role of space.

B) Interpretivism, since I accepted that an objective world does not exist but arises as through our perception of it and we need to interpret it. I looked into the theories of De Certeau, MerleauPonty and scholars that apply these theories in combination with those from Lefebvre and Soja in performance design.

C)Non-representational theory, is rather the common ground of the two previously mentioned theories is the focus on processes and practices.

D) There is also a participatory / action research since I am employing audience/participants through the internet to gather visual material and though that generate knowledge and it is in my goals to create something that would empower collective action.

Although this project relates and produces art it cannot be described as an artistic research but rather a qualitative one. The term “artistic research” is widely used under different meanings and all too often one can only speculate of its meaning. An artistic research as a way of producing objects or processes and their gradual transformation is one way to land on a definition. That would be: an artist expands-as always, through research and experimentation the borders of their discipline. Even if that means a new notation system or ways to use the material or give new meanings. The artistic research refers then to the production of a process or a set of characteristics of exemplary new ways in the production or reception of art. (Borgdorff, 2012:7087)2 However, it is not relevant to my final objectives to study how I can through my artistic work

change or expand scenographic practices. It is rather to experiment with the existing ideas of a participatory scenography, as a practice that in recent years has expanded in definition and field of application and to create an overview of the relative scholarly texts along with text that belong in the field of architecture, sociology and performance studies. It is a bibliographical qualitative research project that began with questions and particular themes in focus and formed a written documentation about the process with as valid and reliable as possible sources and arguments supporting my positions and not intuition or experience. Inspired by this first part, an artistic concept was developed as the practical part of this master Thesis.

III. Methodology Since the nature of my research topic is experiential, I chose to go forth following a qualitative model and favour understanding, in-depth description and analysis of the phenomena I am studying. Because the expanded scenography and performative urbanism are relatively young fields with yet a vast variety of examples, my research design mainly follows the model of a case-study design with some descriptive elements.

Laundries will serve here as the case study, as they are a daily activity and a way of domestication, activation and use of the external boundary of the private sphere. In order to use the urban as a source of inspiration and insight on how people use and appropriate space, I chose an everyday life activity that happens I could observe the relations between the two spaces, routines, behaviours. I chose laundries because they showed the potential to be developed into an artistic concept. The reason for that was that they are a temporary interventions by the citizens that affect the image of the city and the atmosphere of the neighbourhood.They include also elements of expressing identity and thus a performative aspect. Furthermore, because of the poetic and aesthetic visual results that hanging laundries produced, they could be interpreted and developed in accordance with my triadic structure(aka presence, absence, re-presentation). Choosing one case study, narrows down a very broad research field (that of daily activities with performative character in the city) and make easier to create tools for research and inspiration for my design proposal. Finally, a research design this flexible makes available creative methodological tools that help generate my design proposal. As a result, my approach follows an interpretative research method.

Initially, in order therefore to gather information, I started by doing a literature review. This as a first step, was necessary to foster an in-depth understanding of the relative theories and an accurate terminology for my project. The literature review is presented in two conceptual categories: performance and space and scenography in an integrative way; namely, i focused not only on the what is said, but also tried to synthesise the different sources.

For this reason, as a second step, I created a platform where people had the possibility to upload pictures of their laundry along with an accompanying text related to their picture. This was made in an effort to communicate my project and to make contact with participants. This choice was dictated by the fact that participants in performative urban interventions were proven to be a decisive factor for all interventions and installations of the sort. Engage social media

in my work allowed me to approach a wider audience. Also, the fact that the ontology of my research lays in space and human interactions, brought properties into my research that are aesthetic, cultural, expressive, embodied, sensory, material and atmospheric. Therefore, i had to come up with a creative method of gathering material and turning it into a design tool.

Thebougadaproject.com provided a wide range of visual material that came from all over the world and became a tool for inspiration and collection of different laundry situations and habits. I analysed the pictures gathered according to the performance studies questions: • How is an event enclosed in space and disclosed in time?

• What special objects are put to use?

• What roles are played and how are they different from -if at all, from who the performers usually are? How does the awareness of performing for others changed the behaviour of the person performing?

• How is the event controlled, distributed, received, and evaluated?

• How does the audience/presence of the other(s) influence the performance?

That way i turned these images and the laundries into a tool and inspiration for my design proposal.

And as a final tool, I studied projects that are performative urban installations in terms of design tools and methods and I generated a design proposal for scenographic interventions.

IV. Terminology A. Performative, performativity and performance: In the early ‘90s, a paradigm shift occurred in the field of humanities and social sciences referred to as the performative turn. Performance was then, rendered a basic tool for analysing and explaining the human-behaviour. The core idea of this conceptualisation of reality was that all human practices are performed. Leading voices of these theories were Victor Turner and Erwin Goffman that developed the ideas of Kenneth Burke and John Austin. Richard Schechner opened up the field of performance beyond theatre in a more systematic attempt.

Performative and performativity are terms that are used with various meanings in different disciplines and therefore hard to define. “Performative” is both a noun and an adjective. It was first coined by the philosopher John L. Austin. As a noun, it indicates a word or sentence that does something. By saying that it “does” something, I refer to a phrase that brings about what it states and constitutes a new reality. So it refers to the “implementation a speech act”.

The uttering of the words is usually an incident leading to the performance of the act or even sometimes being the act itself. The most common example to that is that of making a promise; once made, one is bound to act and the non-fulfilment of that promise may have social consequences. Performativity however is not purely linguistic, it is an even broader term, a social phenomenon. (Schechner, 2002, Buttler, 1998, Goffman, 1958, Turner,1969) Although speech is a bodily act that involves also “a tacit performative” aspect, Judith Butler goes as far to argue that there is no self before performance. (Butler,1997:45) Many theorists have pointed out gestures and behaviours are performative in that they generate identities, although it was Schechner’s work along with Turner that opened up the field of performance studies to human behaviour beyond performing arts. Schechner defines performance as “restored behaviour” to emphasise the coded aspects of social life as well as the great range the term “performance” may be referring to. Sofie Wolfrum makes a very useful remark regarding the terms of performance and performativity: “In German the distinction is made between Performance, Performanz, Performativität.

Performance refers to staging and the production of a play or an art event(theatre and performance art). All the metaphors of theatre and drama being used for the city and the public realm may incorporate this meaning. Performanz means the execution of an act, as elaborated in speech act theory. So far as we are aware, in English the same word is used for both, which causes some confusion in German. Performativity refers to the transformative power of an act.”

Thus, social-political, economic, personal, and artistic reality take on qualities of performance.

Social life is performed in the sense that every social activity can be understood or studied as a showing of doing or as a restored behaviour; namely a prior to performance learnt behaviour that one re-enacts.

Schechner defines as performance, processes that are “dynamic ways of generating, playing, evaluating, repeating, and remembering.”(Schechner 2006:261) The focus lays in the process, in practices, the aspect that is so essential for creating spaces and that connects different conceptions of space like those of Lefebvre, Merleau-Ponty and de Certeau.(Lavrinec, 2011b)3 One could argue that the aspect or performativity of space could be a build upon the theories of Lefebvre. Space is a social construct, dynamic and ever-changing over time and only existing in relation to consciousness, rather than an absolute condition. For Merleau-Ponty and De Certeau, space arises by the moving subjects themselves and the process and their practices reveal structures and encounters. That said, spaces cannot be understood as containers, nor as geometrical architectural constructions. As Erika Frisher-Lichte explains, they are brought forth through the ways people use and perceive them. This process allows a specific spatiality to arise through the interplay. Spaces are performative when particular versions of them are brought to light, that have not been foreseen/taken into account at the time of their planning and construction. In this regard, she continues, spaces are ambiguous and unpredictable. They are performative in the sense that they are not fixed entities but come to being when someone is perceiving and using them. In this regard, she reckons, they are transitory and ephemeral.

