For the last five years, my work has been extremely related to the open source community. The development of “Softmodelling” has implied a permanent conversation between my personal interest as a designer, and the openness of the software for the intervention of the user, enabling them to apply their own design sensibility. The Software is therefore in constant evolution, orchestrated by “myself”, designed in collaboration with “others” (where “We” is a term in permanent fluctuation), used by “others” with different degrees of proximity to the research, sometimes tested in short term intense workshops, some others allowing designers to use it as a design tool for their own personal projects.
2. How would you define ‘body’ in relation to the multiple forms of presence, interaction and spatial condition in contemporary cities?
The idea of the body as a contained space is no longer valid. Thanks to the improvements in technology and communication, physical and real space do not necessarily overlap continuously. Our body is, therefore, beyond any physical frontier.
3. How would you respond to the concepts: ‘the space is a medium of the body’ and ‘the body is a medium of the space’?
Body and space are for me two complete different entities, which do not get necessarily interwoven into a common object. In my opinion, the relationships between one-another are not defined as one being the medium for the other, but rather as non-linear relationships inside which sometimes meeting points occur.
4. How would you orchestrate the ‘I’, ‘We’ and ‘They’ across two physical contexts (such as this year between Taipei and The Hague)?
Different contexts imply different constraints. While Taipei will be a team intense experience of what comes from the “I” until the structure installation, and get resolved through its metamorphosis into the “We”; The Hague will generate a different impact, in which the presence of “They” as not only observers, but also contributors, will alter the nature of the work.
5. How would you connect the process of making/doing/actioning (which may take on different forms) with the process of experience and the construction of new identity?
Both workshop and exhibition will negotiate between the predictable and the unpredictable, involving different speeds from what is conceived before and during the installation of the structure. The key to the success of this kind of experiences is to orchestrate the design enough to guarantee a certain degree of control prior to the installation event, but at the same time leave enough aspects semi-opened for allowing local transformations through the process of making.
6. How would you gauge the tension between your work’s specificity and the possibility of indeterminate participatory input that jointly shapes the work in its process?
Softmodelling has gone through several testing workshops and installations during the last years, where the contribution of the workshop participants, as well as software users, has resulted in the creation of a variety of structures. These structures aim to analyze the behavior of different types of flexible elements. They are conceived as physical prototypes from workflows which include Softmodelling as the main design tool. These series of events have become extremely instrumental to shape the software development, as well as to catalase its openness to admit inputs from collaborators and workshop participants.