Posthuman Performative Space as a New Materialistic Agent: The Evaluation of Air Bubble Installation Work by Ecologicstudio

Space is a phenomenon related not only to humans and vitals, but also to non-humans and non-vitals. This study started with a research question “What and how can be a posthuman performative space in between art and design?” and investigates the possibility of posthuman space performing as a self-organising and collaborative agent. Beyond anthropocentric dualisms, this space emerges through intra-actions of agents where it is an agent itself too, as one of the components of this posthuman environment. In this new materialistic scope, the study evolved as a qualitative research based on relevant texts of Braidotti and Barad. The study employed grounded theory methodology to analyze these texts by coding and generating diagrammatic sets of concepts. As a result of analyses, the findings reached were Distributed Embodied Agencies, Temporal Becoming as Relational Entanglements, and Emergent Reconfigurations of Posthuman Spatiality. By these findings, Air Bubble work by ecoLogicStudio was selected as an art and design project realized in two different contexts, enabling a comparative case study. Both implementations were described in detail and compared by their similarities and differences in relation to prior findings. In conclusion, this research asserts that Air Bubble exemplifies the characteristics of a new materialistic agent, functioning as a manifestation of posthuman performative space situated in-between art and design. Within this framework, the study seeks to offer an interdisciplinary perspective on the phenomenon of space and to contribute novel arguments to the scholarly discourse in critical posthuman theory in relation to art and design, for future investigations.