We are Off-Focus.
Working as DesignPoets,
we use interludes to expose peripheries;
unstable, shifting, ill-defined,
yet affectively singular.
Interlude:
context without story
connection through separation
movement in the stillness
gathering up tension
instinctual gravitation
DesignPoet:a practitioner of reflective research distillation.
Combining generative design processes with reflective poetic response, this method utilizes the ‘happenstance’ intervals that occur when oscillating from one process to the other, to nuance/redirect/open up design and poetic discourses.
This method tries to intentionally and systematically investigate the peripheral contexts of a research subject in order to better understand the main focus .
Interludes in the Wild
break in a flow, an abberation of pattern
separation without barriers
rationality against the enormity of emptiness?
do skyscrapers make sense of the sky?
framing devices, just passing through
only meaningful through movement
understanding through distinction, separation
gaps, fissures, the spaces in between
Introduction to a Process
Project Brief
Forget about all the expectations of and standard definitions of interludes. Find your own interlude. Determine your meaning of interlude. Design an iteration of your concept.
Suggestions of Methodology
Find a space, object, sense, and method that speaks
to you. Collect information that you can engage with
and find things interesting to you in that information.
Remixing and making stuff from that information.
Find ways to collect. Gather knowledge from those methods of collection. Using that raw bulk of information, distill the information into something else.
Generate new questions. Ask yourself those new questions to find answers as to what an interlude is to you. Individually trying to find the answer to what an interlude is by asking others, working constantly collaboratively, using other people as tools. At the end, be able to explain your concept to someone who is totally unfamiliar with your process.
Questions to Consider
Does a person have to perceive the interlude as such in order for it to count as an interlude?
How do perception and awareness affect the interlude?
What is the relationship between the interlude and the main event?
What is the physicality of an interlude?
Can everything be an interlude?
Exposing Peripheries | Documenting A Collective Process
Collective Manual
20 students from MA Design: Expanded Practice completed this brief, each discovering their own process for defining and utilizing their unique concepts of 'interlude.' These methods are compiled here into a four-part Interlude Manual.
The collective manual seeks to:
celebrate
immortalize
assure//remind
encourage
inspire
Interludes Manual | March 2019 Exhibit
