Becoming Animal is an interactive performance piece developed by Minimaforms. The project explores the story of the mythical three headed beast Kerberos, guardian of the underworld. The objective of the piece is to create an environment of performance through the collective participation. Participants are performers co-evolving a theatrical interplay of curiosity and play. Each performer stimulates and communicates with the three heads of the Kerberos, triggering behaviour-based interactions and exchanges. Interactions are expressed through sounds, facial expressions and general activity of the Kerberos. The continued dialogue between users and the system exhibits emotive exchanges that communicate features of love, anger and boredom. Becoming Animal is an experiment in communication based on the human tendency to project life into forms that exhibit a complex and dynamic behaviour.
Talk to Me explores the communication between people and things. All objects contain information that goes well beyond their immediate use or appearance. In some cases, objects like cell phones and computers exist to provide us with access to complex systems and networks, behaving as gateways and interpreters. Whether openly and actively, or in subtle, subliminal ways, things talk to us, and designers help us develop and improvise the dialogue.
Minimaforms was founded in 2002 by brothers Stephen and Theodore Spyropoulos as an experimental architecture and design practice. Using design as a mode of enquiry, the studio explores active forms of systemic and participatory means of communication, enabling the everyday to shape and stimulate social and material interaction. The work of Minimaforms has been exhibited internationally and is part of the collections of the FRAC Centre (France), the Signum Foundation (Poland) and the Archigram Archive (UK), Recent works have been shown at the ICA (London), Futura Gallery (Prague), Slovak National Gallery (Bratislava), Architecture Foundation (UK), Building Centre (UK), Arco (Spain), Architectural Association (UK), UTS: Gallery (Sydney), Synathrosis (Greece), Palazzo Donà (Italy) and at Mega-Structures Reloaded (Germany).
Enabling: The Work of Minimaforms .About the Project
Becoming Animal was developed by Minimaforms in 2007 for the experimental sonic performance festival, Faster than Sound. The performance was installed as the entry to the festival, housed in the K9 building of Bentwaters Military Airbase in Suffolk, England.
Design Team: Theodore Spyropoulos, Stephen Spyropoulos, Ivan Safrin, Yoshimasa Hagiwara, Kostas Grigoriadis, Mustafa El Sayed, Manuel Jiménez García, Pierandrea Angius, Eleni Pavlidou, Faysal Tabbara.
About the Exhibition
The exhibition focuses on objects that involve a direct interaction, such as interfaces, information systems, visualization design, and communication devices, and on projects that establish an emotional, sensual, or intellectual connection with their users. Examples range from a few iconic products of the late 1960s to several projects currently in development—including computer and machine interfaces, websites, video games, devices and tools, furniture and physical products, and extending to installations and whole environments.
About Minimaforms
Theodore Spyropoulos (1976) is an architect and educator. He is the Director of the Architectural Association’s world renowned Design Research Lab [AADRL] in London. He has been a visiting Research Fellow at M.I.T.’s Center for Advanced Visual Studies working with the Interrogative Design Group and co-founded the New Media Research Initiative at the Architectural Association. He has taught in the graduate school of the University of Pennsylvania and the Royal College of Art, Innovation Design Engineering Department. Theodore has previously worked as a project architect for the offices of Peter Eisenman and Zaha Hadid Architects.
Stephen Spyopoulos (1980) is an artist and designer. He is Senior Design Director for Gilt Groupe. He has been the Design Director for Heavy, and a faculty member at Rutgers School of Art teaching interactive design. He has directed projects for clients such as Samsung Interactive, Matador Records, The Beggars Group, and XL Records. Stephen was named Creative Review’s One to Watch and has exhibited and lectured about his work internationally. Stephen received an MA in Communication and Interaction Design at Central St. Martins School of Art and Design in London and his BFA with honors from Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University.
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