From a different point of you, Fischer-Lichte explains, that performativity in space works in two levels: transforming the space through the particular ways it is used by people and vice versa, as people are transformed through the effects of location, proportion, material and atmosphere.

(Friscer-Lichter, 2015:38)4

B. Audience In the following thesis, the concept of scenography as a dynamic space of encounters will prove the defining role of the person that observes, what is habitually called audience or spectator. However, in performance process relationships between all those involved are dynamic(Schechner 2006:250) and the fact that in the scenographies studied one is required to move, interpret and experience the environment(Prangen, 2016:109) therefore a choice of words when describing the different agents is a particular task. “Audience” is problematic for scenography because it refers to hearing and not seeing; “spectator” designates a passive and compliant individual; “seer” is another word that comes up in the scholar texts, but still favours the sense of sight. (McKinney and Palmer, 2017:2). But a perceiving body goes beyond these terms. The event of the performance occurs only in the presence of a participant; this participant has an imaginative and creative role, has a body and an individual cognitive ability. The view of the audience or spectator as a participant or “partaker” offers a broader potential to performance design that may even suggest new ways of participation.

C.Topology

AUDIENCE

S

GR CENO

APHY SPACE

CITY

PERFORMER

TOPOLOGY

Topology is a mathematical study of the properties of objects that are preserved through/ despite deformation, twisting and stretching, but not tearing. It can be used to abstract the inherent connectivity of objects while ignoring their detailed form. (Wolfram Mathworld) The term is used in cultural and social sciences for a conception of spaces as a product of modular relations of social and cultural nature(Prangen, 2016). Topology, then, allows me to investigate space both from the sides of spatial sociology and phenomenology, as required for studying the urban scenography as a hybrid form of art in the city. Scenographic work has in its essence a topological vantage point and one can point out multiple reasons for that. Firstly, scenography transforms spaces in all levels and spheres extending from abstract to concrete physical space.

Secondly, it may reveal or transcribe meanings and stories to existing spaces imposing therefore new forms or narratives. And, finally, can be used as the starting point for further analysis and study. (Brückner:350) Hence, one can argue that scenography is a transformation tool for space that without creating disruptions allows space to evolve revealing its properties. On a city level, relatively, scenography enables different points to display their relations in an abstract way.

D. Scenography, Performance Design/Architecture, Performative Urbanism, Urban Scenography “This question cannot be easily answered; there is no simple nor even generally accepted answer at hand. The artistic approaches, designs and forms of spatial productions that can be found in contemporary theatre and in addition to this, in other artistic and cultural fields are too manifold, too diverse and too heterogenous:the spectrum ranges from theatre scenography (…) through museum and exhibition scenography (…) to temporary architecture and urban scenography”(Wiens,2019:1)

Scenography originates from the greek word “Skenographia” is a term originating in Aristotle’s Poetics. The first part “sken-“, relates to skene that means stage, and “graph-“ is the root for words that relate to multiple forms of representation like writing, drawing. It has been translated as stage painting or scenic writing. It has been related to the idea that it accompanies the theatrical act and solely serves the theatrical presentation. Scenography is a discipline dedicated to space, bringing forth narratives of all kinds (historical, speculative, etc.) Modernist scenographers did the breakthrough that scenography can be a construction that is selfstanding, “capable of a dialogue or even confrontation with other elements of the theatre.”

(McKinney and Palmer, 2016:5) Hans-Thies Lehmann pointed out the ability of scenography as an autonomous practice in “post-dramatic theatre”(Lehmann, 2006:85). Since then scenography has moved outside theatre, creating compelling spaces that engage participation in an urban context. It can actually happen anywhere. These practices as McKinney and Palmer explain “reflect wider trends of hybrid practices in theatre, performance, arts and architecture that tend to blur the boundaries between performance and audience”. (McKinney and Palmer, 2016,p.1)5 There is a number of different terms used to describe this tendency. “Expanded scenography” is a term used for spaces of encounter that are founded on spatial and material relation between bodies, objects and environments in theatre, galleries and museums and urban spaces.

(McKinney and Palmer, 2016, p.2) The word expanded is a reference exactly to the new spaces

scenography is applied as a practice of generating space that draw attention to the dynamic and kinaesthetic contribution of the experience of the performance. (McKinney and Ball,2010)6 It takes place at the intersection of design and performance and that justifies the shift from the term of scenography that is directly related to “skene” aka. stage to terms that relate more to performance. Because of the scale of these installations, their participatory character, their role in the theatrical-or not- presentation as active performing elements, Thea Bejzek suggests the term “performance architecture”. It refers to the design and construction of a temporary world that can be inhabited, are concise as a whole and due to its ephemerality do not need to follow generally approved or pursue timeless aesthetic.(Brejzek, 2016, pp.73-74)7 This term is quite similar to the term Dorita Hannah proposes: “performance design”. Performance design is the discipline which “provides environments through which actions develop inter-medial, intertextual spatiotemporal orchestrations”.(Hannah, 2016, p.44)8 The main difference with the previous term is that because of the openness of the word design instead of architecture, the term covers applications of the practices in question in all formats, from visual arts to everyday life.

As far as the term of “performative urbanism” is concerned, it is a practices that realises the analogy of the city as a stage; it brings together architecture as an art of configuring space that propose a performative potential. The difference here obviously is that it is a practice applied in the city, it is event-based with a social character but it also includes participatory strategies developed in relation to a different attitude in planning and process that generate space.

(Wolfrum, 2015, p. 15) Finally a term that comes up in scholarly articles in topics that relate placemaking practices with is “urban scenography”.(Lavrinec, 2011a) Lavrinec uses the term in 2011 in order to establish an analytical tool for performance design projects in the urban context. Adam Kolodziej writes about the nessecity of an urban scenography as a tool to render visible the “Genius Loci” that has been lost in the contemporary cities. He claims it is an art for that can visualise the life’s script, including history, cultural context and emotional needs. (Kolodziej, 2008:67) Birgit E. Wiens uses the term as well to refer to an application of scenographic practice in temporary architecture as a an expression of participatory design and artistic intervention into public spaces.(Wiens, 2019:pp1, 5) Sauna Jensen and Dorita Hannah used the term in 2019 Prague Quadrennial for their workshop title “Urban Scenographies: Sm’arting the city”.(Smarting as small art) Many articles and papers refer to it as a curating tool for art in public space. It describes essentially the artistic practice that generates temporary spatial structures with performative potential and may bring upon sociopolitical transformations.(from PQ2019 Workshop descriptions)9 However the term is still unsettled and open to different interpretations. To my understanding, practice differs little if at all compared to performative urbanism. What seems to be the difference is the agent carrying out the practice.

It is true that the term performative applied in design disciplines is relative new and as Marvin Carlson, one of the main theorists in Performance studies, suggests it is an “essentially contested concept”. Therefore, the term performative project that Valentina Signore suggests as more generic and inclusive of all the different formats, scales, practices that potentially fit in this category regardless of disciplinary boundaries.(Signore, 2015:170)10

To conclude, in this research the terms performance design and performative project will be used as they seem to fit the nature of the projects and artistic interventions or activities that are being studied here. These terms are more open in terms of the format, scale, application field and hence discipline, which allows work in the verge of scenography and urbanism. Although both terms allow a certain ambiguity on the role of the “designer” in terms of the discipline to which they belong, they are considered more valid because that way the interdisciplinary character of the teams carrying out such projects is implied. Also the term of performance and performative are here used in their definition, namely design transformative acts.

