Being under, with THIS room

Abstract

The live art performance Being Under Symphony was delivered as a keynote presentation at the 2019 Interior Design Educator’s Council’s annual conference held in Charlotte, North Carolina, USA. The drama of Being Under Symphony redirected long-revered conventions of learning about an interior as if it were a collection of merely functional materials and systems to being with an interior as a mutual assemblage of thriving energetic forces. Such a critical shift in perspective and experience is allied to my commitment to practice the tenets of New Materialism in a direct, immersive, and embodied manner with respect to everyday materials, objects and interior surfaces. As such, this performative lecture attended to the venue’s ceiling in an effort to incite its vitality and to point to the merits of practicing in the spirit of under.