Cute Spaces

Cuteness is the effect of a schema: it pulls everything into the two-dimensional and sends it back from there into the respective extension. Queer 'crossplay' and artistic experiments that take up formats like Live Action Role-Play or Real Life Game show how this effect can liberate bodies. Cuteness suspends gender and species categories into which our social norms of interaction otherwise sort bodies. What seems cute, adorable, kawaii, triggers affects that assert a power of drawing and thus change our orientation in three-dimensional space. This talk will explore the reconfiguration of space through cuteness effects - and ask whether it is possible to create cute spaces in which we interact in a less physically normalized way, with each other and with ourselves.

On the occasion of the lecture "Cute Spaces" by Kai van Eikels, this Cute Space was designed as a walk-in installation and lecture space.