Designblog

The project E/merging patterns challenges the Normativity of systems: a care for order, from which one can’t withhold (social, cellular or temporal system), and provides an access to an aesthetic of cancer, ‘beyond well and ill’.

The artists study group of cells that emerge as a new system within a normal ‘baseline’ system. By applying the behavior of cancer cells (uncontrolled growth and invasion) as design parameters, Khurtova and Bourlanges offer an experience of the body that begins where the usefulness of healthy bodies ends.

The work consists of a series of 5 bone china cast objects, and depicts a flat garment pattern, in order to give a dry representation of the body. The flat surfaces are distorted with extruded patterns, relating to different organs or inner body systems. Those patterns are generated from detailed 3D mapping of tumor growth, by the use of algorithmic software implementing uncontrolled growth parameters. The obtained structures are manufactured by CNC milling machine, in order to produce mother-molds for plaster molding and precise slipcasting.

Realized at the EKWC, this project merges the material sensitivity of ceramics and the precision of CAD/CAM technology.

5 pieces – 28 x 62 cm – Bone China

2011

www.marieilsebourlanges.com

www.elenakhurtova.com

Toen Duchamp in 1917 zijn Fountain anoniem naar een expositie zond waar feitelijk elk ingezonden werk tentoongesteld zou worden, besloot het comité dat deze urinoir geen ‘kunst’ betrof en werd hij geweigerd. 87 Jaar later, in 2004, werd Duchamp’s Fountain door panel van 500 Britse kunstkenners verkozen tot meest invloedrijke kunstwerk van de 20e eeuw. Zijn werk dwong men esthetische kwesties diepgaand te overdenken.

Het was kunst, enkel omdat de kunstenaar – die bovendien niet zelf de maker was van het object – het tot kunstwerk kroonde. Het was een massa-geproduceerd fabrieksproduct, ontdaan van zijn oorspronkelijke functie door het op zijn kant te plaatsen en ondertekend met een korte tekst die een handtekening voorstelt waarvan men tegenwoordig nog steeds speculeert over de betekenis.

Duchamp bewees dat de kunstenaar niet altijd de maker of bedenker hoeft te zijn om iets ‘kunst’ te laten zijn, ook liet hij zien dat een object een kunstwerk kan worden enkel omdat de kunstenaar hiertoe beslist.

Kan iets dan ook kunst worden, als de ‘kunstenaar’ zelf dit nooit zo bedoeld heeft, maar anderen hiertoe beslissen?

Al sinds 1990 is Theo Jansen bezig met het uitdenken en maken van zijn Strandbeesten. Geïnspireerd door de evolutie en zijn interesse naar de mogelijkheden die een pvc-buisje biedt, begon hij aan een project dat oorspronkelijk bedoeld was slechts een jaar te duren en uitmondde in een levenslange onderneming. Van pvc maakt hij ‘beesten’ die zich met behulp van windenergie kunnen verplaatsen op het strand. Hij bedacht een mechaniek waarmee de dieren over het strand konden lopen dat van een simpel materiaal als plastic buizen gemaakt kon worden. Naar eigen zeggen een soortgelijke uitvinding als het wiel omdat de as een horizontale beweging beschrijft bij het bewegen, maar beter, omdat deze ‘poten’ in tegenstelling tot het wiel ook gemakkelijk over mul zand kunnen voortbewegen.

Theo Jansen raakte in de ban van de strandbeesten. “Het werd een verslaving, een ziekte, zoals U wilt. Het is een virus dat maar niet uit mijn lijf wil verdwijnen. Ik ben slachtoffer … De strandbeesten hebben me gebruikt. Ze hebben me eerst ziek gemaakt, ziek van liefde voor hen.” (De grote fantast – Theo Jansen, pag. 191-192). 

Jansen is tot op de dag van vandaag bezig met het optimaliseren van bestaande en het maken van nieuwe strandbeesten. Zijn interessante en indrukwekkende bouwwerken zijn niet onopgemerkt gebleven. De beesten genieten van veel publiciteit, zijn te zien op verschillende exposities en hun schepper vertelt over hen op lezingen en conferenties. De dagen in mei waarop Jansen zijn nieuwe beesten loslaat op het strand in Scheveningen trekken ieder jaar geïnteresseerde toeschouwers.

Mensen fascineren zich over de aanblik van de logge onbeholpenheid van de beesten in combinatie met hun complexiteit, en over de poëtische gedachten die deze strandbeesten opwekken.
Veel mensen definiëren de strandbeesten als ‘kunst’ en Theo Jansen wordt meestal aangeduid als een (kinetisch)kunstenaar. Toch ziet Jansen zijn werk niet als kunst. “Every day I work on function, just trying to make it work, and not that much on ‘art’”, zegt hij in een interview*.

Duchamp definieerde zijn Fountain als kunst, en het was aan het publiek om dit in overweging te nemen. In het geval dat de maker zijn werk niet als kunst definieert, lijkt het publiek te kunnen beslissen over of het al dan geen kunstwerk is. Zo worden Theo Jansen’s strandbeesten meestal tentoongesteld in musea en galeries. De vraag of zijn beesten gezien kunnen worden als kunstwerken ondanks dat Jansen ze zelf niet op die manier ziet, lijkt af te hangen van de mening van de aanschouwers. Maar in hoeverre heeft de publieke opinie iets te maken met of een werk gezien kan worden als kunst?

