“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