The terms of urban scenography and performative urbanism are mentioned here since they appear all too often in the academic and scholarly literature. They are not however adopted because, the first one does not literally refer to a three-dimensional practice and the second includes also to some extend the design of polices and a more distant approach to the design process rooted in the urbanism discipline.

Notes 1. Critical Theory: an evaluative approach to social science research, associated with Germany’s neoMarxist “Frankfurt School,”that aims to criticise as well as analyse society, opposing the political orthodoxy of modern communism. Its goal is to promote human emancipatory forces and to expose ideas and systems that impede them. https://library.sacredheart.edu/c.php?g=29803&p=185904#acculturation, (07.06.2020) 2. Borgdorff Henk, (2012) “Künstlerische Forschung und akademische Forschung” in Martin Tröndle, Julia Warmers, Kunstforschung als ästhetische Wissenschaft: Beiträge zur transdisziplinären Hybridisierung von Wissenschaft und Kunst,Bielefeld: Verlag 3. Lavrinec Jekaterina. (2011). Revitalization of Public Space: from “Non-places” to Creative Playgrounds(the paper in English).)

4. Friscer-Lichter E., Performativity and space, in Wolfrum S. and Fehe N.,(2015), Performative Urbanism, Berlin: Jovis 5. McKinney J. and Palmer S., Scenography expanded, London: Bloomsbury.

6. Helen Nicholson and Baz Kershaw (eds)(2011), Research Methods in Theatre and Performance, Edinburgh University Press, pp.111-136.

7. Brejzek T. (2016) Architecture and Scenography in McKinney J. and Palmer S., Scenography expanded, London: Bloomsbury.

8. Hannah D. (2016) Scenographic screen space in McKinney J. and Palmer S., Scenography expanded, London: Bloomsbury.

9. https://www.pq.cz/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/URBAN-SCENOGRAPHIES.pdf (last review:13.08.2020) 10. Signore V., Who said “performative”? Towards a critical posture, in Wolfrum S., Nikolai Fehe, Performative Urbanism, (2015), Berlin Jovis.

LITERATURE REVIEW I. PERFORMING IDENTITIES A. Everyday Life “as” a performance

Having already explained briefly the term of “performance” as the execution of an action or the uttering of a sentence that attributes a particular existing meaning to a given situation, we will now look into how that applies to everyday life. Thus, what will be investigated are “ways of operating”, or doing things and is fundamental to any social activity. (De Certeau, 1988:xi) Looking into the ways people operate in everyday life involves an understanding of the relations, operation modes or schemata of action that people use; it is the ways that people express and transform themselves that are put into scrutiny here and not the people themselves.

Everyday life could be defined as “the social time when people can swiftly move from being a sourcer(author, choreographer, composer, dramaturge etc) or producer(director, conductor, designer etc) to being part-taker (spectator, audience, the public etc)or performer.” (Schechner 2006:261) Performances occur in different situation separate or overlapping. Art may be the first thing that comes to mind, or sports, but everyday life , work, ritual, play, sex and technology are also situations that entail a certain performance. All these activities, whether they are rituals or pure entertainment, belong under the umbrella term “performance”. It is not accurate to say that performance originates in rituals nor in entertainment but it certainly is a kind of activity related to the human condition, and even no-ritualistic performances have been to some level ritualised or influenced by rituals. Performance in everyday life, that is the focus of this thesis, includes gatherings and activities of every kind.(Schechner, 2006:31) It is important to explain the difference between what “is” performance and what can be seen “as” performance, to avoid generalisations. Every performance is specific and different from any other. However, the main difference here is the way that event is received and placed.

Schechner argues, that exactly as some acts were not conceived as art previously, are deemed so later. (Schechner, 2006:34-40) In this framework, there are infinite events that can be studied “as performance”, among other events that occur in everyday life. In order, to study an event “as” a performance one need to make the right questions and pick the right vantage point. This notion of “as” performance is a tool to “look into things otherwise closed to inquiry”.

(Schechner, 2006:49) We can treat any object “as” a performance, namely investigate what the object does, how it interacts with other objects and how it relates to other objects or beings.

Performance studies, approach events by studying 4 aspects : structure, function, processes and experiences. (Schechner 2006:56)

B. Structure In terms of structure performances, like theatre, have in the simpler form 3 parts: the separation, the liminal phase and the reaggregation. As John Yorke points out in his book “Into the woods”, in all narratives or stories that appear to have more parts (five acts or even seven), we can find the triadic fundamental structure. Therefore, i will not elaborate on the structure of performances that appear to be more complex. The important point I wish make here is the liminal stage, that reveals the inherent ability of performative acts to trigger change, some of them even aim to it. It is in this in-between stage one find themselves in a turning point of identity. According to Turner who inspired by van Gennep’s “The rite of passage”, this liminal phase in order to apply to the performances in the contemporary notion is slightly altered in modern societies. Turner and Schechner give multiple examples of cases like this; bar mitzvah in today’s expression provides examples for both parts. The religious initiation ceremony is liminal, but the modern party that typically follows nowadays is liminoid. He invited the term of “liminoid”, when an activity is like liminal. It is an activity that may resemble or root back to some older rite but it has be greatly influenced or changed through time and new manners. While liminal acts include a “communication of sacra” and “ludic recombinations and inversions”, and a permanent change of status through a ritual, liminoid activities are those that while reproducing a symbolic character , trigger a change that is only temporary and no matter how strong the experience maybe the performer and the participants return to the original state.

Therefore, we could argue that every performative act of everyday life, can potentially evoke change to those involved, even if that is temporary. Moreover, the people involved in performative activities are connected at least for the duration of the performance to each other forming a community.

C. Function The question of what does the performance accomplish for individuals is summarised by Schechner in seven possibilities: i. entertain

ii. make something beautiful

iii. mark or change an identity

iv. make or foster a community

v. heal

vi. persuade or teach

vii. deal with the sacred This list as he explains is not in order of importance, nor does a performance only addresses one of these. (Schechner, 2006:46) But, in the frame of our research, performance intends to express identity, make something beautiful and foster a community, even temporary.

D. Processes & Experiences Performing in everyday life is usually very subtle and informal. It relates to numerous aspects of social life ranging from constructions of gender and race to profession, family and even language. Each such performance entails a series of expected behaviours and interactions and can be read either as interacting text or theatre. Schechner explains: “Players with different motives rehearse their actions, manoeuvre to present themselves advantageously and often perform at cross purposes with one another. Where the adherents of the two approaches agree, is the assertion that people are performing all the time whether or not they are aware of it.”(Schechner, 2006:****) Goffman in his book “The presentation of Self in Everyday Life”, illustrates extensively with theory and examples, how people are performing identities in all aspects of their livesprofessional, social, etc, to communicate effectively with the other(s). He defines this interaction as a mutual action, a form of action-reaction happening between two people, that find themselves in the physical presence of one another. In this occasion or encounter, one performs for the other(s) to have an impact on the actions of the other(s) in any way. The critical point here is the presence of the other; any performance arises in the physical (not solely) presence of someone else, namely an observer, an audience or a co-participant. The reproduction of an activity on different occasions may form a social relationship that assigns specific “parts” to those involved. (Goffman, 1959:71) These roles are taken up sometimes consciously and sometimes not. (Goffman, 1959:299) This happens because up to some point, a person performs their perception of themselves and projects through their behaviour a subjective personal understanding of the situation. This may be accepted or as well rejected by the “audience” depending on the quality of performance as well as the performances of other(s).

