The Unexpected Guest

Inner Spaces / The Interior Summer Workshop I (2024)

At the conclusion of the second semester of the Inner Spaces/The Interior course, the students, as a collective, select a group project to be implemented. The selection process is an essential aspect of the course, challenging students to arrive at decisions and solutions through collective and participatory processes.

The selected group proposal is approached as a typical planning problem. During the summer, the students act as professional planners and interface with firms and trades to realize their proposal, coming in contact with the regular fortunes and pitfalls of a project in implementation.

In the early fall, the completed installation is showcased in a vernissage marking the beginning of its 12 month run.

The Unexpected Guest

The design for The Unexpected Guest was modeled on an understanding of the bar as a site of tension, often fluctuating between moments of comfort and discomfort. The mechanism highlights the dynamics characteristic of a night out, incorporating the anticipatory journey to the destination and the familiar loss of individual control, toward a collective subconscious.

The shrouded objects draw inspiration from architectural reliefs of the surrounding building facades along the Gumpendorfer Straße. When the motors are activated, these familiar figures revisit bargoers, pressing themselves into the membrane of the fabric datum. A constellation of shadows descend onto the room, filling it with uncanny associations.

As night stretches on, the architecture protrudes from the ceiling, breaking the threshold, as it attempts to relate to the space. Each motor is placed across designated zones, corresponding to the emergent paths and corridors frequently visited throughout the night by guests. The spatial, material and atmospheric layering mirror the dynamism and ephemeral qualities of the interactions occurring above and below the surface.