The “Space” in Dialogue and Discomfort
Emily Force
There’s an inherent quality of performance to the built environment. The spaces we interact with in our day-to-day lives are staged for specific functions that dictate how we move and intake information. When I first enter any public space, my instinct is to analyze the social cues: where to sit, what I should do to occupy my time there, and who I should and shouldn’t interact with. Outside of these designed spaces is what some may call the residual space: the leftover, undesigned, and non-purposeful places.
The “Space” in Dialogue and Discomfort is a book and an installation asking the questions, “What is the value of spaces that reside outside of cultural, economic and functional networks?” and “How can we find autonomy in places without a designed intention?” By observing and documenting the movement patterns, the book uses residual spaces as a typology for understanding their value. The installation is a webcam projection that allows visitors to create their own score with movement in unconventional spaces. The webcam surveils and distorts their image onto the architecture behind them, giving them agency over how they would like to move while still tracking their gestures. By documenting and tracking, this project is in the pursuit of bringing awareness to how we might find autonomy in undefined spaces.