Furthermore, if we observe the same situation with a different person as a reference, the roles shift in terms of who is performing and who is the observer. This system of observing social life preconditions a mutual understanding, acceptance and communication of the relative roles of all parties, while this performance serves them both to acquire information and communicate an impression of themselves to the other(s). Finally, it is important to note that a person performs a character as a result of a given situation and not as a reason for the situation to develop and thereof adjusts to the circumstances and the “audience”. However, sometimes the person is so engaged to their role that may not need a presence of another to perform, as they are under the impression that the reality they form is the absolute and single reality.

With this definition as a reference point, one can interpret all parts of social life that are based on a pre-established pattern of action(s) as performances of different “parts” with performers, audience, observers and/or co-participants. According to Richard Schechner, to “perform” in everyday life is to show off, to go to extremes to underline an action for those who are watching.

It may be understood concerning being, doing, showing doing and explaining “showing doing”.

If this last phrase is put into scrutiny, we may realise that we learn through our whole lives to perform specific roles in relation to social and personal circumstances. Performances are in essence restored behaviours: habits, rituals, routines of life. Even art performances fall into that category in the sense that they are prepared, rehearsed and learnt by the performer(s). In many cases, they embody rituals, include elements of play and involve conventions and/or tradition making new contexts or usage. It is a behaviour or set of behaviours that are being performed for a second time and there is no inherent element deeming or disqualifying them from performances.(Schechner, 2006:38). A performer in ordinary life performs an action that is based on experience and practice, even if they are events appearing to be new or original; they are therefore based on restored behaviour but different from any other. The notion of repetition is crucial; in the theory of performativity, the expression of self is not exactly an expression of what one is but what they do. The development of the body, actions and gestures are formed through repetition and mimesis, through producing an identity rather than expressing it. Performativity, therefore, should be conceived not as a singular, intentional activity but rather as a practice though which speech produces the very phenomena it imposes and regulates.(Butler 2004:195) As Marvin Carlson explains, “the recognition that our lives are structured according to repeated and social sanctioned modes of behaviour raises the possibility that all human activity could be considered “as” performance.”(Carlson, 1996:4) Having established the importance of an encounter as the key for a performance to arise, one should also take into account the different roles people hold in these encounters.

Schechner explains that a performance proves develops a dynamic set of relationships between those involved. That means that one does not necessarily have only one assigned role; the role one has at first may change along the way. Hence, he points out certain categories of roles: the sourcers, the producers, the performers and the partakers. Sourcers develop the material from which the performance is made; Producers shape this material into the performance; performers are self-explanatory; and partakers receive/observe the performance or even take part in it. This schema is very important for this research and the analysis of the laundries and it will be used in the second part of the thesis.

II. SPACE A. A topological approach towards performative spaces (Space…)has of course always been the reservoir of resources, and the medium in which strategies are applied, but it has now become something more than the theatre, the disinterested stage or setting of action. (…) its role is less and less neutral, more and more active, both as instrumental and as goal, as means and as end. (Lefebvre, 1991a:410-11 recited in Soja, 2006:45) To understand the notions of performative projects and design, one needs to establish an understanding of the nature of performance design practices as well as its relative application field, in this case, the urban public space. The common ground here is provided by three factors: the concept of topology, the importance of a moving perceiving individual and the notion of dynamic practice. These three elements form a synthesis that reveals a conception of space both as an existential space and social construction, both the perspective of an external observer and the living/experiencing individual and finally, also highlights the importance of practice.

Performance design will be investigated in an urban context as a tool for creating dramaturgical strategies that foster social relationships and practices that attract or provoke passers-by to domesticate spaces and become active city-dwellers. Of course, the idea of creating spaces using this kind of strategies is not new; it originates back to the works of Situationists. But reinterpreting spaces, by proposing creative solutions and scenarios with performative potential can give new identities to places. (Lavrinec, 2011b)1 This presumes a perception of the urban following the concepts of Micheal De Certeau; the city is a dynamics schema shaped by social practices of everyday life. In other words, the city as an ever-changing complex that arises through a moving body encountering obstacles and their absence. (Lavrinec, 2011c) This research is driven by the belief that public spaces are where people can meet and interact.

(Foerster-Baldenius, 2019)2

B. Performance Design Having defined the terms assigned to scenographic/performative practices, a description of the nature of those practices will be attempted. Emphasis will be on non-theatrical spaces and urban context. Performative projects in an urban context are to some extend similar but also different from architecture or urban design; their fundamental characteristics are pointed out below. A reference is made to the means and tools used, the goals and potential results that could be achieved. Finally, micro-practices to enhance everyday life and foster communities and how could communities be involved are also issues that are touched upon.

Firstly, it is reasonable to understand the evolution of scenographic practise and the way it landed in the urban field. Brigit Wiens suggests that this happened in three waves; starting from the avant-garde movements, followed by post-dramatic theatre, reaching to contemporary practices of “expanded scenography.”(Wiens, 2019:5-6) This research focuses on the last one and thereof one should mention two important turning points that expanded the field of scenography.

The innovative ideas that achieved this expansion was that space was finally considered a crucial element of equal importance to the text or the actors, a counter player. (Wiens, 2019:5) It stands as a communicative agent that, simultaneously, bodily activates the audience.

Especially when referring to projects in public space, then a participatory character applied in urban scenographic practices brings up notions of regaining public space and creating places of “domesticity and shelter”(Brejzek, 2016:73-74)3 The elements that appear renewed and of a decisive role for the overall “experience” of the performative projects are:

• the very approach to scenography as a dynamic practice of “writing in space” or manipulating and orchestrating environments, • space and site where the performative project takes place along with its appropriation as a space that is facilitating encounter,

• the audiences that are now involved and activated not only intellectually but also through physical and sensual stimuli,

• the materiality as a concept that now includes not just things but also places and bodies as agents to understanding performance. (Wiens, 2019:19-20, McKinney & Palmer, 2017:8) The fact that contemporary performance design practices aim to the orchestration of the overall experience, the composition of an overarching atmosphere and embrace a moving body as the preceptor of the work are factors that directly link performance design to phenomenological theories. The notion of space as a dynamic phenomenon contributes to this link, in two ways.

The moving body completes and/or transforms the space. The performative aspect triggers a transformation of the space in itself. In other words, performance design creates not only a spatial configuration but also the transformation of this configuration. It is a result of an analysis and re-composition that aims to create changeable installations. Finally, the achievement of an aesthetic language is an indication that performance design works as an agent for an open format initiating a dialogue among people and space.

C. Creating Performative projects A wide variety of projects use the city both as site and raw material to create new models for interaction and habitation the intervention of art. (Graham, 2009)4 Improvisations, flash mobs, performances, dance events or more formal formats like installations queering the city, starting dialogues between city dwellers. They are all performative projects calling for a high level of

participation, initiating social interaction, triggering reflection and, as the term suggests, calling for changes. Projects carried out by groups like Raumlabor, Gap Filler, Improv Everywhere, LIGNA, Olafur Eliasson, Home, New Orleans? (2006) by Richard Schechner, The Living Stage in New York(2013), Her-Topia by Dorita Hannah and Carol Brown(2005) are all examples of performative interventions in the city. They either responded to crises, aimed to amend circumstances in neighbourhoods by reactivating spaces or attempted to reveal a city narrative through aesthetic performance. More of these projects will be analysed in the last part of the research.

