Save your projects (and perhaps the world) with the iterative method

Save your projects (and maybe even the world) with the Iterative Method is part lecture, part performance, and entirely Antoine Defoort: brilliantly charming with at least two good jokes. Noorderzon’s favourite Frenchman returns to unpack the everyday magic of design; from morning toast to big, world-changing ideas. 

Design isn’t just about uncomfortable flashy furniture. Everyone does it everywhere, all the time, and no one is aware that they’re doing it. But these ubiquitous projects are full of traps: spending lots of time thinking (but never actually doing anything), fear of change, and good old procrastination. Enter the iterative method - a trial-and-error approach that’s both ancient and revolutionary, and surprisingly comforting when it comes to accidentally changing the universe!

Armed with delicious, crunchy metaphors and a soft spot for the absurd, Defoort maps out the creative process like a curious friend who’s just as lost as the rest of us. 

Antoine Defoort was born in 1978. Much later, after having failed to understand why he started to study mathematics in the first place, he put together a singular artistic practice by attending art schools, teaching himself to code and starting to perform in theatres and festivals. He practices a kind of DIY futurology, connecting ideas just to see what happens, and creating performances in the hope of achieving an excellent fun-to-interesting ratio. He has a particular fondness for metaphors, with whom he maintains a relationship not unlike that of Snow White and the forest animals — you know, when she hangs out the laundry, whistling away, while birds and bunnies help her cheerfully. He has a shamefully large carbon footprint, having travelled to present his projects around the globe in both prestigious venues and obscure squats from Seattle to Cherbourg, and Dunkirk to Yokohama.