Hi, I'm Jennifer Newsome.
I'm Tom Carruthers.
And together we're Dream the Combine and today we're here at MoMA PS1
to give you a tour of our installation called Hide and Seek.
The Young Architects Program is an annual competition.
The Museum of Modern Art and MoMA PS1 contact critics, heads of architecture schools,
curators, to suggest a short list of architectural firms that might be a
good fit for proposing something for the courtyard at PS1.
We won this year, which was pretty surreal I have to say.
I think I did a happy dance.
I may have jumped up and down.
Our four year old daughter just screamed out, "We won."
We named it Hide and Seek because there's really this process of discovery that
occurs as you're walking through the installation.
So as you can see, we've got this elevated platform.
We're calling it the runway.
If you want to vogue on it you can, but basically at either end of these, like,
architectural, sort of, features there are paired mirrors and each one of these
mirrors moves with the wind.
We're using a lot of structural steel but we're treating it as though it's a drawing,
and so with this, kind of, infinite line that extends off into the distance,
it's almost like a single point perspective drawing where the, kind of, center of that drawing
is wandering.
So it's a little disorienting at times and it also starts to throw the space around in
really, kind of, unpredictable ways.
But it's also a sort of invitation for you to come and actually manipulate the
environment of the courtyard, and there's also a bit of, kind of, call and response
because sometimes you might have someone who's pushing on the back of the
mirror but it's changing the environment on the front side.
So there's a kind of conversation there that's happening with the architecture, as well.
And I think for us it's less about the, kind of, material properties of the mirror but
more about this, kind of, illusory environment that's within the depth of the image
of the mirror.
Your eye doesn't really differentiate between depth in two dimensions versus
depth in three dimensions past a certain distance.
So, like, when you look at the mirror and the depth in the reflection,
your body, your eye, thinks that it's actually, kind of, real.
These elements are here to allow people to bring their histories of movement
with them, but also hopefully to inspire other types of uses, as well,
and interactions between people.
So Warm Up is a weekly dance party, really, that happens at PS1 every Saturday
and it gets about 5,000 people coming into PS1 to listen to music, eat some food,
drink some beer, see some art, and be inside of this installation in the courtyard.
We encourage people to come out, to actually touch it, manipulate the mirrors,
you know, see each other up in the periscopes, kind of run in and out of the building.
It's supposed to be playful.
So in the main courtyard we've got this big runway platform and then in the
smaller courtyard there's a large hammock for lounging and relaxing.
So we're gonna show you that now.
When my daughter first came here, this was what she wanted to show me.
She discovered it.
This hammock that I had been sweating about and making it and designing with you.
This side courtyard we nicknamed "The Sanctuary" in our competition phase.
I think it's an idea of counter point to some of the more active program and
dancing that we expect to happen out here during Warm Up.
But I think that this space also has it's own, kind of, like energy and excitement to it.
Like there's actually really no elegant way to get into this hammock.
So my favorite way to do it is I flip back like this.
The competition brief asked for seating, shading, and water
and so we basically arrayed that in layers.
Kind of in sections.
So, you know, different, kind of, seating areas, so the hammock being one, the
runway another, and then the small courtyard there's a little seat in that little baby courtyard.
And then there's canopy fabric overhead and then in the two upper trusses
there's a, kind of, misting system that, sort of, goes on and off at different times of day.
So if you turn around, you can see a tree where one is not supposed to be and
the tree functions as a kind of veil.
You actually, through the tree, can see the street corner outside where during Warm Up
people will gather before coming in, and afterwards, once Warm Up has closed,
it's where people gather after the event is done.
I think that we talk a lot in our practice about both the individual and the collective.
Just by virtue of our relative position to one another, we'll have different
experiences of the installation.
He's gonna see different things in the mirrors than I will and I think that that, kind of,
variety is our strength and it's something that, you know, we're really trying to
embrace in this installation.
That it's for everyone to feel like they're in place in this place.
You know, I hope it's, kind of, reflected in the architectural proposition, as well,
that a lot of our work together is about people, the relationships between them,
and the trust that is built between people.
And I think that, you know, it's through our friendship and our, kind of, trust of one
another that we're able to actually, like, execute this project.
So we hope you enjoyed the tour of Hide and Seek.
It'll be up through Labor Day Weekend at PS1 and we hope you come and check it out.
Bye.