Concept
Dissonances can only be passing events. They introduce the unexpected and risks into the process of perception and initiate the process of learning. Within the efforts that lead to understanding, they initially startle, produce incomprehension and then push interpretation and programmes of action to the foreground. Therein lies the productive potential of dissonances.
Their characteristic is the absence of intent. If dissonance would be produced intentionally, they could be expected and foreseen—and would therefore seize to be dissonances.
What can it mean for fashion to built on dissonances and their creative, as well as their critical effects?
Many fashion designers operate on the assumption that fashion as fashion is finished when it becomes subject to generalisation, categorisation, repetition and description. One could assume: Fashion has to provoke, disturb and it has to take risks to be appreciated and to have an impact on the market place. It therefore seems to be obvious that the fashionable appeal of the combative self—to name just one example—has a tremendous power to stand out.
Fashion therefore always seems to be “out of order.” It would have to be to constantly renew the spectacular attractiveness and it´s power to draw attention that it needs to be effective. But although fashion therefore is not initially wearable for a broader public, it can not escape being judged by the categories of wearability. The globalised body beautiful can be called the standard for wearability.
Fashion operates in a tension between searching for unconventional ways beyond established rules and laws of societal norms, that include habits of perception. On the other hand, fashion designs and produces for a market operating on very short attention spans, a market that requires societal acceptance, works under the constant pressure to be trendy and therefore can not take differentiated positions into account.
We therefore have to ask ourselves whether fashion, that is out of order and does not follow any obvious rules, truly is accidental? Or has dissonance in fashion always been its´ guiding principle and intent and does it there rob fashion of its´ potential to create tension and take risks? Can fashion still be in the avantgarde in producing sociopolitical and aesthetic provocations in a singular, as well as in a broadly effective way?
One thing seems to be an universally accepted fact in any case: Fashion is ahead of many other industries. In fashion, so called “bad taste” has always become glamorous and a driver of fashion. And the suspension of dress codes has turned into a fashion brand. This way, the transitory and the disruption of established order turn authoritative. Deviation becomes the norm. The imperceptible and capricious dictacte of fashion again and again constitutes itself as a serial cycle that slowly revises tensions and risks that have been created by dissonances. Are there instances where this cycle has been broken, counteracted or revved up too high? The interdisciplinary project “Out of Order” is looking for answers.
Speakers
- Annette Geiger
- Barbara Paul
- Barbara Vinken
- Bare Conductive LTD
- Bundesamt für Bekleidung
- Elisabeth Lebovici
- Gundula Wolter
- Harry Walter
- Honey Suckle Company
- Oliver Sieber
- Pamela Church Gibson
- Terre Thaemlitz
- Thomas Oláh
- Verena Kuni
- Vibskov & Emenius