TV DINNER STORE Art & Architecture Summer School 2016
STUDENTS
Maria Babalola Armend Bajraktaki Kirsty Baker Deema El Seif Lara Geller Nana Hennebeng Jacqui Hill Ned Kater Anna Law Tanzina Miah Shermin McClernon Tara Okeke Demelza Okwan Neha Sreekumar Rimshah Valjee
TUTORS
Chris Burman Sophia Jones Afra van ‘t Land Gabriel Warshafsky Viktor Westerdahl
INTRODUCTION STORE’s fourth annual London Summer School invited students to explore architecture, art practice, urbanism and performance over two weeks in one of London’s most diverse and vital public spaces. For the second year running, Gillett Square was our site, our classroom and our workshop as we designed and constructed the architecture for an open air screening and evening meal: the TV Dinner. Students were invited to critically examine what makes people feel “at home” in public spaces. We began by investigating patterns of ownership, influence and movement in the Square. Our observations and prototypes went on to inform the design and choreography of the “TV Dinner:” a one-night event where students’ documentation of the course were be screened alongside several channels of local artists’ films. This year’s uniquely challenging brief was broken down into a sequence of interactive, spatial and structural design problems:
1. REMOTE CONTROL Students were encouraged to devise playful, interactive mechanisms by which members of the public could change channel to shape the evening’s programme, with an awareness of social and spatial dynamics.
2. DINNER TRAYS Through the design of bespoke trays for audience members to collect food from local vendors and enjoy a meal on their laps, students were asked to consider intimacy and personal transactions.
3. SEATING The manufacture of new seating for the Square allowed students to consider how the themes of play and interaction - explored through the design of remote control and dinner trays - might outlast the TV Dinner itself, in a collection of outdoor furniture.
4. THE SCREEN In creating a structure large enough to house a screen visible across the square, students were challenged to work cooperatively while addressing technical and spatial design problems.
REMOTE CONTROL Informed by observed patterns of ownership, influence and movement in the Square, students worked in groups to gather and develop multiple concepts for the remote control. They were encouraged to analyse and further refine initial concepts to distill a clear design brief for a remote control system that was: • cryptic • collective • performative • visual Working in small groups, our students presented their concepts in a crit session at leading interactive design firm Umbrellium. After collective discussion and further refinement, our students set out to build a remote control tower, activated by a collection of cryptically marked discs - or ‘buttons’ - scattered across the square.
DINNER TRAYS Using textiles from nearby Ridley Road Market and non-toxic acrylic resin, meal trays were an opportunity to explore connections between body and site. Moulding and laminating resinreinforced fabrics over legs, shoulders, arms, railings, steps and discarded packaging found in the Square, students developed a range of prototypes, each suggesting a particular eating method.
SEATING Just as each dinner tray suggests a particular mode of eating, each mode of eating suits a particular posture and position. Building from the initial tactile experiments of the meal trays, seating design was used to establish the link between the scale of the hand-held and the Square as a whole. Working first through scale modelling, before moving on to 1:1 prototypes, students worked to develop durable, simple seats that can easily be stored away in the Square’s shipping containers. Seats and trays were trialled together in a communal lunch, where invited critics also tested and enjoyed the varied designs. Following group discussions, two prototypes were selected for further development and production: a stackable backrest and a rocking deckchair. To accompany these low-slung, casual chairs, we chose a deep tray moulded over a bucket, with bound handles and integrated bib.
CYANOTYPES As a further experiment in site recording, students created giant cyanotypes using discarded objects from the Square. Pre- treated with photosensitive solution, sheets of fabric were used to capture sunlight and shadows cast by crates, packaging and tools. The resulting prints were used to enclose the screen structure, embodying a record of our outdoor workshop in the finished piece. The cyanotyped fabric was also used to create 50+ unique dinner-trays to be used at the event.
THE SCREEN To ensure our giant TV screen would be visible in the early evening, we resolved on back- projection together with the help of the Lost Picture Show. This required a light-proofed structure of ambitious scale, resistant to wind loads that could be constructed and disassembled on the day of the event. Establishing structural principles through model making and full scale experiments, students built three component timber frames, which were bolted together to create a robust but collapsible structure. To avoid working at height, the whole structure was safely assembled at ground level and raised into position frame by frame. The screen is now stored away as flat packed components, and is available for future screenings on the square.
PUBLIC TV DINNER Our final event offered students a unique opportunity to test their ideas on an impartial public, as well as sharing the results of their hard work with family and friends. The giant TV screen was positioned in the southwest corner of the square to address the widest possible audience. Audience members were invited to pick up a meal tray, consult a printed menu and TV guide before collecting dinner from participating local restaurants. They could then choose to lean back against a backrest or in a rocking deck chair and enjoy one of ten TV channels. Slowly, our audience deciphered the remote control, holding up hulahoop discs to the remote tower. A change of channel might be met by sighs of relief or cries of outrage as the audience made its feelings known; “Down in front!” “Hey, I was watching that!” “Isn’t there anything else on?” ...
