The exhibition ‘Co-Machines in Eindhoven’ was on display at Onomatopee during the Dutch Design Week 2019 . It was the result of a four-day Co-Machine workshop in Eindhoven organized by Eindhoven based public art gallery and publisher Onomatopee and was co-curated by Justin Agyin. Architecture Circus designed and executed the Co-machines in Eindhoven exhibition, which presented the co-machines to the larger public in a setting that simulated the public urban environment naturally to the co-machines.
The project ‘Co-Machines: Mobile Disruptive Architecture’ is an initiative by Berlin based interdisciplinary design studio ON/OFF. Inspired by the recent tendency among architects and designers to opt out of traditional office work in favour of creating self-initiated interventions in public space, the co-machines project maps out a new architectural movement motivated by practices of place-making, occupying and squatting, and alternative economies. Ecological or technological in scope, all the interventions are mobile and nearly all of them are performed without permission from city planners.
The exhibition presented the co-machines designed and built by Takehito Etani (JP), Melissa Jin (BE), Basse Stittgen and Dongham Kam (NL) and Dan Dorocic, Michael Maginnes and Giani Laneri Deforné (DE). With their installations they illustrate the life of the alternative, grassroots and DIY with an independent spirit. In a range of ways, the co-machines raise questions about the function of architectural permanence, the opportunities for social interaction in urban planning and the role of architecture in this and, in final, the scope of architecture at large.