With white you can see more. It allows things
to be done that ordinarily you couldn’t see.“
The Making of Nothing.
Lessism as Architectural Attitude.
ADSL 2013 Workshop [ DISSOLUTION ]
Artesis University College Antwerp
Christian Fröhlich
If someone says: „This room makes me sick!“ then one refers to conscious and unconscious perceptions of a space. But probable what one is really blaming upon is the quality of air – the amount of ions which are in that space. A typical interior space of our times has about 500 ions per cm3 in its air whereas a forest‘s air consists of 5000 ions/cm3.
What we did in the workshop „The Making of Nothing“ was to increase the amount of ions in our space by using a special paint out of only minerals which supports the production of ions on its surface and thereby transforms the space into a better working environment.
By doing so we had to fulfill two aspects:
1. To benefit from the effect we had to put a certain amount of paint on the wall (min 0,8kg/m2). This was done with 8 layers over 3 days.
2. By increasing the surface of the wall we expected to allow a higher production of ions. This was achieved by adding structure and texture to the painting.
To verify the experiment we measured the space before and after the painting which is exhibited through a scientific measuring instrument and two displays. Finally it is up to the upcoming users to evaluate: „how does this space makes you feel?“
Paint was used to configure a painting following physical rules and ended up with an artistic “white out” which blurs a clear image and which‘s structure can only be seen by looking closely.
Robert Ryman says: „White has a tendency to make things visible. With white you can see more. It allows things to be done that ordinarily you couldn’t see.“
Take Your time…
Christian Fröhlich Antwerp, Feb 15 2013