Novel Project
SALAZAR DAVIS Architects

Organized by the arts collective Flux Factory, The Novel Project was conceived as a 30-day experiment in creative isolation for three selected writers. SALAZAR DAVIS Architects was one of three design teams invited to participate in this project and was paired with the writer Laurie Stone.

The setup for the project involved a provocative conflation of two seemingly contradictory artistic traditions. The first is that of the artist’s retreat from society to produce a thing of substance—to focus on her work in absence of an audience. In opposition to this stands a second tradition that centers on the performative nature of process and its subordination of the art-object. In this scenario, the artist becomes a performer and the audience becomes implicated by her to the point that watching becomes part of the performance.

This apparent conflict was addressed by configuring spaces for the writer and viewer that are nested within a 12-foot-square cubicle. Rather than simply placing the writer on display, our approach required the viewer to enter the space marked by the cubicle and encouraged the writer to be an active participant in choosing when and how to reveal herself. Viewers, although at first seemingly in control of this relationship, quickly discovered that occupying the cubicle entailed a degree of physical exertion and contortion (crouching, crawling) that left them exposed to the writer’s gaze. In this respect the basic relationship between performer and audience was reversed.

The writer’s hut was built with wood framing and sheathed in translucent plastic shingles to express its structure and make visible its occupant and her belongings. This method of construction also recalls conventional domestic building techniques. The project resulted in a structure, at once familiar and unexpected, that transformed the experience shared by the writer and her visitors.