Er zijn geen vastgestelde wetten aan de hand van welke men kan vaststellen of iets al dan geen kunst is; meningen over welke werken kunst zijn, zijn afhankelijk van interpretatie en de opinie van de aanschouwer en de kunstenaar. Maar Duchamp heeft met zijn Fountain bewezen dat de maker van een werk los kan staan van het kunstwerk. In zijn geval was zijn kunstwerk een fabrieksproduct, hijzelf was dus niet de maker maar slechts degene die het tot ‘kunst’ doopte.
Naar mijn mening kan hieruit worden opgemaakt, dat iets mogelijk ‘kunst’ kan worden genoemd, ondanks dat de maker ervan hier niet zo over denkt. Het is aan het publiek om te beslissen of zij in Theo Jansen’s strandbeesten bekwaam vakmanschap en een interessante uitvinding zien, of dat zij het een kunstwerk vinden.

To summarize the context I must mention, with the freedom of a resident of here and today, the presence of pressure, of calling out resent for (this interpretation of) passive living. With that, a near apocalyptic sort of set creation takes place. It receives emphatic caricatures, tragic responsibilities, gets greatly busy sceneries to play on, and personally – I have a dislike for tricks in most cases. Not saying that I don’t care for the drama, it is the very reciprocal end – of paying respect to voices in letting them be exactly what they are.

In theory, slow design agrees with my thought. Carolyn F Strauss saw faults in the growing movements of green design, and overproduction of recycled/recyclable designs with wonky purposes – “We should be calling into question the need for the product in the first place.”. The economical success of key wording pollution, organic and related terminology grew and hasn’t reclined much since, the very idea of reducing production overproduced, and did so quickly.

What the slow movement suggested is a reduction with increased effort. The time needed for the process of manufacturing most things shortens exponentially to the cost – spiraling in fairly recent event, time is money they say, slow designs agree in a different way. A pair of trousers whos material has circled the Earth several times even before being sewn together, has then been sent on a series of to a majority of us unknown routes before finally reaching y/our unimpressed hands – is replaced by a dazzling piece of phantom experience and craft, culture and tradition are now personal choices and flavors. As long as our story is near geographically, associatively or else, and beaded with time, it is what slow tells about in it’s forms.

In this sense, daily designs gain back their emotional and such weight in style and charm of a hand-made product, we make slow but noteworthy changes in ways of everyday consumption,  directing the trend rightfully. So I see visions of Strauss, who founded SlowLab in 2003, as a vent for ideas of applied activism, designs and debates on this slow framework within a worldwide web of selected individuals, based in New York, US. Through series of lectures and projects we get an insight to mainly a philosophy with few examples of artists making drastic choices in technicalities of work methods and building new or bringing back old manufacturing principles, such as Judith van den Boom who’s taken the knowledgable Chinese porcelain worker out of the factory to a small and personal area for working, learning and collaborative design. Focus frequently falls on ideas, and magnify a personalization – in form a sustainability factor – of objects, an illusion of a caring presence is cast to put a viewer into romanticized relationships with his toys – I mean belongings. You wait for your mail accordingly through a programmed lens of another rational design, we listen to amplified cooking sounds while reaping scents of it’s making, in a disposable sort of magnifiscently pleasant and meaningful event. It peeks a little outside the umbrella of the boldly tagged holistic promise, and resorts often to mid-flight concepts in elaborate yet somehow unsatisfying captions, with it’s patterning accents on context and sacrificial imagery of more or less extreme discomfort as a crime against nature.

I have a hard time agreeing on sets of graven rules, and think one should be as careful and discrete with evoking guilt in other beings as can be, in short a moral justification doesn’t make (good) artistic experience good, and neither does over politeness. But we can make a lot of solid exceptions for this in design, and the power of suggestion in a possible event differs from an artists dense sensation to be experienced attentively, also not to be overlooked is the responsibility of a designer of largely produced goods, and creator of appliances to be sent randomly into living and often outlive it’s maker. What I miss is a striking moment, like the gasp for air after having or witnessing a brilliant idea, otherwise I feel I might be convinced, perhaps this is the way of movements and having guidelines. A sharp, clear thought, a strong visual motor, an undirected balance that leads to somewhere like this, the undirected part makes if difficult to offer advice. Perhaps it is too ideological to expect of pieces an evocation of a mapped idea with limited or no description, this sort of modulation seems crucial though, and a set of produces that need not much or any sugarcoating. I think the slow designers, and all artists concerned with enviromental damage a cruelly run contemporary life allows, should take the green trend as mean to challenge their own work, and distinct themselves in opportunist waters by finding strong subtleties for use in triggering thoughts rather than speaking them into a bore. We see the blueprint in our every day life already, respond to it most strongly when the message comes on it’s own, and we all have many factors afloat – a suggestive shooter like this is surrounded by comfy amounts of room for explorative abstraction and rock and roll, yet it stays easy. What I try to say is we should be raising awareness by raising awareness levels, and sway to an old fashioned need to please and show (off) our very best, even if it means falling out of the fixed frame of your politically correct ideology – at least, we will be left with a loud work to discuss, debate, come back to and so forth.

Carolyn F Strauss with SlowLab sends out promising goals and messages, and should have space enough to branch and develop a captivating and elegant design, which sends us to a slow but sweet relationship with the inanimate, and gradually teaches importance of lively touch.

(but plastic tells stories too)

I have a medium-large grocery list in one hand, and a shopping bag in the other. Moving through the kitchen accessories department of the Ikea store located in Utrecht, I am looking for a new, preferably cheap pizza cutter. My old one was lost in the crypt that is my room, and scissors can only do so much when it comes down to cutting my Albert Heijn pizzas.

Having found the shelf containing cheap plastic pizza cutters (they’re called Stäm), a question arises. What colour to choose? The olive green one, the scarlet version, the bright yellow edition or the rather unpleasing cyan variant? Remembering that I already happen to own a green spatula, I decide on the similarly coloured pizza cutter. While paying for my newly acquired Stäm pizza cutter, I am certain: the olive green colour will most definitely improve my quality of life to a larger degree than the cyan edition.
 

