Design for a rainy day
Jun. 8th, 2009 07:16 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
imomusHisae and I braved the cold, wet weather currently gripping Berlin in its clammy hands to see the DMY09 Youngsters design show at Treptower Arena. But something about the kind of design on display in shows like this just strikes me as wrong and boring at the moment. It's probably the recession -- the economic equivalent of a rainy day.
While it was a buzz to get into a big, dry aircraft hangar-like space and see a bunch of young design-oriented people, a lot of the work on show struck me as "conversation piece" design: "Oh look, you have a set of bookshelves that tilt / a pair of chopsticks that work like a fork / a square-framed bicycle!" Does the world really need gimmicks like these? Like the iconic architecture of the last fifteen years, this stuff seems designed not for use, but to a) get magazine features, b) grab eyeballs in big design fairs and c) if it is bought and taken home, spark unbearably bourgeois conversations at dinner parties. I'd like to have seen more work wearing the hair shirts of utility, sustainability and affordability, because frankly I think in the current climate design should be asking what it can do for the poor.
There's still room for optical pizzazz, though, as Alice Rawsthorn's account of design at the Venice Art Biennale makes clear: the picture above is Tobias Rehberger's zappy cafe for the Palazzo delle Esposizioni.
At DMY09 too there were spots of sunshine; Swiss designer Béatrice Durandard's "vivid objects" were refreshing, and I liked the Sandberg Institute's experimental apartment project.
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There was also an intriguing "jellyfish theremin" by Yuri Suzuki, whose Prepared Turntable (above) both looks and sounds great. Suzuki's statement for the DMY catalogue points up how design can help in times of depression: "A strange story from Japan: a particular train line had a higher suicide rate than other train lines. A music specialist found out that the alarming departure sound of the train psychologically affected people, creating despair or uneasiness. So the train company changed the sound in some stations. Yuri Suzuki’s design aim is to create products that can change properties between humans and sound."
While it was a buzz to get into a big, dry aircraft hangar-like space and see a bunch of young design-oriented people, a lot of the work on show struck me as "conversation piece" design: "Oh look, you have a set of bookshelves that tilt / a pair of chopsticks that work like a fork / a square-framed bicycle!" Does the world really need gimmicks like these? Like the iconic architecture of the last fifteen years, this stuff seems designed not for use, but to a) get magazine features, b) grab eyeballs in big design fairs and c) if it is bought and taken home, spark unbearably bourgeois conversations at dinner parties. I'd like to have seen more work wearing the hair shirts of utility, sustainability and affordability, because frankly I think in the current climate design should be asking what it can do for the poor.
There's still room for optical pizzazz, though, as Alice Rawsthorn's account of design at the Venice Art Biennale makes clear: the picture above is Tobias Rehberger's zappy cafe for the Palazzo delle Esposizioni.
At DMY09 too there were spots of sunshine; Swiss designer Béatrice Durandard's "vivid objects" were refreshing, and I liked the Sandberg Institute's experimental apartment project.
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There was also an intriguing "jellyfish theremin" by Yuri Suzuki, whose Prepared Turntable (above) both looks and sounds great. Suzuki's statement for the DMY catalogue points up how design can help in times of depression: "A strange story from Japan: a particular train line had a higher suicide rate than other train lines. A music specialist found out that the alarming departure sound of the train psychologically affected people, creating despair or uneasiness. So the train company changed the sound in some stations. Yuri Suzuki’s design aim is to create products that can change properties between humans and sound."
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where we are now
Date: 2009-06-08 03:24 pm (UTC)Also, most people no longer think about quality, mostly about the gimmick... so thats what is being made these days.
the 'poor' (90% of everyone else) dont want special design that is cheap, well made, and honest in nature... they want something that is cheap (or not so cheap) is advertised on tv and (the most important part) that gives them a momentary feeling of self importants. Thats it. A very small amount of people want and think about actualy quality, and then there are a lot of 'educated' schooled types that have big jerk-off sessions thinking about what the 'poor' should do, or have...etc...
Design shows are not really the place for 'design for the poor'. A big flashy design expo is by its nature not going to do that. If it tried it would be a big fucking lie and be a big dick in the mouth of the 'poor'. Design expos are meant to show-off big flashy things that dont really work. Whats wrong with that? I dont really like it, you dont really like it... but we both sometimes go...and, If you go, thats what you'll see, You know it, I know it , we all know it. Going and conplaining, is common, but, it's like complaining that a lemon is bitter.
I personally like the diy movement... which comes and goes each decade...
making things.
It's really sad that the world is full of useless things...
but what can one do but go about ones own life and create and build with thought.