Surface of Revolution

2013 - Amsterdam Gerrit Rietveld Academie TXT graduation show

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A Surface of Revolution is a three dimensional surface, shaped by rotation around its axis. I chose this title because it relates to the current uproar across the world in which people are also trying to turn things upside down, and because I use the protest tent cities and its actual surfaces as the parameters for my concept. I recognized the fact that there is a class problem in the world and that that problem needs to be dealt with. In this work I study Occupy and the tent and I try to define my way of protesting. I describe the many different kinds of protest I encountered during Occupy and how I am finding my own place within activism. In the end, I hope to find out what my own ethical truth is in respects to changing this class problem in society and find out if there is a way to do it that can apply to bringing down any given system. Violently, non violently, creative or destructive or a combination of those together. In my work I am searching for this balance, I am physically acting out the dilemmas and choices I have to make in order to find my own way of protesting.

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The main question I am asking myself here is: What is the most effective and still ethically just way for me to attempt to collapse a system? My work is about the dilemma’s I faced in regards to protesting. There is the option to destroy, the option to create and all the shades in between. Do I have to choose, and if I feel that I do: how can I make a well weighed decision?

To make this choice I started visualizing creation and destruction, after that I made game rules to play out the different options. In this work I draw parallels between the inside and outside of the (“Occupy”) protest tent cities, the tent frame and the structure of the fabric. With thesis ingredients I created my own surface of revolution. A reflection of the protests around the world and my own journey through all the dilemmas I encountered there.