What may the act of defying assumed/inscribed instructions of physical conditions yield?
I can imagine what it is like to climb a wall and sit on it. Rationally, I would see things from above if I do.
Actually doing so, and allowing my body to go through the motions in order to gain the experience, is something else. It actually forever alters the way my mind imagines sitting on a wall: how it feels, what I see.
A related experience is studying the drawings of a building, looking at pictures, and then traveling to the site. Something is gained in the visit that could not be transmitted through representations – no matter how correct. A feeling? Perspective? Either way, a bodily observation that adds to your collection of experiences that affects how you relate to the rest of the world.
With the help of colleagues a small workshop was staged at Lövholmen, where we challenged ourselves.
The importance of accomplices also became apparent to us: doing things together seems much more possible than going at it alone. The presence of others helps us challenge, gives us legitimacy to do so.
Born out of a conversation about an active relationship with our surroundings, and in combination questioning how much potential our actions contain, it was also a way to expand traditional site-investigation – expand our perception of the place. Our eyes told us these objects or situations were one thing, our learned ways told us a certain way to act in relation to these things were expected. If we hold a more active relation towards them, might they actually grow? Beyond confirming that norms and learned expectations limit the possibility we experience every day – might the way we perceive a place and its potential actually expand it?
Might the effort to defy the assumed instructions teach us something about our own desires, when we are not responding to expectations? Might those desires begin to give information to a designprocess?
JENNY ÖVERGAARD 