For these projects to develop, the urban serves as a source of inspiration and insights on how people use and appropriate space and what triggers a creative use of space. (Signore, 2015) Signore suggests that these projects tend to design experiences. Consequently, they display openness, ambiguity and “tell us how to desire”.(Signore, 2015:170) Openness refers to a transformative potential they display both in the sense of allowing a change in itself and triggering it. It is also the fact that the project is in a way incomplete and allows a participant to improvise and create themselves. The ambiguity comes in exactly on this point, namely presuming that the participant will behave in a certain way; while offering an open form to be completed, specific solutions paradoxically are already provided limiting the “openness”.

(Signore, 2015:171-174) As in all creative practices, the designer makes choices and even if the intention is to leave a work open there is a tendency to control the result. Experiments are made, choices and aesthetic positions are adopted assuming the impacts produced and agencies involved. Every technique is bound to a certain ambiguity between the intended and the unintended consequences. (Mersch, 2019:169)5 And, finally, this is what it means that performative projects dictate how people desire. There is a certainly imposed performativity that the person needs to follow. (Signore, 2015:174) Considering, however, this matter from the opposite side, can spaces be ambivalent? Spaces are indeed created for specific uses and configured in a way that promotes certain behaviours for its users. But the use of space is not always fixed; this is the point that the performative arises. According to Erica Fischer-Lichte, the notion of performative projects entails a certain unpredictability: Spaces are performative insofar as particular versions of them are brought forth through the special use people make of them, which would not have been taken into account at the time of planning and construction. (Fischer-Lichte, 2015:32) It is, by this point of the research, clearly illustrated that the role of a participant is fundamental for the performative project. A performance design triggers experiences and spatial perception through sensual and physical stimuli, through calling upon activity, movement and reflection.

(Wiens and von Arx, 2019 :220)6 Contemporary performative projects found on the presumption of a moving body that has an evolving perception of a space. Merleau-Ponty and De Certeau point out in their theories how our different point of view changes our overall understanding of space. The first one explains in his book “The Phenomenology of perception” how space arises through movement. The second based on that explores the practice and the effects of this phenomena on everyday life. The different perceptions do not just bring forth different spaces

and hence different behaviours but also vice versa spaces come into being through various actions and comportment. There is, therefore, an interrelation between space and human perception.

Finally, Erica Fischer-Lichte detects four aspects that define the effect of space on individual perception: location, proportion, materiality and atmosphere. (Fischer-Lichte, 2015:36-28) It is substantial to establish an understanding of the effect the following have of the performance design process.

• Location poses certain demands that should be met and it also defines the way one physically approaches an installation and the way one perceives it visually. Simultaneously, the installation of any sort is an open dialogue with the surroundings which influences both the design and its actual presence.

• Proportion impacts the individual approaching the installation as well as using it. For example, one can compare the feeling of a gothic cathedral to a small cabin.

• Materiality is a rather important factor. Pallasmaa argues that human perception is primarily haptic. That means that a person experiences the touch of the materials and gradually develops an understanding of similar surfaces. That way even the visual stimuli triggers a specific bodily response to the apposite materials. (Pallasmaa, 1996) In addition to that, other properties of materials affect human behaviour towards them, like as their ability to reflect light, their reaction to heat, their particular smell, even their flexibility and colour.

• The atmosphere is a factor that should be highlighted as the main task for performance design. It acts as an agent for an overarching aesthetics and experience that scenography attempts to communicate. It is a form of non-verbal communication that brings up social and symbolic narratives achieved by all the aspects mentioned above, along with form, structure, rhythm, media, and light. All these elements in synergy are enclosed by the atmosphere. (Prangen, 2016:87-91) A relational, modular, topological approach to space is also implied in addition to the phenomenological character of this notion. The term atmosphere comes from the Greek words atmos and sphera, namely steam and sphere, and hence presumes a “phenomenology of the round” that Merleau-Ponty implied and Bachelard analysed. It relates to Walter Benjamin’s concept of “aura” that refers to any object to its presence in space and time and/or the constellation with its surroundings. (Schechner, 2006:131 and Fischer-Lichte, 2015:37). The atmosphere is not bounded to space nor eradicated by objects nor are the people in it who define it. Gernot Böhme defines atmosphere as “sphere of presence” and explained that atmospheres enable a specific experience of spatiality, that even though it is related to the contributing factors mentioned cannot be explained through them but rather contain them. (Fischer-Lichte, 2015:36-37) The atmosphere seems to reside between and in the “thing” that creates it and the empathetic “subject” perceiving it. This means that the atmosphere is subject to change according to the relative presence of both bodies and objects.

(Fischer-Lichte, 2015:37)

D. Performing Objects Objects in performance design, maintain their significance the expanded practice.

An object in phenomenology and, hence, performative projects, can be approached as an anchorage, as an appendage or even places. Anchorages are objects that in human perception function as stable points for orientation. It is directly related to spatiality and the way body mediates between space and object. While space arises only through the existence of an individual, an object appears to reveal the very structure of this space and, hence, impacts the body. (Ponty, 2006:430) Appendages are objects that come up as a bodily extension when an individual uses them. Finally, objects can constitute places. As Micheal De Certeau explains, a place is an order that distributes the elements that configure space. Place defines certain relations of/between elements that allow space to arise. (De Certeau, 1988:117 and Ponty, 2016:420) From this phenomenological vantage point, Stephan Di Benedetto explains:

“…Objects are the raw material of the context of the lived experience. Physiology guides us in everyday life how to relate to the things that surround us. In each situation that we find our selves, our sensations define the environment and seek to actively engage and respond. Objects are at once what they appear to be and carry with them what the culture and society

endow them to be.” (Di Benedetto, 2017:156)7

In that sense, objects are perceived in a way that triggers a certain reaction from the individual’s part. This is what Austin would call “performative utterance”. Objects perform while actively extend the human body(Hannah and Mezhoud, 2011)8, like appendages; for instance, when a performer is using an object to play with, they explore it and produce a relational context that is communicated to the audience. (Di Benedetto, 2017:156) But performative objects are unstable and simulated rather than real and fixed; they are produced and maintained in societies with technical means. (McKenzie, 2001:18)9 That means that objects are loaded with narratives, symbols and meanings, they embody culture and have a past that includes different purposes, origins, values and societal functions. (Brückner, 2011:68) Therefore, objects perform despite the human body, like anchorages or places. The object itself may indicate a certain spatial configuration and contribute to a certain aura. (Bejamin, 1969[1936]: 220-221)10 In certain cases, it can be used as an element to re-present the source, the authentic thing and be the bearer of the meaning. Then, the object will trigger a specific spatial arrangement and demand an environment intended to convey particular notions or to communicate a certain point of view. (Brückner, 2019:126)11 To conclude, an object, although a bearer of meanings and narratives related to societies and cultures, may become a point for orientation precisely expressing what it bears or it can also become an agent to a new story-telling defined by the performer using it. It is performative in both cases, but the difference lays in the form of experience one has with it. In the first case, that is encountered more often in the museum context, the experience is individual and free from temporality. The moving body is exposed to open dialogue with the place and the object.