WITH SPECIAL THANKS TO RIVA
CRIPPLEGATE FOUNDATION
HCD
With special thanks to RIVA, who generously provided sponsorship funding for three scholarship places on this year’s STORE Summer School.
With special thanks to the Cripplegate Foundation, in collaboration with Islington Council, who generously provided sponsorship for scholarship places through the Islington Community Chest.
We are extremely grateful to Hackney Co-operative Developments (HCD) for their continued support, for facilitating the summer school, providing us with a classroom to shelter from the rain, and for assisting in the realisation of the event.
RIVA aims to offer visual education for people of all ages, abilities and backgrounds. RIVA has been set up as a charity to promote Artists Residencies, giving participants the opportunity to experience directly the creative process and to produce high quality artwork themselves.
The Cripplegate Foundation is an endowed charity. We make grants in Islington and part of the City of London. We spend c£1.6m a year, using our own funds and those administered on behalf of others. We give grants to organisations, and support individual residents through Islington Council’s Resident Support Scheme.
HCD is a local community economic development agency with a membership open for all those who subscribe to its co-operative goals and values. HCD works within our local community to explore ideas and opportunities to create a sustainable environment for Hackney’s communities to flourish.
It will offer direct experience of creating artworks both individually or collectively and will work towards enabling the participants to achieve their creative, personal and intellectual potential. Individuals will have the opportunity to develop new strategies for making, understanding and appreciating art.
We use our detailed local knowledge to identify needs, to develop new ways of tackling poverty, and to contribute to the wider policy debate about disadvantage and inequality. Staff give advice to organisations on project development and management, premises, other sources of funding and local networks. We meet all applicants and all funded projects are visited. We monitor all our grants to assess the impact they have on peoples’ lives and ensure that funding is well spent. Because the Foundation operates in a small geographical area, its work differs from many trusts. We bring organisations and residents together to pool their resources and develop new projects.
We support the creation and growth of co-operatives and social enterprises through programmes such as our Pioneering Social Enterprise in Hackney initiative and use our agency role to network and connect organisations so that the movement can work together to grow the locally-owned social economy in our borough. We provide affordable workspace to a range of social and ethical organisations, local start-ups, cultural entrepreneurs and creative professionals, playing an important role in Hackney’s business ecosystem and ongoing urban regeneration. We run Gillett Square as a unique community-led public space in the heart of Dalston, East London, where an incredibly diverse range of people can meet on common ground. Our programming of community and cultural events plays a key role in the socially cohesive regeneration of this rapidly changing area of Dalston, and at the same time works to retain its diversity and showcase its creativity.
TV CHANNEL CURATORS 0. STORE TELETEXT 1. Rosanna Wan: The Ani Channel 2. STORE Music TV: Bahamian Moor (NTS) 3. Dazed & Confused TV 4. Candice Jacobs: “I have a good feeling about this” 5. SomeSuch: Music Documentaries 6. Alexandra Symons Sutcliffe: Listen To Your Body 7. The Book Channel: Vintage Books 8. Adam Ryzman: Ridley Road 9. Tom Shickle Presents... The Travel Channel 10. Adam Ryzman & Iris Abols: The STORE Summer School Channel
WITH PARTICULAR GRATITUDE TO Jim Dummett & Lost Picture Show Usman Haque and all at Umbrellium Joe Bacon and all at Stamford Works Markus and all at Kaffa Koffee Marawa the Amazing Clarissa Carlyon at HCD Donovan Moore at HCD Dominic Ellison at HCD Adam Ryzman for filming Iris Abols for editing
STORE STORE is an association of artists, architects and designers located in London. Founded in 2011, STORE has hosted and curated events and exhibitions, organised, designed and built various projects, and delivered a range of educational programs. STORE is based in Hackney, where we were recently one of the first 15 businesses to be awarded the social enterprise mark award by the Mayor of Hackney. We have run education programmes in Hong Kong, London and Warsaw. We also organise and facilitate oneday workshops at various schools across the UK. Participants in STORE Schools spend a two week period engaged in a live project, where they are involved in processes of design, fabrication, and installation of new work, operating as part of a team of experienced tutors and craftsmen.
STORE Schools & Projects C.I.C. Company Number 08902577 http://www.storeprojects.org/ school@storeprojects.org
Our summer school courses are designed for students from all backgrounds and disciplines who wish to participate in the creative industries. The rapid pace of technological, social and economic change in the approaching years pose great challenges for creative practitioners of every kind. To overcome these and realise the potential opportunities taking advantage of new ideas and technology to create and disseminate their work - it will be vital for the next generation of artists, architects and spatial practitioners to have the ability to collaborate, to work between disciplines, to operate independently and act unconventionally. STORE Schools offer participating students the opportunity to develop an independent and ambitious vision for their own future practice. Working alongside leading young practitioners in fine art, architecture, film-making and sculpture, in a non-hierarchical and collaborative environment, participants will be fully equipped with the skills and experience to take their own work further: to meet and build networks across Europe and beyond, and to expand their own opportunities to create and develop in the future.