ÅYR, Frieze Projects 2015. Credit: Plastiques. Photography. Courtesy of Plastiques Photography/Frieze.
Walking through collective AYR’s installation at Frieze was like walking through a succession of dimly lit IKEA showrooms. Each of the 6 “smart bedrooms” contained a double bed upon which the fair-goers were sprawled out across or perched on the edge of. Phone-charging wires twined out from underneath the mattresses creating surreal assemblages between domestic objects and technical appliances.
ÅYR, Frieze Projects 2015. Credit: Plastiques Photography. Courtesy of Plastiques Photography/Frieze.
AYR was founded by the Architectural Association graduates Fabrizio Ballabio, Alessandro Bava, Luis Ortega Govela and Octave Perrault. Their interests lie in bringing both artists and architects together into conversations that address contemporary issues such as the internet’s effect on cities. Through their site-specific installations, performances, events and writing, AYR examine how current online phenomena have had tangible implications on physical spaces. In recent years, tech companies have started implementing homely chill-out spaces into the architecture of the office as a means to stimulate creative production within the blurred lines between work and pleasure. New websites such as Airbnb have transformed the contemporary home from the citadel of the family to a commodity traded online. Art fairs are also places where business and indulgence conflate, dense with the commodification of art objects of aesthetic, conceptual and historical value. Alessandro Bava described their “Comfort Zone” installation as both revealing and performing this condition.
ÅYR, Frieze Projects 2015. Credit: Plastiques Photography. Courtesy of Plastiques Photography/Frieze.
Aside from the alluring lighting and inviting duvets, there was an unsettling feeling to these sci-fi-esque spaces. Strangers shared the same bed; few conversed, but most didn’t speak at all as they proceeded to scroll through their touch screen devices. Across one of the duvets the phrase “I Just Want To Look Good For You” was candidly embroidered; a lampoon to some of what occurred on the virtual-socio sphere of the fair. Perhaps this detail was a touch too far, but sitting in AYR’s interiors it was hard not to reflect upon how many of the surrounding stands took into account whether the art on show was Instagram-friendly when curating their presentations.
ÅYR, Frieze Projects 2015. Photography courtesy of Naomi Ellis
“Comfort Zone” provided a pertinent commentary on how the internet along with its sharing economy has allowed for almost anything in the private sphere to be commodified and exposed. But are the motivations behind it always led by profit? The installation also presented an alternative system where digital needs have to be fulfilled personally (and vice versa), and it’s this heightened transparency between the online and offline that feels uncomfortable and at times is even scary.
Text by Naomi Ellis
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