#ideaslab

SHORT NON FICTION PIECE for The Creators Project

88888 INTERVIEW for Ideas Lab

#GetCurious is a series of interviews about innovative projects and the minds behind them.

Sample

Complex installations sometimes make us forget about the work that hides behind them, not to mention the minds that came up with the process in a desire to overcome their own limitations. For us, the artworks that build their blueprints on information given by a particular space are the most relevant examples of living art, the kind of experiences that embody both the visible and the invisible. 

Any final creation that gets thrown into the universal consciousness has the freedom of molding its own personality though it is directly influenced by the personality of its makers. 88888, the Belgian duo Karel Burssens and Jeroen Verrecht have been spending their personal and professional time capturing visible and invisible threads, together or separately. They both studied civil engineering in architecture, but have decided not to work in the business for too long; temporary projects from diverse areas of interests made more sense.  Karel has profound knowledge in fashion and performance, whereas Jeroen worked with exhibition projects and installations.

Their work explores the spaces and ideas that they come across and both creators have expressed their openness towards the physical world around them, but also towards what is absent, perhaps only perceivable at an unconscious level (see Untitled Sound Installation about Vater Pacini pressure sensors). Their projects have made our own minds open towards new ways of seeing the spaces we interact with. Here’s a sample of the mechanism that moves forward their work and creativity.

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Is your connection with the stage (theater, opera, performative spaces) something personal or has the scenography part developed naturally from your backgrounds?

JV: Rather naturally.  I think it became one of the logic directions for a variety of reasons.  A profound freedom in formal language, in materiality,  open-minded commissioners, certainly the speed of the projects.

KB: Scenography is one of our interests in which we could use our experiences from fashion and exhibitions. There is an interesting parcours to see how performance can influence scenography and vice versa. It's pleasant to work and be confronted with a different domain such as contemporary dance. We have been lucky to be involved in intense processes, searching for complementarity and influence between the different partners and working towards a complete end result.

Can you expand on “the intense processes” part?

JV: There's an obvious, but significant difference between talking with a commissioner who wants a walnut kitchen, or a choreographer who is in the middle of creating a new dance piece.  It has never been, and will never be a conscious choice between those two types of commissioners, but sharing a creation process with people who are dedicating their life – choreographers, dancers etc. - to these processes, is almost by definition an intense collaboration.   The importance for the people involved, the formal and informal freedoms you're faced – all thrive to a pleasurable but profound fulfillment.

IdeasLab 2013 – Zhu Tongyu – Digital Healthcare Services and Public Health Management

http://www.weforum.org/ Zhu Tongyu says advances in digital healthcare will herald a medical revolution, and asks if China’s recent policy of building large-…