Based on the impressions of the excursion through northern Italy – we visited among others the Tomba Brion by Carlo Scarpa, the Castell Vecchio in Verona, the Arena, buildings by Palladio in Vincenza and the Venice Biennale – and the upcoming question of how is staged for whom, leds me to my first approach.

After a rough analysis of our stations of the excursion, further artists, like Franz Walther Erhard and Rebecca Horn, and other installations, I started to deal with the staging of a scene and its effects on human beings. Under the title: Studies on the staging of a staged scene using form and color to initiate interaction, action or emotion within the scenery – I have set up a strategies table that connects the crossing points of staging medium and its impact. I then held on to a variant, which dealt with how strangers are seduced into a touch. Then the design of a ‚hand rail’ was created.

01 INSTALLATION

This installation of the ‚hand rail’, like a guardrail, should initiate an interaction between two people. Passing passersby will be tempted to put your hand in the ‚hand rail’, advancing until you meet a passer from the other side and it comes to a touch. A touch happens without seeing the other person and can only be made by continuing to make eye contact for a short moment. Whether a conversation, a grin or a hasty retreat of the hand happens is left to the passersby alone.

02 PERFORMANCE

Starting with this installation of the ‚hand rail’, I went on to a self-experiment that brought me closer to my ideas of living space. Can the individual be active against  alienation? Or can contact between strangers occur? In the self-experiment, different approaches were used to analyze how this project can be managed. Among other things, a belted extension in the form of a gutter, which should initiate a touch / a handshake, prepared the entrance to the investigations – see one-minute video

video_street

03 PERFORMANCE

However, in order to lure people out of their protection zones to counteract progressive alienation and isolation, I sewed the Anti – Alientation jacket. This model is tailored to me, Franziska Senz and provided with 28 hands, which correspond to my real hand size. Thus, I have created a space to revive myself that people can enter or distance themselves from – an touch could be made. My lived or just unlived (body) space.

04 INSTALLATION

However, before the self-reference and subsequent self-attempts came into play, I developed a universal apparatus. If life in the 21st century, determined by social media and a progressive individualization of people, leads to the self-isolation and alienation of all, the anti-alienation apparatus is the right way out. A 2.40 meter high, hexagonal cylinder with round edged openings on each side, which are ready to try. Each of the six surfaces attracts users. It is impossible not to touch. The users come in contact with each other. The inevitable directness of the apparatus brings people people who otherwise would have been alienated.

MASTER  |  1ST SEMESTER | WINTER 2017/2018

STUDIO

UNIVERSITY OF STUTTGART  |  INSTITUTE OF DESIGN AND ILLUSTRATION