Fight Club: Negotiating Rations
2019
2019
Installation proposal for RIBA, collaboration with Alfred Yeung
Tyler Durden: Now as a question of etiquette, do I give you the ass or the crotch?
Everywhere I travel, tiny life. Single-serving sugar, single serving cream, single pat of butter. The microwave Cordon Bleu hobby kit. Shampoo-conditioner combos, sample-packaged mouthwash, tiny bars of soap. The people I meet on each flight? They’re single-serving friends.”
-Fight Club (1999)
-Fight Club (1999)
Vid: Single-Serving-Family-Serving-Single-Serving
Still from vid:
Architectural Parallels (Nakagin Capsule Tower / The Matrix)
The AmbitionThe project simulates the everyday urban experience; in which personal boundaries are rationed through design but constantly re-negotiated by the body.
The DesignThe project injects a swarm of retractable seats to the gallery, compartmentalising the space into interactive portions around the three existing columns. The appropriated space creates and amplifies moments of negotiation; avoidance of contact through seat selection and the unavoidable experience of giving way for passage.
The project simulates the everyday urban experience; in which personal boundaries are rationed through design but constantly re-negotiated by the body.
Personal spaces expand and contract according to the level of control exerted by the designed physical environment; from riding the tube to watching a movie at the cinema we partake in a phenomenological process; the signages and objects suggest how spaces are allocated, upon that we challenge and attempt to maximise the portion our bodies occupy and produce.
The DesignThe project injects a swarm of retractable seats to the gallery, compartmentalising the space into interactive portions around the three existing columns. The appropriated space creates and amplifies moments of negotiation; avoidance of contact through seat selection and the unavoidable experience of giving way for passage.
Upon entry of the exhibition, the visitors are first greeted by a video display of the seating plan showing the occupancy of the room. Turning around, observable on all walls surrounding the seats are plans extracted from airplanes/ trains/ restaurants/ theatres, showcasing norms in spatial design. Into the chair-maze, from column to column, visitors flow from videos on single serving products to ones on family-sized packages; the succession of these design parallels echo the extend of design in defining boundaries across boundaries of not just space but the whole of the urban everyday life.