One can maybe even go as far as to say that an object, in this case, defines the place, in De Certeau’s terms. The second case is what usually is employed in a performative/theatrical context, where the experience is collective, disclosed in time and employed in space. This experience resembles a ritual, like a theatrical (re)presentation. (Kurz, 2017:201-11)12

E. The urban environment Topology provides a justified connection between cultural and social sciences, addressing the questions related to the conditions and the practices of a transformation of a form or image into a spatial structure13 as well as the structure itself. (Prangen, 2016:36) To my understanding, topological approaches to spaces develop when one observes space from both perspectives of experiencing subject and external observer; in other words, when one studies different properties of space that are not easy to discern and decipher. De Certeau, Merleau-Ponty, Lefebvre, all three philosophers who conceptualise space in a way revealing the different layers encrypted in and constructing space and but also its complexity along with a great number of possibilities to think spatially. All three focus on the dynamic nature of space, constituted by human daily activities and the relevant practices. (Lavrinec, 2011b)

The city was approached topologically also by Micheal de Certeau: space is generated as a result of transforming practices-like moving, and it is therefore constantly changing. Perceiving, analysing, producing, or any effort of configuring space reproduces other spaces; motives, conflicts, patterns, power relations, narratives are reflected and transcribed in space. De Certeau begins his reflections from everyday life in the city. He sets practice to the centre of his attention and that way illustrates how the performative influences decisively the image of the city, establishing this way an insoluble connection between space and the performative. (Dünne, 2018:299) He argues that “every story is a travel story-a spatial practice”, which he explains through the linguistic form of performative. As one navigates through the city, they follow indications (like “turn left and go up this steps”), meet other(s) in places, knows stories or events that happened in these places. The city is a dynamic text. (Lavrinec, 2011a) It is noteworthy here to explain the difference De Certeau makes between place and space. Space is a formation that has mathematical, physical and geographical properties, therefore it can be “oriented, situated, temporalised, made to function in a polyvalent unity of conflictual programs and proximities.”

Place, on the other hand, is the order that distributes elements in relations of coexistence, a system of signs. (De Certeau, 1988:117) This distinction he makes is based on Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenological theory about space.

Geometrical space is analogous to what De Certeau calls place; it is understood in its physical, cartesian expression, “a heterogeneous and isotropic spatiality”. (De Certeau, 1988:117) But it is opposed to the anthropological space that only arises through human activity and perception. It cannot be simplified in its physical dimension. (Turner, Davenport, 2006:222) The work of Merleau-Ponty on perception establishes the importance of experience in everyday life, in which space is an integral part. According to phenomenology, space is an inexhaustible presence. (Ponty 2016:15)14 Space appears as a composition of multiple elements in a primordial state in the world. (Terzoglou, 2009:260) Body, space and time form a trialectic through which embodied perception is achieved. In essence, perception of space is a holistic phenomenon, a series of embodied experiences that are interrelated, include and explain one another simultaneously but also in a sequence. (Ponty, 2006:450) The process of perception of space is a complex one, combining and composing multiple stimuli acquired by all bodily senses and edited by the brain according to past experiences and knowledge. Ponty also clarifies that the body is the medium to perceive the world because it is the first element to be perceived and then one moves with it using as a medium to encounter the world. “The body is in space and time and of space and time, the body fits in them and contains them.”(Ponty, 2016:245) or as De Certeau quotes ”space is existential” and “existence is spatial”.

This approach constitutes an ontological reconstruction of our concept of space and presupposes the Heideggerian “Da-sein”, or “being-in-the-world” where three aspects are in synergy. Henri Lefebvre was influenced by phenomenology which provided him a first understand of spatiality.(Elden, 2004)15 He managed to yield an inquiry that revolved simultaneously and equally around three aspects of being moving towards a trialectic. Beings are fundamentally “historical-social-spatial” altogether, “actively participating individually and collectively in the construction of histories, geographies, societies.” (Soja, 1996:73) That yielded the inquiry of three ontological fields of knowledge but in an integrated way. He highlighted 14

space as a crucial factor instead of a mere background or vessel in human behaviour and social action. (Soja, 1996:71-73) It is important to briefly refer to the theories of Lefebvre. He, firstly, manages to bring sociology and phenomenology together. Secondly, he underlines the importance of everyday life activities as a practice shaping space, which is the theoretical basis and a precondition to understanding performative projects. These evolve through highlighting all aspects of a physical structure, which fundamentally include meanings, narratives, symbolisms, and represent and reproduce our perception of it.

Lefebvre creates a conception of space the consists of 3 interrelated but distinguishable aspects. He follows the concept of “thesis-antithesis-synthesis”(Dünne, 2006:298) To my understanding, he describes three kinds of practices that generate three corresponding types of spaces. These may overlap, relate to one another or manage to embody all three aspects. Firstly, spatial practice (Originally pratique spatiale)is a term describing a dynamic process carried out by the society and brought up by activities, behaviours and experiences.

That includes the micro-practices that of everyday life, or as he calls it “the urban routine”.

For Lefebvre, these are directly related to a consumers’ society as inflicted by Modernism; repeating routines and daily activities produce a material social spatiality, that one acknowledges through their individual experience; that spatial practice produces what he refers to as “perceived space” (originally Espace perçu). (Brandis 2015, Soja, 1996, Dünne, 2006) Then, the representations of space are the conceptualised side and include even the depictions of space or conceptualisations in science, theories, plans etc. This aspect favours the mental and conceptual space over social and physical space. (Brandis, 2015:68) It also relates to the process and realisation of an order or designs and hence a form of text, ideology, surveillance and control. (Soja, 1996:67) It the practice that produces an “abstract space” (also referred to as conceived space, but here as abstract space, which is closer to the original Espace abstrait.) deeply rooted in all forms of space design. And the last and most important one are spaces of representation. This is a term complex to tangle. Spaces of representation are not just medial spaces but lived spaces(original: Espace veçu). They include symbolisms, norms, non-verbal signs, they embody all meanings. It is a very open concept that includes and brings forth both the previous ones. To my understanding these spaces are both real and imagined; real in terms of their physical presence and their relative representations, and imagined in terms of all that the individual experiencing them is mentally making out of them( different interpretations, art, philosophy semiotics, etc).

Edward Soja is a social geographer that studied the theories of Lefebvre and built upon them a model for categorising spaces. He is proposing a critical strategy that would open up new ways of thinking about space and social spatiality, about our spatial imaginaries, about acting political. (Soja, 1996:5) He would define three ways of thinking about spaces: the Firstspace as concrete materiality of spatial forms; it is similar to what Lefebvre called “perceived space.” It is a materialised physical spatiality that is directly comprehended in empirically measurable configurations. Secondspace includes ideas about space. Thoughtful representations of human spatiality expressed in mental and cognitive forms. It is entirely ideational, made up projections in the empirical world. However, as Soja explains, firstspace may collapse entirely into the

secondspace, as these cognitive products are produced and greatly affect space, power and knowledge (Stararchitect-made architecture is such an example). Lastly, the thirdspace is a “possibilities machine” to explore, remember, rethink recover the “lost spaces”. (Soja, 1996:7882) It is overall a unitary theory that allows to explain and analyse complex urban and social issues. In essence, Soja argues that spaces may not be contained only within one social category; this is allowing hybrid forms to be developed or spatial concepts that investigate simultaneously into multiple sides of the relative concepts. He looks into the city as the thirdspace, where the third stands for space beyond binary oppositions.16

“Everything comes together... subjectivity and objectivity, the abstract and the concrete, the real and the imagined, the knowable and the unimaginable, the repetitive and the differential, structure and agency, mind and body, consciousness and the unconscious, the disciplined and the transdisciplinary, everyday life and unending history.”(Soja 1996:57)

It is, as he explains further in his book and in-between situation that grasps completely the connection between real and imagined, between body and mind, being inside and outside a community, between private and public(Soja 1996:114).