A seeming elementary choice. We make these rather dull choices all the time. Nonetheless, the other day I was investigating a friends kitchen supplies during a house party. In one of the drawers, I found the same green coloured Stäm pizza cutter. Soon, we were high fiving and felt closer related. After all, we have a mutual preference for a certain commodity. This anecdote can be generalised. In a nutshell: our social relations are based on the products (or, commodities) that we own. According to Karl Marx, that is. He calls this phenomenon commodity fetishism.
More relevant to this writing are the slight variations of a specific object. People like having a choice, as they have their own identity to maintain. All Ikea has to do to meet this need is presenting their Stäm pizza cutter in a variety of colours. This phenomenon has been conceptualised by the German philosopher Theodor W. Adorno. He coined the term pseudo-individualisation.
 

During the last two decennia, a new notion in consumption and production has emerged. Manufacturers increasingly think about sustainability when producing new designs. Artists are responding to this way of thinking as well: exhibitions about sustainability and slow design seem to have become common.

On the twenty-fourth of November I visited the “New Energy in Design and Art” exhibition at the Boymans van Beuningen in my city of birth, Rotterdam. A work that caught my eye was “The Idea of a Tree,” an award-winning project by Katherina Mischer and Tomas Traxler. Basically, it is about an autonomous machine (called “recorder one”) that produces objects using just thread, glue, paint and solar energy. Finished objects are not only functional, as they also reflect the weather conditions of the place and time where the machine has been working. This video elaborates more extensively on the project.
 

The good thing about “The Idea of a Tree” is the fact that it actually works. Too often, sustainable projects by artists somehow feel stuck in the conceptual zone. As a person that classifies most of his own projects as “stuff that works”, I like seeing a relatively simple machine that tries to give a concise answer to the relatively complex question of sustainability.

Moreover, the project doesn’t just work in a mechanical sense. It also effectively combines concepts of consumer culture with ideas coming from the Slow Movement. Using the distinctiveness of local environment factors, objects are produced that are each unique and yet share a common theme. Examples of the objects produced can be found here.

The objects produced by “recorder one” are, as can be seen, aesthetically rather pleasing. They also come in a variety of forms, functions and colours. The seal, colours and even construction breathe the words “ecological design”. People buying these objects will probably identify themselves with some ecological responsible subculture. This is a typical trait of commodity fetishism, though this aspect doesn’t distinguish the “Idea of a Tree” project from most other slow design projects.

The unique appearance of every single object, however, does. Just like the Stäm pizza cutter mentioned in the introduction of this essay, there are concepts of pseudo-individualism to be found in the lovely stools and lamp shades produced in the “Idea of a Tree” project. The variety in thickness, length and intensity of colours found between these objects can be interpreted as the ecological responsible answer to the diverseness colours presented by the Stäm pizza cutter.
 

People like having to make these kind of choices. Thus, presenting the consumer with an assortment of small differences in the same product makes a great marketing tool. Take Apple, for example: ever since the dawn of the iMac, Apple has presented their products as a smorgasbord of colours and sizes. With the iPod, Apple took pseudo-individualisation to the next step: there are about five different iPods (iPod Nano, iPod Classic, and so on), each presented in a variety of colours. It made Apple one of the most successful companies in the world. The same counts for Ikea, offering rather superficial customisations to the customer. Over and over again, pseudo-individualisation has proven itself as a winning marketing tool.

Green marketing, however, has not. Despite the trend of sustainability becoming “hip”, telling people to buy a sustainably product because it’s sustainable doesn’t work. Just take a look at these links. In the end, people do not want ecological products for the greater good. People want good products that are marketed well. The “Idea of a Tree” project by Katherina Mischer and Tomas Traxler has this potential, especially if it were taken to a larger scale. The products show a clever balance between sustainability and the fulfillment of the rather superficial needs of the consumer. These superficial needs are met using local, environmental factors. It uses these factors to simulate the idea of the growth of a tree, which is – well – cool. Let it be an example for the many inspiring slow designs that are yet to come.

One of the first things I noticed when I saw the work of Sophie Krier for the first time is that there was definitely a lot more going on than just a simple design. She directly got my intension by a deep video about her grandfather @ Face value [x]. It was really based on reality, honesty, and with so many deep hidden emotions. I thought it was really interesting to see how she doesn’t directly throws it in your face. She is experiencing her work and daily life not only as a designer but also as a human, and a young women with a vision ‘designing is researching’.

Sophie Krier, video still uit Kabouter Revolutie, 2009

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knittingmachine, Vere van Hal

In the fashion industry the topic of sustainability and eco-friendliness has not been on the top of the priority list one might say. Trends change every season, and to stay in style you are expected to renew your wardrobe at least twice per year. High-end designers are now launching even more than two collections a year, you have the so-called pre-fall and resort collections as well as the seasonal summer and winter. Chain stores are coming with new collections as often as every 6 weeks. At the same time as this is happening, fashion is getting cheaper and cheaper. You don’t have to be the sharpest tool in the shed to see that this is not very sustainable.
The high-street brands keep pushing prices lower and lower by producing their clothes in countries that are known for using child labor and extremely poor work-conditions. The materials used are usually of very bad quality, which is probably also produced in an unethical way.

The consumer does not seem to mind this tendency in the industry. We shop and consume clothing at an accelerating speed. And most of what is bought is either broken or thrown away within a year.

