[Title] T is for Tennis
[Artist] Analogia Project
[Date] Mar 20,2013 – May 21, 2013
In 1988, French philosopher Gilles Deleuze released a series of interview ‘L’Abécédaire’. It was the collective of his thought about various issues which was alphabetically organized. In this work, the letter T was entirely dedicated to tennis. Gilles suggested this sport enhances the individual capabilities of strategy and mental creativity.
Conceptually inspired by the philosopher’s words and aesthetically intrigued by the elegant movements of tennis, Italian design duo Andrea Mancuso & Emilia Serra, as known as Analogia Project, have used their visual language to synthesize the essential features of this sport and interpret the Hermès annual theme ‘Chic, le sport!’
The front windows refer to different moment of a tennis match with two narrative connotations. The left window shows us a changing room, where Hermès products are placed as if to show the presence of someone who used to be in this place. The changing room creates a very important moment of a match: it is where you will start finding the right mental concentration and, having left the cloths of urban life, you will physically transform yourself into a player. Hermès products, as real objects placed in the window space, will tell us something about the person who has passed by. In this way, we can visualize her/his tastes and lifestyle.
In the right window, we are facing a live tennis match. The active moments of the match are captured and drawn in the air by black line. The elegance of tennis motion is frozen in the air in front of viewers. In the foreground, tennis match is going on: the orbit of racket is following the tennis ball which is about to fall down beyond the net. In the background, someone is watching the match whereas someone else seems to have left from the bench.
Apart from Hermès products, everything is a sketch in the window space. Here, the real objects have a pivot role: this will bring us to the world of sketch in black ink and furthermore, it will make us think of presence of someone.
Analogia Project
Analogia Project is the result of a long-term collaboration between designer Andrea Mancuso and architect Emilia Serra. Their different backgrounds allowed them to explore both space and objects. The aim of this project is to experiment new visual language by merging digital process and craftsmanship. By placing the transparent threads in the given space according to the digitally designed plan, they sketch the object by using black wool on it. As a result, one will see objects floating on the air. This will help creating imaginary world which enables viewer to question their familiarity of physical space.