Notes 1. Lavrinec, Jekaterina. (2011). Revitalisation of Public Space: from “Non-places” to Creative Playgrounds (the paper in English) (Co-activity: Philosophy, Communication). 70-75. 10.3846/coactivity. 2011.16.

2. Wiens B.E.,(2019) Contemporary Scenography, Great Britain, Bloomsbury 3. Brejzek T. (2016) Architecture and Scenography in McKinney J. and Palmer S., Scenography expanded, London: Bloomsbury.

4. in Lehmann Ed. Steffen, (2008) Back to the city: Strategies for Informal Urban Interventions.

Collaborations between Artists and Architects, Berlin, Hatjecantz 5. in Wiens B.E.,(2019) Contemporary Scenography, Great Britain, Bloomsbury 6. in Wiens B.E., (2019) Contemporary Scenography, Great Britain, Bloomsbury 7. McKinney, Palmer S. and contributors, Scenography Expanded, 2017, Great Britain, Bloomsbury 8. Hannah, D., & Mehzoud, S. (2011). Presentation/representation/re-presentation: fragments out of the dark to a lived experience. In T. Brejzek (Ed.), Expanding Scenography: On the Authoring of Space (pp.

102 - 112). Arts and Theatre Institute.

9. “Perform or else”, reference box Schechner R. (2006), Performance Studies: an Introduction, Third Edition, London and New York, Routledge 10. in Illuminations, from Schechner R. (2006), Performance Studies: an Introduction, Third Edition, London and New York, Routledge132 11. in Wiens B.E., Contemporary Scenography,2019, Great Britain, Bloomsbury 12. translated from French, Kurz A., Object Scénique, 2017, Berlin, Theater der Zeit, 13. english translation of “räumliche Gebilde” used in Prangen’s original book as presented in Schmitt D.J. (2013) Between Word and Image: Heidegger, Klee, and Gadamer on Gesture and Genesis, digital version, Indiana, Indiana Univercity Press, p.21 14. Translated from greek by me. Maurice Merleau-Ponty , Phenomenology of perception 15. Elden, Stuart. (2004). Rhythmanalysis: An introduction. Rhythmanalysis: Space, Time and Everyday Life. vii-xv. , digital edition: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/285712763_Rhythmanalysis_An_ introduction, (last preview: 13.08.2020, 12:00) 16. Lotker S. (2015) Turning city into thirdspace, http://www.theatrefit.org/resources.php (last review:16.08.2020, 16:15)

INTERVAL SUM UP AND EXPAND

After this literature review, there are two primary concusses that need to be drawn.

The first one is that the city dweller is a performer of everyday life. As we practice our daily lives, we take up different roles. Starting from gender as a rehearsed identity, it constitutes a primary restored behaviour that expresses, reveals or sometimes even hides an identity.

(Butler, 1988 and Schechner, 2006) Hence, roles are dictated not just from the social situation or the relationship we want or already have established as Goffman claimed, but also of the norms, language, cultural factors and learned behaviours that we enact. Spatial configuration is a decisive factor on the role that we decide to take up. Malls or department stores are a simple example; our behaviour is already directed since there is a specific route to follow, specific products to desire or ways to live and desire on display. And, it usually is all under close supervision. We come in terms with specific behaviours and lifestyles.

Physical spaces arise through the activity of an individual, the configuration of objects in space and the complete atmosphere; they help create each time a specific kind of behaviour. Some spatial elements encourage active participation; either that is simple micro-practices, like walking, standing, even dancing, or social scenarios that unfold, like having a coffee, play a game or even protesting. (Lavrinec, 2011a) The contemporary scenographic practices generate possibilities for performance revealing or implementing real or imagined narratives, engaging mind and body, re-structure space or communicate stories. These compositions scenography creates and the fact that thirspace is where real and imagined space come together, justifies the statement that a scenographic

environment is in essence a thirdspace.(Lotker, 2015) Understanding performative/ scenographic environments as thirdspace allows new meanings as well as perspectives for the design practice. During these situations, exactly as we use space in new ways, even when only temporary, there is an imagined scenario that can suggest a different everyday life. As established in the performance theory, the very performance brings upon a change to those participating; thus, these imagined scenarios can trigger change or illustrate potential both spatial and social.

These conclusions highlight the need for an approach towards design of public spaces that takes performative into consideration, because that way spaces may become more inclusive and liberating for people to express identities and take action towards/against changes. Public spaces remain of utmost importance for people with not only social but all the more symbolic, recreational and aesthetic functions. The crisis of the pandemic brought the public space again in the foreground. Turner and Davenport argue on the importance of public spaces claiming it allows personal identity, social interaction and emotions to grow. These three elements are interconnected; the construction of the image of the self as a process is carried out through but also enhanced by social interaction. Collective experiences establish social relationships that generate emotions of security, autonomy and even excitement. (Turner, Davenport, 2005) To my understanding, and according to the literature review, this means that giving people possibilities of encounter and performance may actually improve the everyday life in the city. Finally, these events are more efficient when people actually can influence the urban set up and perceive it as an extension of their homes. In other words, domesticating the public space gives new meanings and potentials not only to the public but also to the private space.

PART 2 DESIGN PRACTICE DOCUMENTATION I. OVERARCHING DESIGN CONCEPT

As discussed in the previous chapter, most of performative projects revolve around two main axes, usually opposing to each other. However, my research in space theories and sociology indicated trialectic thinking as a more appropriate option for a complete concept. Therefore, a structure is created inspired by Lefebvre’s writings for my project: presence, absence and representation that will structure a three-core concept for my design proposal. In order to use the urban as a source of inspiration and insight on how people use and appropriate space, I chose an everyday life activity, laundry, that happens in the verge of private and public space. These enabled me to develop an artistic concept.

In my interpretation, laundry-doers become performers, washed clothes arise as scenic objects and urban environment hosting laundries becomes a dramatic character. The metaphor of presence, absence and re-presentation applied on the very performance of laundries structured the proposal. More specifically, the original performance is when the performer is present; namely hanging their laundry to dry. While the laundry is hanging to dry, it underlines the absence of the performer; not only in poetic terms of empty clothes that await bodies to fill but also in the sense that they stand on behalf of the original performance as object-events. And, finally, all the material produced by the participants in the Bougada Project (who are in essence documenting their performance) is a form of “re-presentation.� These hybrids are operating between fact and ideal re-presentation rendering themselves performative by re-working the final result as an original. I then developed a concept for a scenographic walk where the laundry process is transcribed in space. The three installations presented here foster encounter and develop spatial and material relations between these bodies, objects and environment.

Inspired by the laundry process, I am borrowing spatial elements, like the in-between space,

the possibility of transformation and play, the light formations, the scale, and the materials, the originally used wood, fabrics, ropes and water. With these tools, four spaces are created with different dynamics imposing three ways of being and illustrating a crossing point. They create situations that compose the bodies, the objects and the environment in different forms and formats with one being favoured each time. Â The drawings and the models serve both as visualisations of the installations proposed as well as windows into the theoretical research. For this reason, multiple vantage points are superimposed to indicate the way in which we perceive space, in multiple scales and in sequences all together at once. Perception is creating a system in chaos, so we can understand and function. If we can actually grasp all the systems at once then we adjust and generate a new (set of) behaviour(s). In order to communicate this, elements are super-imposed but allow an overview of the systems in place. Elements are also added in order to explain the performative aspect, the experience or the metaphorical/conceptional/theoretical background. Furthermore, the installations maintain clean and simple forms in order to allow maximum understanding of the system they follow and awareness. The models present the physical proposal in scale 1:25.