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Come to the edge, he said
They said: We are afraid
Come to the edge, he said
They came
He pushed them…and they flew.

by Guillaume Appollinaire

Design; while going in a more and more functional direction, slowly losing their identity or personality, we can see globalisation in comparison with every object, especially from minimalistic or functionalism movements, there are no more locations, no more things which are related to places . In this case designers; who’ve been born with brick in his stomach. In other words one who lives all their life in the same place and were inspired by local traditions are starting to feeling more tension nowadays.
In the conception of slow design in the way how research has become a scientific experiment or philosophical theory the line between art and design become finer. On the exhibition which was dedicated to the theme New Energy / sustainability /Slow design one object was more related to the art then to the design , but the way of construction it is in the experience of the thing by itself that reflective ideal of positing thought has it’s basis. This statement is an almost perfect description of Panamarenkos notion of indention as creative method because for him inventive thinking must be invested in something, it must be realised in some way.
Thus when Panamarenko speaks of his machines as working, he is not simply talking about function -although this is enormous importance to him – but about the way in which a whole trajectory of new thought, aimed at an empty location of a certain kind? The journey into the unknown, the adventure, becomes embedded in or embodied by a thing. Even if this trajectory is never completed and flying machine, despite repeated attempts at improving the technology, fails to get off the ground, the concept together with the material engagement with the thing itself, will lend it an undeniable sense of purpose. It will make it intelligible, both as an object of technology and as an object of knowledge. Most important of all, it achieves an independent existence as what might best be described as a ‘radically styled’ work of art. It becomes inappropriate to categorize Panamarenko s works according to their appearance within some overarching notion of his development as an artist; we must look at them instead as a types and categories of things, aeroplanes or birds, insects or cars.
The impetus underlying Panamarenko s approach to work is a somewhat sceptical one, and his scepticism is directed at the institutions of both science and art. In this respect, it is part of an important and still current strand of scepticism in the complex weave which forms the history of ideas in the post-war period .
The most basic assumptions of science- it is institutionalised forms and routine methodologies- were being questioned by a generation intent upon pursuing their dreams rather than acquiescing in the face of a technology driven, steadily-intensifying cold war. In the field of art , this same spirit was manifested as a robot and to branch an attack upon the modernist conception of relationship based upon the idea that some profound sense art should demonstrate belief in a world, even a universe , that was potentially analysable, describable and measurable in its entirety.
His sceptical outlook extended to the nature of human existence .Rapid advances In the social sciences were leading individuals to question the biologically singular and rationalist construction of the human subject. For a brief historical moment it looked as though there were no certainties any more and seemed that everything was up for grabs .
As an example is an excerpt from an interview with an artist which reflects the position of Panamarenko about art and design.

If somebody asks me about my profession, I’m ashamed to have to reply: “I’m an artist.” For I consider most artists to be retarded. They always work in relation to the galleries and museums. This goes for all art, of course, art can only exist in relation to museums and galleries, but why should it depend completely on it? 50% should have a reason of its own as well. It should also have been made if the art world with all is crap wouldn’t exist. Most of the time one sees art which is 100% dependent. I absolutely dismiss all of it. My position is very neutral with regards to the general ideas about art. It’s easy. It relieves me of the question how to be anarchistic. It comes without saying, because otherwise I couldn’t make any good work. Without this dismissal my work wouldn’t be free and it wouldn’t contain any attempt of adventure. What a burden, all those stupid galleries and museums! One should analyse these people who have organized art shows for half of all the artists. One really wonders what artists are looking for in the neighbourhood of such jerks.

I have always been fascinated by different kinds of materials and combinations of them as there are thousands of different possibilities of the outcome. And especially in art or design works where you can feel that the material was completely ‘understood’ by it’s artist or designer. It was exactly that feeling that I got when I saw Tomas Gabdzil Libertiny’s Honeycomb Vessel #2 in the Boijmans van Beuningen Museum in Rotterdam.

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sustainable |s??st?n?b?l|
adjective
able to be maintained at a certain rate or level : sustainable fusion reactions.
• Ecology (esp. of development, exploitation, or agriculture) conserving an ecological balance by avoiding depletion of natural resources.
• able to be upheld or defended : sustainable definitions of good educational practice.

Sustainability has become an easily used word in the design world. It has become somewhat of a trend to be sustainable. However, to what extent are these designers, categorized as sustainable, truly part of the platform? Recently, there has been an exhibition in the Booijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam on Sustainbilty, slow design and new energy. There was a great collection of works that were chosen to be displayed in the museum by the curator. While I was walking through the collection I wondered how and why the curator had chosen to portray these particular works. There is a link to sustainability in all, yet, is the relationship great enough?
There were many products which used natural elements, but do they fulfill the criteria of being sustainable? As you can see above the definition is: ‘conserving an ecological balance by avoiding depletion of natural resources’. This is a very complex statement. If you are creating awareness of the natural resources and using it as a platform for design does that imply that you are being sustainable? It seems to be that designer takes this idea of sustainability a bit too easily. To investigate this concept I interviewed and looked at the work of Mike Thompson.

Mike Thompson sees himself as an instigator of design in the bio-technological world. Using unusual power sources, he has developed a myriad of ways to create light. One of these unusual design was shown in the Boojimans van Beuningen. The piece, named the blood lamp, contains a fluid, which reacts to blood to create an ambient lighting. Curious about it’s versatility, I asked Mike Thompson whether his light only reacts on blood or if other fluids could trigger a similar reaction. The answer was surprising, a yes for urine. Urine is as effective as blood as it is the ions that react to the fluid. His objective behind the project was to create a ‘debate piece’ . In his words: a piece that would ‘ plant a seed of thought’ and ‘ change our relationship towards energy’. The user of the lamp would have to think about the sacrifice ( blood donation) that would have to be made in order to use energy. Blood, is a romantic to stimulate self-analysis. Do we use energy with that same consciousness, when we are in fact sacrificing the delicate balance of our natural surroundings.

My choice to investigate Mike Thompson as the representing designer of the Booijmans van Beuningen, was based on the fact that he established a piece which by using beautiful symbolism, had created a clear message towards the public. However the question still remains whether or not we can call this ‘enlightening’ piece sustainable.

