Open Agenda 20th Biennale of Sydney

2016

Embassy of the Real on Cockatoo Island

The proposal is for an extension of the performative nature of the artworks on the island, a stage for the visitor and event organisers to play out a speculative research agenda, exploring the effects of a predicted future on human behaviour.

The installation presents the script, or plan for how the Embassy will operate over the three month period in its many functional arrangements, but will record actual outcomes of the movement, use and passage of people. This data will be revealed in real time through an immediate feedback loop using analogue and low tech systems.

The predicted future, or revealed script will be disrupted by the users as a creative act of freedom driven by intuition, will and intent based on the feedback of the emerging patterns, to reorganise and adjust the space according to specific needs. The future made present precludes an act of freedom.

The research experiment is to uncover the limitations in the predicative nature of the architectural plan, and collect this data as a means of progressing an understanding and methodology of architectural documentation and performance, which is fundamentally the movement of bodies through space.

Open Agenda Competition Panels

Competition 2016 – Top Three Finalist Honorary Mention