Abstract
Usership can be understood as a special case of non-sufficiency in which artworks make up for their lacking a self-contained compositional space by replacing the viewer with an user. In this showcase, I will present and discuss one such instance, an intervention in an urban pond, one among various such interventions from the series called “Escadas.” In this particular instance, encroaching into the public space by private interests is subtly resisted through deployment of devices inviting users to bath in its waters. Not necessarily a site-specific intervention but rather a tool for various backgrounds, and not simply a means of access to the pond as a queue to using it, the work of art proper in this series invariably becomes the instructions for its own use. I will offer considerations on makeshift as opposed to carefully designed objects and I will discuss questions of representation, specifically what does “using the map at the 1:1 scale,” as suggested by Stephen Wright, mean other than a metaphor for unmediated experience. I will finally debate how can this approach advance a program of post-studio practice and independent institutional critique that is resilient to capture while simultaneously benefiting a strategy of intervention in the public space that is reminiscent of direct action and hacktivism.
Presenters
Nuno PedrosaAuxiliary Professor, School of Architecture, Arts and Design, University of Minho, Portugal
Details
Presentation Type
Theme
The Arts in Social, Political, and Community Life
KEYWORDS
USERSHIP, AGENCY, PARTICIPATION, PUBLIC SPACE