When I asked Mike Thompson how he interpreted the word sustainability; he directly admitted that his work and his way of working was not based on being sustainable. He merely wanted to create some consciousness and does not believe that his rather unsustainable process of creating pieces will distract from the message he is trying to bring across.

But is this the role of the designer? Designers, in this day and age are merely the instigators of something new and innovative. It is the role of the designer to create something tangible for the public. Mike Thompson is working on a biotechnical level surrounded by people whose main goal may only be sustainability. From which a product or solution may appear that do not relate to the world around us. The designer’s role can be seen as a mediating role, a role which Mike Thompson takes with pride. It is important to remember ‘that no one is shown the way to speculate’ and speculation is all we can do. A nice example of how the relationship between the design world and the biotechnological world works, is a new project that Mike Thompson is working on. He is in cooperation to create an ambient light that would trap light. The principle behind trapping light is that the lamp would catch light through which it would be able to reuse light and work for hours after the light has been trapped. In theory this project may work, but it does not yet. This initiation of creating the trapped light can cultivate a whole new stream of designs for recyclable light sources. Mike Thompson often works in theory, he has also designed a light called the algae light. The light would hypothetically work through photosynthesis. This however is not possible. But by designing these hypothetical pieces he has initiated a train of thought: Are we able to use these natural processes for our own benefits? Or as he has written on his website: Are we able to use a flower as a light switch?. A question definitely worth further investigation.

In relation to many other works that where exposed at the Booijmans van Beuningen, I do believe that the work of Mike Thompson has an interesting approach to sustainability. I would however like to put him on a new platform, and make clear that he is not being sustainable with the blood lamp and is in no way ‘conserving natural recourses’. The platform for designers that I would like to create and initiate would be called; ‘instigators of sustainability’. You can question whether this does not fall under slow design, but I am a great fan of clear labels, and words like sustainability are very easily manipulated to something that it is not. To prevent this from happening again we can merely add the verb ‘instigator’.

John Körmeling’s “Hi Hi Ha Ha” (1992), Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, 2006.

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These days there seem to be an ongoing battle; a destrutive, and in many ways ignorant battle, between nature and technology.
Nature as in our whole planet, with the various organisms living in it, the stars, the sky and so forth.Why does the technological world try to outconcer what is, in fact, our source of life, and an angient, mysterious, beautiful force of the unknown?
Maybe that is why; in the society today, we don’t like to be left in the dark. We don’t like to not know, inexplainable things. And there are, indeed factors to nature that we can neither explain nor understand at this moment.

I, myself, find that to be extremely comforting, and beautiful. I find myself constantly surprised by various factors in nature, and its
mystical ways. To be assured of the fact that we actually don’t really know anything, do we?

There are these two designers in our midst today: Lonneke Gordijn and Ralph Nauta. Both graduated from the Design Academy of Eindhoven.
Lonneke Gordijn, a fierce beliver in the strength of nature, found the love of her life, and business partner in the technological Ralph Nauta; Together, they founded “Studio Drift”.
Studio Drift has a futuristic vision, which is truly beautiful, and never the less an ideal to strive for.
This vision has peace and love written all over it, and is so idealistic that I felt like the world was all nice and pink and soft again after reading about it.
They believe in something most people have shoved under the carpet a long time ago, or haven’t even though about at all.
They are curious about the future with the new technologies constantly changing different aspects of our daily life, like for example design. And also curiousity about how the evolutionary developments in nature and human culture will proceed.
Ralph Nauta and Lonneke Gordijn say they are striving to find “the perfect combination of knowledge and intuition, science fiction and nature, fantasy and interactivity.”
Their goal is to “create a dialogue between the viewer and the objects created, embodied in tangible objects that refer to realities that are often impenetrable and difficult to understand.”

Combining their two minds and fascinations, both their work and their minds ended up complementing eachoughter, merging two good sides into an even greater unit. A great example of this is their design “Fragile Future” where you can question wether or not the in is in fact THE technology?

 
Creating with their vision ahead in the horizon somewhere. The vision of letting nature and technology complement eachoughter instead of being in this resentless, useless battle. Seing as two people with quite opposite fascinations become a better one, than two seperate poles gives me hope that they are in fact going to be able to open minds all over the globe; open eyes to see that war is not the answer to anything, no matter how innocent the war might seem.

My own opinion of the relations between nature and technology, is that these two are more closely linked than one might realize. If you look more closely, nature is in fact nothing more, and nothing less than highly advanced technology. All the organisms, the stars, the sky and so on, (as mentioned earlier,) are indeed a product of nature itself. For example, if you look at the snowflakes, fingerprints or the iris in the eye, you will find that these three creations of nature’s technology is an endles stream of astonishing, unique compositions far beyond what we have ever created with our technology!
As the technology of nature has gone on for millions of years and goes beyond the human ability to cemprehend a spiteful urge to cempete appeared; human made technology appeared.

To some extent, we have “tamed” and defeated nature, to fulfill our own selfish needs and luxury
Although this development is increasingly polluting nature, we keep wanting more, craving even more of something unnatural.   Human made.
Nature might seem to be in danger, and constantly being harmed by the footprints made of the human race, but this is only partly true!
Today we are so cocky and confident that we allow ourselves to think we have the ability to eventually destroy nature, which is a thought that scares us all, but is it true?  – I beilieve not!
Nature is, has been, and always will be a sustainable, reincarnating force that is too robust for us to destroy.                                                          We might be able to change the planets enviroment, but nature is still evolving in its own way, despite of the destructiveness forced upon it. It is truly highly adaptable, and might eventually show us that “survival of the fittest” will be, not only a saying, but also a fact ,if we do not take care. If we don’t stop the narrow mindedness, the selfishness and the want to be God.
We might be end up being the ones taken to an end by nature [x] while trying to change the path into what we think is right.
Why not take a step back, breathe, show a little humility to “the elders”; our source of life?
The human kind is not essential for this planet, and certainly not our technology. At some point this has to be realized, and changes has to be made.
Letting go of the great ego for something even greater. Life itself.

