Last lecture in the Fruitful Efficiency? lunch lecture series of the Master Interior Architecture (INSIDE) at the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, moderated by Jack Bardwell with guest speakers:
Arne Hendriks (The Incredible Shrinking Man, FATBERG) & Woodstone Kugelblitz (Teun de Graaf & Charlotte Martin).
Fruitful Efficiency? is a series of talks over lunch, discussing the motives and value of efficiency in design.
SHRINK TOWARDS ABUNDANCE OR GROW TOWARDS SCARCITY?
For the artist Charlotte Martin of Woodstone Kugelblitz (Rotterdam) inefficiency has become a way of living. Indeed by making it part of her practice, she was quick to point out the paradox of efficiency, that if the goal is to do nothing it is possible to become efficient at being unproductive. By deliberately living a life that chooses not to engage with the rush of efficiency Woodstone Kugelblitz creates their own world, one with a distinct aesthetic of slowness.
The Amsterdam based artist Arne Hendricks however argues that we can solve the problem by reframing success from growth to shrinkage. By shrinking the world’s population to just 50cm tall we would certainly be more efficient in our use of resources. With this he questions the idea that evolution and progress is about efficiency. Are we able to change the perception that bigger is better and in doing so change the parameters of success? In Arne’s world we have a simple choice: ‘either we shrink towards abundance or grow towards scarcity’.
Previous guest speakers in this lecture series were:
Wesley Leeman (Goldsmith Architects) and Pascal Lazarus (from La Bonneterie)
Thomas Thwaites (The Toaster Project, Goat Man) and Yang Zhang (KAAN Architects - New Terminal, Amsterdam / FLOWCITY, Shenzhen Biennale).