Methods

Disruption

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Disturbance or problems which interrupt an event, activity, or process.
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To use disruption as a method to subvert one’s expectations means: to create a disturbance or problem that interrupts an event, activity, or process.

The project examples that use disruption often affect the activity of one’s body movements, slowing them down or speeding them up, stopping them or diverting them. This is done in the Hundertwasser ‘Uneven Floor’, where suddenly one has to walk differently as the floor goes up and down. This change in body movements gives you a completely different experience of the room. Routes can also suddenly be disrupted, as Richard Serra did with the ‘Tilted Arc’, where he placed a large tilted arc in the middle of a pedestrian square. Because of the intervention, the most efficient route over the square was disrupted. Or a staircase can have an off-rhythm, done at the staircase of the TU Library. You can not walk over it smoothly, as the landing is too long for the rise.

A disruption can also be made by a noise. Your attention can suddenly be caught by it, making you stop, looking for it. Benjamin Verdonck attached a giant birds nest up on the Weena tower and acted and screamed like a bird. In this way he was interrupting people that where down below, making them look upwards. Another disruption example is the UFO over Delft, people were so confused and curious about the strange flying object above the city. It disrupted their daily routine, they had to stand still look at it and discuss it.

A disruption can also be a small strategically placed object. For example the concrete Nike Swoosh that Marc Bijl placed in the middle of a basket ball field; this interrupted the player’s ability to play a normal game and making one question the role of brands in sports.