Now; I am not naive nor the biggest believer in the human mankind. Ofcourse I don’t see us taking a break from developing new technology in order to stop and “smell the flowers”, but with designers like Ralph Nauta and Lonneke Gordijn I feel hope.
Hope that they might be able to spread a little more awareness amongst us, and start this thinking process in people that haven’t been thinking in this way before. It’s amazing how far you can get, just by setting a simple seed in the ground; a simple thought in one mind. It might grow into a whole new forrest.

Society as we know it today may seem at points really grey and monotonic at times, but in my opinion, as a majority, if you look at the small details you will find out we are obsessed with colors, even in our every day life.

Imagine waking up, going to work, seeing your colleagues and breaking this conversation:

-”hi how are you?”

- “fine, and you?”

- “good, thank you”

And from there on work goes on, another day comes, and the same conversation all over again. Like an endless loop without any point or interest. Just being still like a sculpture.

But not in reality, and this is where color comes in to the story, I believe our soul is built like a tray that carry things on it, it can be things that happened to you, opinions, philosophies and even believes. this is what makes life more complicated and interesting, the source for trouble and sulotions at the same time.

I feel like everyone try to achieve some level of balance on the tray they carry, moving things around, adding good on bad and bad on good in order to find the balance between not too full or too empty, and between completely flipping the tray over. This balance that we seek for, as an individual forces us into all sorts of situations and feelings. And when you start to look for it in other people or in yourself, you may find people to almost look like they are brushed with a different color of paint anytime they try to balance the tray.

Happiness, sadness, hope, fear… is it all feelings? Or just colors that we can paint over? Dose every layer leaves a mark on us?

Is an argument presents a fight between different life perspectives or just shows two different colors trying to blend with each other?

As an artist, how do you decide what color to add to your work? Or even to your day, is it by what reality tells you should or is there. Or by what you feel needs to be there?

The emotive use of colors is something that interests me deeply; it is visible in various artists from Picasso to new age artists, how strong a color addition or lack of a color can be on a work.

All this questions started to rise up in me after seeing the work “Reuzen (Giants)” by the design group- 75b.

Reuzen (Giants) - 75B

Realizing how much color can effect and dose affect our everyday life, even in the deepest places, the core of our being. This work presents to me very well the feeling of change and process we all have in life.

Looking on the portfolio of 75B the versatile use of colors is visible. Creating or dividing spaces, adding a dimension to an existing reality, and evoking different feelings on the viewer. Also at other works the lack of color serves the same purpose. In different ways like dividing spaces, adding or taking away certain colors to evoke various emotions on the viewer.

Reuzen (Giants) – 75B

Know. the control is in your hands, in your own life you are the artist that holds the brush, and not obliged to be effected only by other colors being implied on you by others around you. So what happens tomorrow is completely up to your hands. 

colors - omri bigetz

Sheila hicks took the long way of learning weaving.

She studied painting under the Bauhaus professor Josef Albers, but when a pre-Columbian textile course captured her attention, he took her home to meet his wife, Anni, a noted weaver. At his suggestion, she applied for a Fulbright scholarship to South America, and spent the first few years of her weaving life journeying through Venezuela, Bolivia, Peru and Chile, and back north to Mexico. The old weaving traditions have so much more then the just the methods and techniques, it is a mix between their history, spirituality and religion. It is mostly based on symbols in peru

Sheilas work has a focus on the material and the space in it, and around it. In her pieces ypu can see how she also let go of the weaving and modeled it instead so it becomes an instellation.

New energy is not just finding new sources of energy but also taking something old, such as weaving, and giving it life and a new meaning. Weaving is no longer a needed occupation or a way to show status, as it was back in pre-industrial times, its social importance is less and less fainting in this world of new technology. When I was a child I grew up partly with a Tibetan woman who had history written on the walls in the disguise of tapestries. I remember the stories that I kept developing in my head with the inspiration from these woven paintings. And back then, I didn’t know that it had the same effect that I today get from a painted piece. I am glad that I got the opportunity to experience weaving  and lost handcrafts of this kind at such a young age, before people told me how to read a story properly, or what is “good” and “bad”.

The first time i saw Sheila Hicks work was in Rotterdam’s “Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen”. She showed some of her smaller works, and the title of the show was called “Cent Minimes”- one hundred small works collected together

The works were presented like paintings in frames, but was still given the space of 3D objects. In her book Weaving as a metaphor that she made in cooperation with Irma Boom, she shows a lot of her small pieces. Which also won the gold medal for “Most Beautiful Book in the World” prize at the Leipzig Book Fair. The book is very honest, with a focus on the physicality of touching and feeling the material. The book is one of the most popular art books of our time, I think it’s because of the special feeling of having a book that shows and “feels” this kind of art, which is meant to be both seen and felt. .

As she once said in a interview “I found my voice and my footing in my small work,” and that really shines through.

When I saw that show, I could immediately relate to Sheila Hicks in my own way of working and the satisfaction I get from painting. The way that she lets the fabric work for itself is amazing! She creates something, but she also gives the fabric and the different materials the space and life that they need in the frame. For me it was almost like seeing a sketch book, i think it is very honest to show “work in progress” might not be the truth behind it or the attention, but it had the affect on me. I myself have been struggling with the thin line of finishing a piece without over do it, so it was inspiring to see someone how could let go of the control and just show it!

Her experience really shows in her work, you can almost feel the wrinkles on her face, the laughter and tears that have been there.

She once said, “The act of creating is much more exciting for me than leaving a monument to myself,” explaining how she would deconstruct her fiber twists, spirals, ponytails and tapestries into piles of yarn. “It felt great. It meant that my imagination could run free.”