Although this triadic structure could actually create a three-act dramaturgy with an epilogue, the installations are not placed in a specific order or location. They are meant to be experienced in a random order and located anywhere they can actually fit whether that is an urban or more rural environment. Even unoccupied terrains and spaces, devoid of human figure, preserve the potential or memory of presence and these installations could highlight this element. They create eventful situations that can be separated from each other or experienced as a set of juxtaposing spaces: The Presence plane, the Absence spot, the Threshold in-between and the Re-Presentation space. They are only conceptually connected with a mental route or a virtual path in the city or a natural landscape.

Reference Drawing from Cooper Union, B. Tschumi, Parc de la Villete

Design Tools

WATER

SHADOWS

LINES

ZWISCHENRAUM

SMELL

Materiality

Moodboards

II. The Presence Plane

Moments of presence are themselves within everyday life. They puncture the “everydayness” or banality of repetitive tasks like a ray of sunshine through clouds. (Shields, 1999:60)

Presence is an interactive process of encounter and a way of being. It involves multileveled awareness, openness and an appreciative curiosity. The more evident these characteristics the more authentic an interaction becomes. It is, thus also experimental; as the quality of these elements changes every time is different and one tries out different ways of getting in this interplay of listening and responding, performing and watching. Presence constitutes, in essence, a way of being with “other”, with one’s self and the world. (Atkins, Eberhart, 2014) The presence plane is a square perforated platform standing on a half sphere. The form was developed in an effort to create a stark bodily experience of one’s self impact in space as well as of their coexistence with the other.

The main element in this first station of the scenographic walk is the body that fills, shapes and renders the platform into a playground.

It is an open platform in the sense that it can be reformed in any way by the participants.

Wooden pillars and four wooden cubes are available for people to place on the platform or under it and create temporary spaces, ideal for a collective building game in 1:1 scale or performances or even hanging laundries. The platform standing on a half-sphere adds an extra element of play. When we remove the

blocks holding the platform in balance, the platform turns into a sort of 3-dimensional seesaw. It initiates a playful situation where the presence of oneself as well as the meeting of the other impact space greatly. Finally, the water by the side of the platform, in a static calm state in a round container completes the picture of the situation with all the elements of laundries.

The situation created here is performative in multiple levels. Firstly, the person on the platform steps onto a stage, assuming that a second person outside the platform is watching. Secondly, two people meeting on the platform either in a balanced state of the platform to build or in a seesaw state, are required to take up roles, communicate with each other and show some intention to play with each other. Finally, these same two people put up a performance for the people that are on the ground around.

The presence plane, thus, constitutes an almost literal stage situation where two people suffice to render the space into a performative one. Although it leaves room for experimentation and building the space, it remains to some level limiting in terms of what, how big and what form the materials used have for the spatial configuration.

ABSENCE

PLAY

CREATE

LAUNDRY

PRESENCE

REPRESENTATION

III. Threshold In-between

The 2nd station is the Threshold in-between.

Here the main element is the object each self.

This installation is inspired by folds, textures and porous of textiles and the metaphor of the city as an urban fabric. It represents the city that forms an environment that we perceive as boundaries and their absence. These material boundaries have different weaving. They allow more or less the gaze, the light, the wind and the body to go through. The two lines, one solid and heavy, the other modular and uneasy, attempt to re-create the experience of a city stroll. The visitor encounters sequences of light and darkness, dense and looser areas.

Space either retreats or attacks the walker creating boundaries in their way or pushing them away. The installation has three openings where each one corresponds to one of the previous situations randomly. On a second level, the installation forms a threshold, space “in-between”, inspired by the way laundries are hung and the threshold one has to cross in order to get to the room where the washing line is set up. It symbolises exactly the vague bubble that includes the boundary between private and public sphere.

It was important to create a space that illustrates the “in-between”. It is a term that came up multiple times during the research: the performance that resides between things, the atmosphere between space and individual, the spaces boundaries take.

IV. The Absence Spot

The third station is the Absence spot. Here the environment is the element in favour.

The cylindrical form recreates the horizon line while it fades out towards the sky, the eye of the visitor is lifted upwards, creating an illusion of endlessness. The horizontal openings enhance the shadow play and the sound of the wind. The water formation is the only way in and out. This constant motion of the environment appears in a juxtaposition to the motionless heavy cylinder creating a feeling of awareness of the absentmindedness. The visitor finds themselves looking inside, in a state of pause, introversion and mindfulness.

V. Re-Presentation Space

The last station is the re-presentation. This is an installation in virtual space. The Bougada Project tells the different stories of people, using laundries as a means of expression.

AÂ mosaic of urban laundries from all over the world is in display on the website. This mosaic is a collection of documented performances of everyday life in the city. Laundries were always a part of our everyday life, a performative act on the outer boundary of the private sphere and on the edge of public space; though underlining the performative aspect of the activity, I intended to turn it into a moment of expression and freedom.

Furthermore, thebougadaproject.com is a platform realising an effort to engage social media and connect with people that want to participate in a community-building project.

Re-presentation is acting on behalf of the absent original. Either the project is an unrealised performance or it remakes a past performance. This process involves an imagined presence, memories or fragments of these little performances. During them,

the performers carry out an action of their everyday lives �as� performance. But they are aware already from the beginning that their activity will have a greater audience than usual. It is a restored behaviour since it is an activity they have already done plenty of times in the past. However, acknowledging this fact changes certain elements of the process. Sometimes it is the way the washing is hung or the type or colour of the washing.

Sometimes the place itself changes or the person hanging the laundry changes or the clothes they wear. Then, the way the pictures are taken reveals that the performer sees that washing itself as a work of art now, or as an object to create a work of art. Finally, studying these pictures, I came to question the boundaries of performative processes; as performance is an embodied activity, happening only once these pictures document and re-present it in a new format. While my initial understanding was that the pictures are a window to the performance, instead, I realised that they are the result of representation of the original performance and should be also studied as separate artworks.

Laundries as documented Performances

The entries can be sorted in 3 categories.

The first one, is where the act of laundry doing becomes an object of observation, photography and documentation. These are usually formed with image-sequences that reveal the laundry doing from the washing machine to hanging. The pictures include hands or people doing the act. They often display also details like clothespins and baskets of fresh washing.

Washings as a creative topic In the second category, washing lines are scenic objects that have their picture taken.

They are transformed into a material for creating a visually interesting picture. Often laundry is ordered by colour, or framed in peculiar angles. Other times unusual objects are deployed like hats, house-shoes, masks and medical clothes even emergency blankets. These do not include the performer but approach the washing line with a narrative or meaningful purpose.

Laundries as parts of the city

The third category includes the pictures that focus on the relation of the laundries with the urban landscape. They do not include people; instead washings are captured as a living object in the static city. Light and air seem to be of importance as the give away the feeling of motion in the pictures and enhance the contrast with the urban. This last category is particularly interesting because it allows us to clearly see also the space where laundry is taking place.

The typologies include back and frond yards, windows and balconies, lines over the city and even indoor drying washings. The different types except for different hanging possibilities, change the view of the audience. Laundries hanging over streets for example, lift the eye of the observer towards the sky. Those in yards stand in plain sight for veryone to see while passing by. The indoor washings were particular,that were only revealed thebougadeproject.com.

Backyards

Frontyards

Balconies

Windows

Indoors

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