ABOUT
About
An independent practice dedicated to performance design heritage.
Founded by Ivan Cascon and based in Brussels, Density Wave works with artists, production teams and cultural institutions to document the design of performances, installations and exhibitions: their costume, light, sound, space and video, and the technical systems that realise them. The studio brings together artistic context, technical records and production knowledge so others can understand the work, study its development and prepare for future presentations.
Why Density Wave exists
A production brings together knowledge that can take months or years to develop. Some of it becomes drawings, recordings and written instructions. Much of it stays with the people who solve problems in rehearsal, build the scenery, programme the lighting or run the show.
When a project ends and its team moves on, that knowledge becomes harder to recover. Files may survive without the explanations that make them useful.
Density Wave brings documentation into the production while those explanations are still available. The record receives sustained attention, so the work can be understood, studied and presented again.
Working alongside the makers
Documenting performance design requires an understanding of how it works. The timing of a transition, the relationship between light and movement, or the placement of an object can carry decisions that are easy to overlook without knowing their purpose.
The studio works with the people responsible for those decisions. Their explanations make clear what matters, what has changed and which details future teams will need.
The studio’s role is to document their artistic and technical work; it designs no part of the work it documents. The resulting material is brought together with the context needed to interpret it, keeping individual contributions connected to the production.
An independent practice
Density Wave operates independently of production companies, venues and collecting institutions. It works across different teams and settings, with the scope and responsibilities of each project agreed directly with those commissioning the documentation.
This independence allows the record to be organised around the work itself and the people who will use it.
Continuity through the project
The studio carries the agreed documentation work through from planning to handover. When several services are combined, they inform one another: changes made during installation can be reflected in the drawings, while explanations gathered from the team can help make sense of a recording.
Each commission is scoped around the time and attention needed to complete it, whether it involves one service or several.
Working across Europe
The studio works primarily across the European cultural sector. Brussels provides a base for collaborating with stages, museums, festivals and production teams in Belgium and neighbouring countries.
Working throughout the European Union brings contact with different artistic traditions, production methods and approaches to preservation. It creates opportunities to exchange knowledge and build relationships beyond a single national scene. Those connections can also extend the usefulness of the material itself: a production record made in Belgium might support a researcher in Spain, a teacher in Germany or a future staging in France.
Tools developed through practice
Alongside the documentation work, the studio develops its own software for tasks that existing tools do not adequately support. Its development grows out of the practical needs of recording, organising and using production material.