That really says something about her way of living, that she is not afraid of life.

I asked Bertjan Pot studio a few questions for my essay about their works,

and they answer me :
Read the rest of this entry »

When we think about design we usually consider a fragile compromise between the practical qualities and aesthetic qualities of a product. The result will lead the viewer to consider a known concept or problem from a new perspective. Experiencing contemporary design is essentially re-adjusting our view of the future. In this essay I will attempt to outline Oskar de Kiefte’s work in the light of SLOW Design and sustainability. I will also consider the role of humor in his work.

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Based on the idea of sustainability and especially the so called Slow Design i want to have a look of one of the works from Eindhovens based Design office EDHV, which were displayed int the Museum Boijman van Beuningen in Rotterdam. 

The work i´ll talk about in this Essay is called „Time Writerz“ first exhibited at the Dutch Design Week 2010. It´s consist out of differnt plates of wood which have been hidden in the ground and sealed of from air and erosion for more then six hundred years. By putting it to the air the wood comes to life again. To show the ”growing” proccess there are pencil attached witch are holding the would and „writing“ down all the movement the wood is doing.

Edhv is a creative office that was founded and based in Eindhoven in 2005 by Daan Melis who is a publisher and Remco van de Craats who took care about the design part. Which started as a ambigous two men project turned soon into an office with more than 6 Designer working on a wide range of Design also with the goal to expand the boundaries of classical Design and trying to put it on a new level. Their are working on product design, webdesign, motion design and architecture. As the titel of the website already shows you „At EDHV, we dont specialise in anything!“and ” We can best be described as architects of identity. We work interdisciplinary so all aspects of identity can be fully integrated.“ One of many important things for EDHV is the sustainability of their work. Therefore the most important thing is to start every projekt with a proper research because this is important to create a sustainable concept or idea.  To quote Remco van der Craats with his own words:”A shape without a foundation has no meaning.“ Another key to a good result for him is a base of trust and intensive collaboration between his office and the client.

Remco van de Craats on design

I choose the artwork „Time Writerz“ because it fascinated me in different reasons and i also can see some connection to one of the works i did.For me this work from Edhv is a lot about making change through time, visible and here i can see a strong connection to a colaboration work a did  for an exhibition in Munich in the sommer 2011.We decided to use very basic shapes in basic colors, that we also found in the exhibition room, which was an old carpet selling place.

The geomatrical forms we made out of colored wax and put a lamp over it.The wax slowly mealted down during the time of the exhibition. Our goal was to work with the space and also showing the fact that the space, which we were using was temporarly, by letting the artwork vanish during the show.

Melting wax sculpture.

Another Artist that works with the same idea of making change visible is belgian born artist Francis Alÿs. Educated as an architecture in Tournai and Venice he move to Mexico City in 1986 and soon started with visual art. He mostly works with video and perfomance art. His perfmance „Paradox of Praxis 1 (Sometimes Making Something Leads to Nothing)“done in 1996 in Mexico City is maybe the best example of how Alys worked with the topic of showing the change through time, by pushing a big squared formes iceblock through the streets  of Mexico City. 

2012. In a time of growing public awareness of the prevailing environmental consciousness. Consumers are looking for ways to contribute to the unnecessary burden of the environment. Large companies want to connect to these developments of environmental consciousness. Often because of the shared concern for the environment, but also because it will create a new market. Inventors search for products which are environmentally conscious, beautiful, and also financially interesting. You can summarize these results as ‘sustainable design’.
An example is Google’s new computer design which shows a more efficient use of less energy than most computers. Another example is “General Electric” which is increasingly investing in the design of cleaner technologies.

This investment in “permanent design” is not only on a multinational level. People are also searching on a smaller, more individual level for the environmentally conscious design. After the exhibition “New energy in design” at the Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam, I came in contact with the work of Eric Klarenbeek ‘designer of the unusual‘. After passing the Design Academy in Eindhoven, Eric Klarenbeek (Amsterdam, 1978) started his own studio in Zaandam. “His work is characterized by innovation and answers the developments on environmental consciousness in today’s society.”

His work “Led Leafs”, ‘a lamp that shines the environment cleaner‘, is a good example of the possibilities for ‘sustainable design‘. “Led Leafs” consists several parts with aluminum as the main material. As the name of the design, Klarenbeek used the LED lamp. This is based on sustainable considerations: A LED lamp provides an average of ten times as much light for the same amount of energy as a light bulb.
The design is a high power LED lamp that needs to be cooled because of the heat from the lamp. Because of that, Klarenbeek made the total light from aluminum. This material conducts heat from the LED. The leaf shape of the lamp serves as heat sink and reflector, which makes the light brighter. The lamp has several parts, that can be replaced separately.

Besides replaceable parts, originally from the Netherlands, Klarenbeek is looking for other ways to find a sustainable work process. That’s why most of the parts of ‘Led Leafs’ are produced by the employees of sheltered workshops in the area. There is also the desire to create his own LEDs in his studio. So, he is investing in people and the transport is minimal.

It’s a pity that the way ‘Led Leafs’ works, didn’t rule the world yet. The Asian low wage competition makes it still cheaper to produce a replacement instead of repair. Besides the product, there has to be a campaign to make people willing to finance the operation by buying “Led Leafs”. In addition, people have to invest in maintenance and repairs. In this way the production- and transport costs can be saved, which shall eventually lead to a cheaper and a more environmentally conscious approach.

