The event designs of Mark Fisher

The ‘object’ status of architecture and cult of the individual designer have never been more prevalent than in recent times; witnessed by the innumerable pages of books and magazines graced by images of buildings and interiors unsullied by human inhabitation. And yet, over the last decade a shift has taken place in consumer culture away from the artifact and towards the ‘experience’; from ownership to engagement; from have to do.
The market is rarely far behind societal shifts, and retail environments have rapidly transformed to provide ‘experiences’ that extend dwell time and increase consumer spend, while a plethora of ‘experience commodities’ have also emerged from specialised tourism (space flight anyone?) through spa treatments to New Age therapies and rituals. Mind, body and spirit - business has it all covered - as we move into the age of the ‘Experience Economy’, outlined by Pine and Gilmore back in 1999 .  
Mark Fisher, rock show designer extraordinaire, understands better than most the issues at stake in creating meaningful ‘experiences’, having spent half a lifetime fashioning performance environments that deliver powerful visceral effects. For Fisher, the rock concert is a unique cultural phenomenon capable of delivering a quasi-religious experience. In an increasingly secular world founded on market diversification, niche marketing and the cult of individuality, its is unusual to encounter the sort of devotion, mass interaction and social bonding that come with the rock concert experience. For Fisher this is a ‘tribal’ impulse, driven by the shamanistic energy of vocalists who possess the ability to mediate between band and audience.
Inevitably, a tension exists at the heart of these events, with the authenticity under permanent threat of commodification. In this situation, Fisher’s skill involves framing performance with environments that invoke a sense of the carnivalesque, loosen social mores and facilitate collective experience. As a result, although the rock concert remains firmly a part of ‘spectacular’ culture, it is the very antithesis of television, which effects the privatisation of leisure time.
The underlying principles of event-based architectures differ considerably from those influencing traditional built form. In Fisher’s work a number of highly specific design considerations can be discerned that shape audience experience.

Temporality
Whereas architecture is traditionally a static object that unfolds only relative to a moving body, Fisher’s environments actually perform, and evolve over time as a complex spatial choreography - as such, no ‘original’ form exists, only a sequence of highly memorable iterations.

Show dynamic
Religious events and secular festivities have long employed psycho-physiological effects to intensify experience. The awe-inspiring spaces of churches, stained glass and use of incense were all devised to invoke the transcendent - and mark out spiritual experience from everyday life. Today, Fisher’s palette includes static and mobile scenery, trademark inflatables, video imagery, complex lighting effects, projections and fireworks which are carefully sequenced with performance to a create a dramatic ‘journey’ through the event. It is this ‘show dynamic’ that determines the ever-changing emotional landscape, which might range from the visceral assault of extreme spectacle through to moments of introspection or even pathos.

Scale
Unlike theatre, where observer and performer may trade eye-contact, the design of stadium-based events must contend with a dramatic shift in scale, and mediate between stage and audience. Fisher often addresses this from two angles, using the vast symbolic architecture of the set to create a context for the performance area, and then locating within this video technologies that can magnify activities on stage.
Since the late 1990’s, Fisher has pioneered the dual stage concept, placing a smaller, less ostentatious environment within the crowd itself. Here, a band like the Rolling Stones can go back to their roots, strip away the spectacle, and intensify authenticity. Such techniques are often used to create a context for early material, producing moments of ‘massive intimacy’ that allow an audience to relive the simplicity of past performances.

Representational space
The sheer scale of Fisher’s work also places it beyond the traditional theatrical set and into a category that can be termed ‘staged architecture’. These vast representational environments combine spatial distortions, narrative objects and digital imaging in a manner that situates them in an ambiguous zone between the tectonic and the scenographic. As such they represent the latest, and most technically advanced iteration of a tradition stretching back to Scamozzi’s Teatro Olimpico, and Bernini’s Scala Regia.
 
Televisuality
Inevitably, event architectures are conditioned by their televisuality, which is to say their ability to be filmed or broadcast to a remote audience. For an Olympic opening ceremony this might exceed four billion viewers, requiring the designs to be co-ordinated with camera positions, so that the performance can be captured and relayed as a vicarious experience through a sequence of predetermined shots: The show seen through the directors eye.
As LED technology advances, event architectures are increasingly formed out of video walls/surfaces or ‘image objects’ - three-dimensional video forms that defamiliarise the viewers perception by breaking out of a traditional screen format. In this scenario, the audience’s experience of Fisher’s work oscillates between witnessing a live performance and a mediated broadcast - locating perception somewhere between the real and the virtual.

Communication
Beyond providing the visceral thrill of the spectacle, Fisher’s designs also need to communicate ideas to an audience and can be read as ‘brandscapes’. These are controlled spatial environments in which consumers encounter media constructions - be they rock bands, corporations or other forms of organisation. What is signified is context driven, and in the case of the Olympics or an Expo, can be as important as nationhood itself - with the host country given an opportunity to project a real or aspirational identity to a global audience.
In conversation, Fisher alludes to the difficulties that can be encountered in being asked to visualise the banal or even the unvisualisable, but his work also has to contend with a diverse audience and the limited time available in performance to communicate ideas. For this reason signification is always compact and powerful, with strong thematic approaches to set design creating a context for the more rapid-fire visual soundbites offered by digital technology.
Architectural commentators are in the habit of annexing Fisher’s work off from contemporary thinking and reading it as either the earthly embodiment of Archigram’s utopian musings (Fisher studied under Peter Cook at the Architectural Association in the 1960's), or the dirty reality of an over-commercialised popular culture. What both fail to address are the effects event architecture are exerting on contemporary urbanism, as in an era of global competitiveness (for both business investment and tourist dollar) the city itself is under increasing pressure to join the ‘experience economy’.
Just as Fisher’s skill is to transform the banality of ubiquitous sports stadia into a captivating experience - many cities are realising these same effects can be used to animate ordinary urban environments and stimulate night-time economies. This ‘festivalisation’ of the urban environment has also been accompanied by the emergence of ‘media architectures’ - hybrid building forms incorporating video technologies permanently into their external skin. In many ways, these new forms have become technologically available before they are theoretically understood, which would suggest now is a good time to reassess Fisher’s achievements, and consider what role these might play in the future of our cities.
Ladies and Gentlemen, the ‘experience’ has left the arena.

Aus der Ausgabe 05-2008