“Geographers say there are two kinds of islands. This is valuable information for the imagination because it confirms what the imagination already knew.”
- Giles Deleuze, Desert Islands and Other Texts
Somewhere between geography and imagination, Intermediate 11 has spent the year exploring, analysing and proposing interventions on the testing ground of the Mediterranean island of Ibiza. The brief set out to create ‘body-mind space stations’ – destinations that went beyond the spectacle of the famed Ibiza nightclubs to become an immersive experience of hedonistic excess. Students created microcosms of the island that engaged the different senses and induced altered states of mind, synthesising the island’s seasonal nightlife with its rich cultural heritage.
Starting with the mandala – a circular depiction of the universe – the students defined their own islands of interest within Ibiza. Taking cues from visual artists, they carved out their own worlds both graphically and conceptually.
This was a manifesto for the weeks to come. The space helmet translated this into three-dimensional space and transformed themes from the mandala into a total environment that you could enter – one that was built around the human head.
On our trip to Ibiza, we went clubbing as ‘research’. We visited Pacha and took in the performance, albeit at a smaller scale than during peak season. Visiting the island at a transitional time of year allowed us to see the ebb and flow of tourists and locals as well as the strange shifts between clubbing, hippie and agricultural communities and their respective landscapes. As part of the trip, we went on a series of ‘closed-club-tours’. Seeing the dark and dingy backstage areas and dismantled interiors of famed discos such as Space, Amnesia, Privilege and Ushuaïa revealed a wholly undesigned space, ripe for intervention.
Through workshops with artists, fashion designers and branding consultants, we studied the body’s relationship to and perception of space. By elaborating myths, developing relationships, heightening tensions and amplifying experience Intermediate 11 has, through projects, invented religions, moulded sensual spaces, revealed our inner psychedelia through spatialising stimuli, distorted our vision via stacked soundscapes and generated multi-scalar spatial experiences.
We invite you on a journey to see Ibiza like you’ve never seen it before.
Unit Staff
Manuel Collado
Nacho Martin
Manijeh Verghese
Thank you to our critics and collaborators
Adrian Navarro
Brett Steele
Carlos Jimenez
Cenamor
Chee-Kit Lai
Fabienne Hess
Gregory Ross
Javier Peña
Jeffrey Ludlow
John Ng
Kenneth Fraser and the TS 3 team
Miraj Ahmed
Natasha Sandmeier
Nerea Calvillo
Nuria Alvarez Lombardero
Pablo Padilla Jargstorf
Pablo Ros
Paul Bailey
Roberto Piqueras
Sabrina Blakstad
Saffron Brand Consultants
Valentin Bontjes van Beek
