April 20, 2020
1: 24 Hours in Uchronia
Under the leadership of Course Director Helga Schmid, GMD engages with design as a time-based practice, not only the design of static things. This doesn’t simply mean working with time-based media—it means treating time itself as a design material. As an example, Helga ran a 24-hour event at Somerset House in London, designed not around clock times but according to bodily phases she developed with chronobiologists.
Starting at sunset on a Friday, the Movement Phase featured a talk by one of those chronobiologists, plus a dance performance, drawing workshop, meditation session, movement workshop, poetry reading, and various installations themed around the topic of time.
Each phase of the day, from Wake-up, through Concentration, Nap, Movement, Intuitive, Sleepiness and Sleep, were staged in different rooms within the period architecture of Somerset House, overlooking the Thames. Windows were treated with gels, and coloured lights were used, giving each room an appropriate atmosphere.
Overall, the event demonstrated an expanded practice of design, enacted in collaboration with scientists, technicians, philosophers and other practitioners. And it exemplified design’s practical significance as well as its poetic power.
See the video on Instagram here
