Make Room for PLAY | Questioning the Role of the Moving Body between Thinking and Making.

This interdisciplinary research examines how architecture and dance can enhance their mutual understanding of the embodied spatial experience to open up new perspectives on the creation processes in both disciplines. In the discipline of architecture, the visual experience dominates the tools as well as the thinking processes and the human body is mainly assigned a functional role. While the embodied spatial experience arises from the body in motion. As such, the architectural design tools offer very limited possibilities to fully understand the phenomenon of embodied spatial experience. Like architecture, the dance discipline is also a creative 'design practice'. Both design practices share three main components: body, movement and space. However, unlike architecture, in the latter discipline space is created with the body in motion and space is in that case a temporary, non-materialised and constantly evolving. Hence, the relationship between the components, which links both disciplines in the process of creation, is fundamentally different. This epistemological distinction is approached from three angles in this research: literature, education and established practices. The last two are in the context of the research respectively named as 'plays' and 'talks' and accommodated in an imaginary constructed 'playground'. Within this playground, active experimentation takes place through the application of design tools and methods derived from one of the involved disciplines. This allows for a deeper understanding of the epistemology underlying these tools and methods. At the heart of this research is a methodology based on the Lewinian Learning Cycle—an iterative process in which action and reflection allow for generating new insights. In short, this research examines what preconceptions are embedded in both disciplines regarding the relationship between body, movement and space as a result of using discipline-specific strategies and tools, in particular how they determine 'learning' to understand and approach 'embodied spatial experience' within an educational context. The ultimate goal is to provide both architects and choreographers with a broader and more conscious approach to the phenomenon within their respective creative processes. Ultimately, through the creation of the playground, this research offers an imaginary space for sharing and accommodating this interdisciplinary knowledge and allows one to think and act beyond discipline-bound design tools and associated preconceptions. As such, the playground is not only a space for experimentation but also a learning environment stripped of its disciplinary boundaries, in which two learning principles 'reallocating the gaze' and 'alternating the role' prevail. The playbook, as an outcome of the playground, invites to actively expand the discourse and framework for thinking about the relationship between body, movement and space. By doing so, the research also implicitly opens up the debate on breaking down the disciplinary barriers that have been created throughout history.

Jaar van publicatie:2021

Toegankelijkheid:Open