ABSTRACT
Just as artists turned to performance as a medium to sponsor the cultivation of new creative directions, a small group of emerging architects have used performance to initiate inventive ways to mine the creative potential of the procedures of professional practice. Topics deemed vapid and unimaginative by previous generations of architects are featured as departure points for this new group of architects who are using architecture as the subject matter of performance pieces. These architects are engaging conventional modes of construction, utilizing off-the-shelf products, and participating in the ritualistic aspects of document production within the architectural design process. Events such as drawing enclosure details, specifying paint, and crowd-sourcing design criticism are positioned as new conceptual territories for contemporary architecture. Rather than diminish the significance of these acts through relegation to the periphery, these procedures are highlighted as core conceptual territories and are featured as both the subject matter and output of works from emerging architects.
