DEVspace: scenography at the "Weekend specials" - Venice Biennale 2014

For the 2014 Venice Biennale, curator Rem Koolhaas has planned to punctuate the exhibition with a series of thematic, independent events called « Weekend Specials ». To inaugurate this series, the New York-based consultancy firm Superscript will occupy the dedicated space in the Arsenale for the opening weekend, on 7 and 8 June, with Towards a New Avant-Garde. This program aiming to draw parallels between the old and new Italian avant-garde through a sequence of three debates between actors of yesterday and today, seeking to identify what the young generation can still learn from the Italian radicals from the 1960’s and 1970’s, but also how the work of the Masters can find a new relevance in the light of experimental practices of today.

 

 

The proposed scenography translates the concept of generation, central in Superscript’s approach, into an anachronistic scenic machine cross-breeding the latest manufacturing and communication technologies with the most basic of tracing techniques. A mechanized interface translates the digital content of the debate into an analogic method of reproduction, in simple strokes of marker pen. The information thereby gains the precious, irregular materiality of craftsmanship.

 

Through the layout of this interface, the textual and graphical information structure the debate as much as the scale of different sessions. For each event, thoughts, quotes, diagrams, plans and a selection of tweets scroll down on a paper curtain descending as background for the discussion. As the different curtains fall, sedimentation of information coincides with segmentation of the space, which decreases in size for the most demanding sessions appealing to smaller audiences.

 

Towards a New Avant-Garde will result in three waterfalls of information that will remain present in the space as evidence of exchanges that took place in it. They will also form the starting point for a book edited by Superscript as a follow up to these exchanges.

 

Commissioner: Superscript (Vera Sacchetti, Molly Heintz, Avinash Rajagopal)

 

Scenography: DEVspace (Philippe De Clerck, Pierre Escobar, Yannick Vanhaelen) with Thibault Brevet

 

Production: In collaboration with HyperWerk, Institute for Postindustrial Design (Matthias Maurer, Christoph Herbert, Kevin Renz, Ivo Ludwig, Fabian Ritzi, Gabriel Meisel, David Safranek)

 

With the support of Wallonie-Bruxelles International and the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia.