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Indepth Arts News:
"Play-use"
2000-07-09 until 2000-09-24
Witte de With Center for Contemportary Art
Rotterdam, ,
NL
The explosive developments on the World Wide Web have generated new fields of
design explored by artists as well as architects, (web) designers, game producers
and computer programmers. In the exhibition Play-use, they present their findings
with interactive models, prototypes, and computer games focusing on the constantly
redefined relationship between play and use.
Part of the exhibition is Play-use/The Forum, a website made in collaboration with EINA, Escola de Disseny i Art, Barcelona. Play-use/The Forum expresses part of the project's intention: to ignite a real
debate on the possibilities of connecting cultural practices from within and beyond
the hierarchies of the fine arts. The question is: which needs can art satisfy? And
what programs are designed to fulfill these needs?
A new work by the Dutch architect Kas Oosterhuis presents this relationship
between play and use as basis for a new type of design. Employing the lay-out of
internet sites such as Active Worlds, he designs buildings as games whose
architecture follows the demands of the players. Physical and virtual space merge in
the installation by the Japanese computer game producer Hiroshi Masuyama which
confronts visitors physically with the virtual world of the new computer game Doshin
the Giant. SOMAR (Sophie Krier and Marjolein Faase) presents in collaboration
with the Design Academy in Eindhoven the project Fake in which she contrasts
the three dimensional materiality of industrial design with the ethereal facade of the
cartoon world.
In her series Kiosks, New York artist Donna Nield employs digital means to
reconfigure cosmetic booths into ambiguous architectural artifacts. Computer
software also plays an important role in the design of the apartment building
Resi-Rise Skyscraper by the New York based architecture/ design collective
Kolatan/McDonald Studio. This skyscraper's shape and facade mutate according to
computer-steered design changes based on changing residential needs and
fluctuating market values. Residential units (pods) can be attached or detached
when the inhabitant wants a new interior, moves away or with changes in the real
estate market.
The American critic and ID Magazine editor Janet Abrams is responsible for
installing the exhibition's nerve center. She has assembled a collection of websites,
CD-roms, computer games, video's en magazines to help the visitors to orient
themselves on the hybrid nature of new design. Combining the function of café,
salon and library, the space is designed by Melle Smets and Jurriaan van Diggele.
The exhibition was made in collaboration with the Design Academy
(Eindhoven), EINA (Barcelona), Interrogative Design Group/ MIT
(Massachusetts, U.S.A.), Royal College of Art, Postgraduate Art & Design
(London).
Contributers: Janet Abrams, Jop van Bennekom, Kelly Dobson, Peter
Friedl, Meschac Gaba, JODI, Kolatan/McDonald Studio, Atelier Van
Lieshout & Women on Waves, Hiroshi Masuyama, Donna Nield,
Honoré d'O, Kas Oosterhuis, Jean-Arnaud Smadja, Melle
Smets/Jurriaan van Diggele, SOMAR, Simon Starling, Krzystof
Wodiczko, The Word Company
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