The Goal: To support society and art and to create a concrete link between art an society, both by drawing people closer to contemporary art and architecture and by supporting charities.
To make this aim possible, the proposal aims at creating a cutting edge, innovative documentary about several contemporary international artistic movements, performers, architects and designers, using an original journalistic investigative technique based on constructionist theories and the use of LEGO bricks to delve into meaning, in order to produce a leading-edge artistic manifesto and innovate communication and journalism.
The final target is to realise a collection of documentaries which could be used for exhibitions, published on-line or collected in an exclusive special edition. The proposed project could be adapted to musicians, film directors and any kind of artist and performer active in the contemporary scene.
We propose some editorial projects that are in search for sponsorship. All these projects are already supported by a number of international experts who grant the quality of the research and results. Please, contact us if you want to know more or if you have any idea to share.
Editorial projects
- Title: The sixth sens of colour
- Subject: Understanding colour in Architetcture, Design, Peinture
- Description: Which is the secret sense of colour? How do architects, painters and designers use colour and why? When we talk about colour, there are countless different meanings depending on culture, experiences, and activities. Also, colour has diverse roles in different fields: Peinture, Architecture, Design, Fashion
- Possible sponsorship: Foundations, Companies, Publishers
- Title: BRICS Architecture
- Subject: Emerging Architetcts in emerging countries
- Description: The so-called emerging countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) are the new market for companies and professionals also in the field of architetcture. Which is the vision about architecture, sustainability, technologies, heritage, innovation in those countries?
- Possible sponsorship: Foundations, Companies, Universities, Publishers
- Title: Painters’ wor(l)ds
- Subject: Contemporary art movements
- Description: A choral Manifesto of a living and active artistic movement by engaging the artists behind its conceptualisation. It’s a living historical document, which will be pivotal for all those interested in todays’ artistic scene, providing the key to better understand what Contemporary Art is, avoiding art critics’ interferences and (mis)interpretations
- Possible sponsorship: Foundations, Companies, Universities, Publishers
Scenario and Rationale
One of the biggest issues in todays’ modern art is the role of critics who pose themselves as sole interpreters of the concept of art and define the validity of art itself and the artists’ conceptions. Most artistic movement in history were ‘situated’, they were generated by a number of social, cultural and contingent situations, which lead the artists to change their views on the world and translate their vision of the world using the means they were more comfortable with: writers and poets wrote, singers and musicians played, painters painted.
In order to be able to use a different mean to express themselves, artists need different cognitive processes and different ways to elicit content and meaning making processes: not because they have no concepts, it’s quite the opposite instead, but because they are used to express themselves in a different form, by using their hands, using colours, creativity and by working mindlessly behind the canvas forgetting about words. Artists think by doing and by doing, they express themselves and their ideas.
Unveiling Art, Design & Architecture
Most people perceive contemporary as “something unknown”, something difficult to understand and far from ordinary life and which requires some sort of interpretation. For this reason, contemporary art needs to be explained and the audience needs to be guided. However, far too often, Artist’s and Critics’ explanations increase the gap between art and its audience because of the words used, which sound too far away from people’s everyday’s experience.
Things are the same for design and architecture. Concepts like Sustainability, Heritage, Inclusivity or specific approaches related to colour, materials, and lighting seem to lose their meaning. Words used (or abused) to describe the key concepts, often explain nothing.
Therefore, to really delve into the artists’ concept we need to change the communication and cognitive processes which underlie verbal expressions of ideas: let the artists express the key concepts of their worlds with words by using their hands with a completely different cognitive process which can engage the artists in a brand new creative activity.
Method: The Constructionist LEGO-based Interviewing technique
A leading-edge way to understand what a complex and conceptual artistic movement is, it is to ask directly the founders of the movement itself what all this is about. To avoid complexity and to repeat the communication errors which have created a gap between Art and people, a new investigative technique is required, in order to rise people’s attention, simplify concepts and allow artists to better and clearer express themselves.
For artists like painters, taking off the pressure to express themselves directly with words, but letting them to use their hands, is much more similar to their natural way to process thoughts, as the whole conceptualization process is not directly mediate through words, but through metaphorical and abstract concepts and ideas which will take the material shape of a LEGO model. Artists will be asked not to tell what their Art is about, but to build a physical model of it using LEGO bricks. Based on the conceptual model artist will construct, it is possible to delve into their inner worlds, facilitating their meaning making process and helping them to reveal their ideas through the use of metaphors and connections, enhanced by the constructionist process.
This interviewing technique, which has been developed as an unique investigative method, it’s based on LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY®, a facilitation technique used in organisations to define strategies, improve collaboration and organizational practices. Such interviewing technique has been tested in several and different situations around the world, and it has produced unexpected and cutting edge results, helping to gain a completely different understanding of complex social realities, opening up the inner worlds of the interviewees. The methodology has been already used with journalists, musicians, professionals, protesters and in complex social and political situations, like the Occupation in St. Paul’s Cathedral in 2011, in Israel and Palestinian refugee camps. However, these preliminary tests have been randomly published in textual forms to verify the investigative technique but no documentaries or organic project as this proposal have been produced yet.
B4bricks.org 