Design and Production Melbourne x Berlin (DPSS30011)

Scenic design, installation, op-art and trompe-l’oeil have become increasingly familiar in urban and suburban environments. Escapism, usually the domain of the theatres, operas, circuses and runways, needs a more immediate, domestic application in the age of Covid-19, when so many performance venues have closed. This intensive module looks to familiar spaces for opportunities for fantastical design, happenstance theatricality and immersive scenographies, recognizing that art can meet the angsts of a society, alleviate anxieties and offer new perspectives.

Collaborating with SRH Berlin University of Applied Sciences, students from both Melbourne and Berlin attend a number of design seminars which track the prominent roles and ideas at play in the world of scenography. Namely scenic painting, graffiti art and sculpture, lighting design, sound design, installation management, and spatial philosophy. These lectures occur both in real and cyber-space, where students undertake a number of collaborative design tasks alongside their research and theoretical learning. Students engage in design studios to devise and develop complete blueprints for a scenographic intervention, designed for an audience of one, for a repurposed warehouse in Melbourne.

By grafting a new conversation onto an unlikely canvas, students may find themselves evoking drama, mystique, surprise and serendipity; offering up new design experiences to an unwitting public.