F23 Model Performances<p></p>
History
Location
Five Walls Gallery, MelbourneNotes
"To toy with something is to manipulate it, to try it out within sets of contexts, none of which is determinative." (Stewart, 1993) This piece is part of Suess’s “Curious Cabinets” transdisciplinary project which references the conventions and techniques of the architectural scale model (Mindrup), and builds on the Wunderkammer, or Cabinet of Curiosities (as the precursor to the contemporary museum and gallery). This film is comprised of a series of four clips recorded inside Suess’s 1:15 paper and card replica of her South London artist’s studio. Upon completion of the model, the small space resembled the studio on moving-in day, in contrast to the inhabited working space it had become, and felt charged with the possibility of activities that could take place within. Responding to this call to action, analogical artefacts of scale replicas of the studio’s furniture along with miniature versions of acrylic cubes (used in the production of the Suess’s cyanotype photograms) allowed reenactments of one of the forms of performative practice that frequently took place in the full-sized room. From the viewpoint of a miniature video camera occupying the model room, a large 15:1 scale hand (similar to that in Op de Beek’s Staging Silence films) enters the perceptually full-sized space to place the cyanotype paper and cubes, removing the print after the exposure is completed. Later, in the model studio, the furniture is brought in, the cyanotypes are hung on the walls and stored inside the plan chest, so beginning the process of inhabiting this virtual, but simultaneously real space. Performing actions of use within the model draws time into that projected inhabitation – remembering the playful acts of childhood, embracing the toy-like quality of the model, feeds the creative imagination of the architect. As with the other pieces in this series, the 1:15 model contains its own replica, with its own replica, forming a mise en abyme. These recursive models of models sit on a 1:15 replica of the very table in which the 1:15 model dwells, providing another reference to the occupation of, and activity within the studio itself. These layers of replication and self-reference destabilised the reading of this film taken within the model – by containing a model within its own interior space, the model room is situated as ‘real’ via its counterposition to that which is ‘made.’ The model of the model of the model continues to disrupt the reading of scale and the understanding of real versus representation even further. The presentation of these models within a model to the camera compounds the uncanniness already experienced by the out-of-scale hand. A viewer might wonder– has a 1:15 version of the author/artist’s body made this smaller model? This film received its first official public exhibition, alongside the model in an “unfolded” form, in Suess’s 2023 Projective Artefacts exhibition, and again in 2024 as part of the Form | Shadow | Space: Analogical Perceptual Artefacts exhibition. [The above text includes material published in: E. Suess, “The Model Interior as an Analogical Performative Space” in Routledge Handbook of Interior Architecture Research, edited by Nisha A. Fernando. Abingdon, Oxfordshire: Routledge, in press. E. Suess, ‘Uncanny Doubling – The Architectural Model Explored Through Mise En Abyme’, Idea Journal, 21(1), 116-151, 2024.]Extent
Digital Artist’s film, FHD, colour, 4 minutesStart date
2023-11-15End date
2023-12-09Research statement
Background Brejzek and Wallen argue that unlike set design models, architectural models normally show static, fixed, and stable spaces, frequently empty of signs of human inhabitation, their focus primarily being the architectural performance of structure, form, and material (Mindrup). This film is made within one of Suess’s paper and card models, and draws upon a range of artistic, social, and cultural practices – from the toy theatre (Hofer-Robinson), to dollhouses (Stewart, Garfield), to theatre set design models, to the Staging Silence films of artist Hans Op de Beek – to explore the performative potential of the interior space of the architectural model. Contribution Over the last decade, in her critical practice and published academic papers, Suess has been researching the analogical relationship between physical models and their full-sized doppelgängers (Brejzek & Wallen). This piece forms part of that research, linking performativity in the architectural model with embodied acts of dwelling and use in full-sized space. The arresting scale differential of the artist/architect’s hand entering the paper and card model brings humour and criticality to the viewing of the film, drawing attention to the perceptual processes that take place in a viewer’s mind when they “read” such representational artefacts. Significance Architects already experience performative engagement with modelmaking processes and outputs, starting with exploratory manipulation of materials in a sketch model in early design moves. This piece demonstrates how learning from other disciplines’ performative methods of interacting with interior model spaces can strengthen architects’ connection to their model rooms, affording empathy with the analogous acts of spatial use and dwelling in the (real or invented) full-sized versions of those small interiors. Suess’s critical presentation of this work and its findings was selected for inclusion in several peer reviewed, academic publications.Event
Projective Artefacts, a solo exhibition by Eleanor SuessPublisher
Five Walls Gallery, MelbournePlace of publication
MelbourneUsage metrics
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