villainous.biz

shit fuck god damn.

it has taken me three months to reflect upon the recent quasi-disaster that was the abake prescribed, three part project, the zeitgeist heist.

since posting about the first two elements of the project, team dynamics have run-a-muck, and the last group dinner/brainstorming session ended up in a… shall we say, heated discussion, at best. after a particularly critical reaction from the panel during the second presentation, we did manage to meet one more time before the final crit, and came up with a poetic proposition to end such a seemingly futile attempt at designers trying to generate interactivity through performative means.

designers. actually we were a group which consisted of an architect, curator, exhibition designer and yours truly, media art monkee. without strong graphic design skills between the 4 of us, we luckily didn’t have to present a high in concept and research illustrated with flashy graphics presentation and presented as simply and to the point as possible, while adhering to some narrative themes (a guided tour comes to mind) to efficiently convey what we wanted to say.

rounding-up our colleagues and tutors into the stairwell on the 9th floor of our building, we made the group walk down the stairs holding a rope which formed a line. the stairwell is kinda groovy, with huge glass windows overlooking holborn. its cool and windy, walls littered with forgotten posters of past CSM shows and bad signage so you never know what floor you are on. hundreds of students walk up and down these stairs throughout a day.

people being people, we were soon a mix of bodies, while the four of us narrated a metaphorical and critical journey of our experience throughout this laborious project. we told emotional experiences, criticized the brief and its prescribers and more or less vented. we role-played as if we hated each other, which wasn’t far at the time (big kiss to aranzazu, gilly and anna)!

in the end, the tutors seemed positive about it and we had a chance to present something we were happy with, not to mention it made us stronger in the process. as the saying goes; you can only collaborate with people who want to collaborate. i have learned that my colleagues are damn good.