Architecture and light︎︎︎
A pattern based workshop unfurls the creators as they alternate between experimentation of process and the exploration of rule based composition logic. Created using paper, sketch pens, wooden craft dowels, mirror and small lights, the changing angle of lights show shapes, colours, and shadows through movement, transformation, shifting perception and explores the spatial potential of surface interpretation.

This practice revolves around 9 squares drawn on paper, the squares may or may not merge into one another or transverse with one another linearly.

Placing the priority on the formal elements of line, shape, space and form, use square craft dowels to create square or rectangular frames, and overlap the frames on the line marked on paper.

The asymmetrical arrangements should onset sculptural variations of the drawn squares by experimenting myriad of possibilities, permutations of three-dimensional compositions of geometric patterns.

Use natural or artificial light source, to deconstruct the way you observe the composition. The shadows creates various facets and possibilities that can be offered within a four sided shape, that can be dissected, divided - creating uniques shapes and forms.

Use a small square mirror to create repetitive forms. Reflect the light and shadow, playing on the drawing sheets or project shadows on wall - and experience the shapes merging and shifting with light.  

Throughout the process, take photographs and work back-froth, to improvise the compositions with architectural vocabulary such as additive and subtractive, or strip down to lines, solid and void, etc.

Play and improvise with the compositions, and develop layers, both in the work itself, as well as in the process of its creation. Enjoy the double take, have a third glance, adding complex medium such as artificial light or digital projections, and changing the light source direction, accentuates the visual phenomena.

In this play, a new perspective is created, the spatial potential of surface interplay allows for a new perception to become possible. The aim is to reveal something more complex, drawing attention to the ways that we construct our surrounding by looking at it.

  
 ︎︎︎from Mansi Patel
Welcome to mapping collaboration, a toolbox for workshopping and creating across disciplines...

In spite of a long history of interdisciplinary creation, from our earliest recorded arts to our present moment, artistic pedagogy has created divisions between disciplines. This has left artists in a "post-Babel" condition where we don't share the same language and definitions. It’s also encouraged artists to develop practices for devising, creating and composing work that are distinct to their disciplines.

The inspiration for this project came from faculty and students at Simon Fraser University’s School for the Contemporary Arts where BFA, MFA and PhD programs in Dance, Theatre Production and Design, Visual Art, Film, and Music and Sound all work together in studio settings and playfully experiment with processes of art-making.

We wanted to create a database of projects, assignments and theory that we collect inside the studio and from research happening in other places. We are curious about how we collaborate and how structures reoccur, translate and deviate from one discipline to another.

Composition is central to these processes and offers a base for our approaches and experiments. We are excited about what our students are doing and inspired by the new languages in contemporary art and performance we continue to see develop.

︎︎︎select a category above to build assignments, learn more about how artists process ideas across disciplines and to create a collaborative process of your own

︎︎︎these tools are collected and used in workshops and classes; some are resources from artists; some are quotes about art-making and how bodies think and listen; others are ideas to expand and disrupt your own training and processes.  


︎︎︎Each idea is intentially short- and not meant to be executed as written, but to be adapted to your own practice and specific project/context. Some may be taken in parts or combined with others to spark new ways of training and making together.

︎︎︎submit your own ideas and tools so we can keep building this site!