Hasta La Ideas

Over the next months we will be highlighting award-winning projects and ideas from this year’s Core77 Design Awards! For full details on the project, jury commenting and more information about the awards program, go to Core77DesignAwards.com

Photo by Ron Thibault

Designer: Robert Turek
Location: Ferndale, MI, USA
Category: DIY / Hack / Mod
Award: Winner

Photograph by Lisa Walcott

Tall Furniture

I have created a new system for live performance. These sculpture-furniture-objects are condensed stages for each performer. By spreading the stage into multiple focal points, the audience is deeply immersed in the performance, free to move about and experience intimate and unique vantage points.

From ancient amphitheaters to underground, smoke-filled rock venues, the stage has remained largely unchanged. The basic conditions of a raised platform afford increased visibility and audibility when situated in correct relationship to an audience, raising performers physically and socially. However, the stage is a distant, unreachable point, with a strict line between performer and audience, similar to watching the news; one-way communication.
I set out to create a new system of performance that would provide instantaneous feedback between performance and audience. As a self-initiated project, this direction excited me as a huge step towards achieving something truly new in live performance.

Photo by Ron Thibault

Core77: What’s the latest news or development with your project?

I am currently exploring how my furniture can apply to theater. Several tall domestic pieces of furniture will serve as a mobile set in a short original musical that I have been preparing. This will be debuted at Cranbrook Art Museum’s reopening on 11/11/11 in Bloomfield Hills, MI.

Read on for full details on the project and jury comments.

Photo by Ron Thibault

Photo by Ron Thibault

Photo by Ron Thibault

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