In the City, the Ballets
What if you could control 120 people for 10 minutes?
When faced with the challenge of hosting a two-day workshop at Malmö University for 140 mixed students (Stage Designers, Interaction Designers, Media and Communication Students, Graphic Designers) at a special interdisciplinary course on artistic practices UNSWORN decided to use the abundance of people as design material.
Designers of systems or artefacts are not only crafting the shape and nature of products but also scripting our possible choreographies as we navigate through our everyday realities. In this workshop, participants are both design material/ballerinas and choreographers using their own city as their dance floor.
For the final critique professional street dance choreographer Anders Bergkvist joined with insightful comments and suggestions.
Download introduction lecture slides (PDF, 6 mb)
DESIGN BRIEF
"Your task is to design a beautiful choreography.
You will be divided up into 10 groups.
Each group will be assigned two geographical points between which their choreography shall be executed by the whole group of students.
Each group should deliver the student body to their end point at the exact time given, so that the next group can carry on with their program.
As a general rule of thumb, leave the student body in the same condition you would like to have found it yourself.
In order to communicate its choreography to the rest of the student body, each group will produce an Executable. The Executable should be a single A4 sheet that contains all details and instructions necessary. Each group should produce 140 copies of their Executable and deliver them to the workshop table before 12.00 hours Friday 15 September 2006."
"it turned out to be an uncomfortable, fantastic and weird experience"
Mass-moving in the streets was quite an intense expereience. Some of the participants blogged about it: here, here and there. Here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. Not to mention this.