Klarenbeek warns that sustainability should not become a hype. It requires care and a consistent approach. Gradually sustainability is used as an economical way to sell more. That in itself is not a bad thing, but for example, for ‘Led Leafs’ all parts have to be there. Besides that there has to be support in replacing and repairing parts.
If this is not the case, people throw their products away and ultimately it will lead us nowhere.
For production it will be the same; If everything is made in China and the products have to be shipped across the world, we will never help the environment.
But can we produce closer to home? How can we create fair labor for the extra aluminum production? And how can we avoid situations like child labor and intolerant work conditions? Initially there are many positive thoughts, but with negative end results.

Klarenbeek understands that he can’t change the world on his own, but at least he can make a start. He sees himself as a catalyst. “I want to show what can be done with things that are out there, waiting to be used.” says the involved designer.

What I like about ‘Led Leafs‘ is the idea to create an innovative design. In the way of an environmentally conscious do-it-yourself kit in an A4 envelop that can be sent to the consumer. Even in my work I try to move closer to the viewer. Activating the viewer to produce (assemble) and thereby to contribute to a better environment will be a nice connection to the goal of sustainability ‘to normalize’ it. But there are differences to be discovered. Where Klarenbeek starts from engineering, I think from aesthetics. I start my processes to find the best image. In Rotterdam, I was immediately captivated by the beautiful impression that “Led Leafs” gave me, not that it was functioning or environmentally responsible. It was the look that got me. Klarenbeek starts a research for ‘how to’, always looking for the one best way. However, I would start with: “Nice, but can it be better visually?”

Later in our conversation I asked Klarenbeek about the ultimate sustainable development in the future. Where are we really looking for?
This question made me think about my own future. I am convinced that sustainability and innovation must play a role in my creative future. But how it will get the attention in my work? I don’t know yet. Actually, I think this is the start of my quest for sustainable.

When I ask ‘The designer of the unusual’ again what great sustainable developments he wants to be a part of, his eyes begin to shine in the big, bright studio overlooking the waters of Zaandam and … he is silent.

In a library books are grouped together, kept on a shelf in a line with their peers. Their spines are the initial, first contact to a reader, crying for attention from the shelf, asking you to pluck them instead of their neighbors. The spine acts similar to a business-card, it communicates the essential information on a very limited space.
In being a repository of books, libraries motivate the multiplying of reading. They change the perception of each individual book in perspective of their placement in a subdivided and ordered collection. How do the neighbors define or shed a light on a book’s content?
Content is immaterial information, both images and words need a materialization either on a screen or through print. How do you represent immaterial, fictitious content (a blurb) in a material space (the vitrine)? How does one awaken a desire in the audience to get to know more about the represented content? How to present a book, an object that needs browsing through the material pages to be perceived, in a vitrine, a space behind glass where the object remains out of grasp?

You were asked to select a book from the collection based solely on its spine. Having been given only a short amount of time to make a choice, you probably made a very spontaneous and subconscious decision. We took your book away to make sure that it remains unopened. It will be kept together with the other unopened books in a vitrine in the Old Building for the time of the assignment. Now rationalize your decision: Why did you choose for this spine and not for another? What do you think this book is about?
Write a Blurb on this Unopened Book and visualize that imagined content in a vitrine!  An assignment initiated by Corinne Gisel and Nina Paim [graphic design] together with Henk Groenendijk and Matthias Kreutzer [supervision]

Manual: How to dress YOUR man?

The number one fashion book!

After the success of many magazine publications for “Dolce and Gabbana” the author Mario Vivanco was invited to write a new guide continuing on his previous works. The “UOMINI” is Italian word for a manly, plural. The book “UOMINI” has became a guide for the men fashion from the beginning to the end. It’s a manual showing the way from the childhood to the grown age. It’s like a road going through the jungle, makes you going further and further, climbing through the forest of the fashion, finding the way not to get lost in this dangerous and wild world of models, TV- shows and coming stars.
The “UOMINI” can become your manual to be yourself. Step by step you will find the answers and finally the answer on only one and very important question: how to dress your man?
If you were wondering what boxers can compromise your wish to see the sexy bottom of your boyfriend and his love for comfortable going to the knees shorts? If you don’t want to be shy when you invite your men to meet your friends? Or nice family evening to introduce him to your parents?

This book is for YOU!!!!

How to choose the right outfit for every situation in your life?!
Witch colour of the tie will match the suit?
And even the right style of the socks!

All these answers you can find inside!!!

Don’t wait till someone will take the place of your man at work. Just because his boss thinks that someone is more representable! Or your friend will show of her new boyfriend just because he is more fashionable!

Open this book today and tomorrow you will have the world next to your man’s feet!!!!
And he will give this world to YOU!!!!

“UOMINI” limited edition from Dolce & Gabbana

In these modern ages the limits of which are possible are more fragile than they have ever before.

A time comes when a choice demands to be accepted. With the virtues that history has provided us it allows us to abide to certain conditions and forces us to bow with lowered heads and bended knee to the wrath of its consequence. And when presented, if those choices cannot be made by us, then; they shall be made for us. In the name of progress and advancement of the human condition a secreted few use their hands to guide us blindly into the future. The ceramic cup from which you choose to sip, the intricacy of the paved streets in which you walk, the remote to which you use to turn on your TV,  the sitting room in which you cower, they are all the materialisation of an accumulation of designers, the ones who have assembled our gilded cage.

Design was created to aid us, and, with the course of time, it now governs over us, it’s social and moral repercussions are the very thing that restrict and shape us.

This book documents the history of those select silhouetted figures, the ones towering over you, heaving at your strings. They are the one’s responsible for the solitary toaster-oven-juicer that gathers dust in your kitchen cupboard, the lifeless red plastic Corn on the Cob holders that line your cutlery draw.

In the so called incline of our post-industrial society DICTATUUR unmasks the truth and reveals the busting of the seams of our everyday lives the one packed tightly with the gadgets, the knickknacks and the other manufactured paraphernalia created to weigh us down.

But now it is time for us to realise. It is time to understand that the choice is presenting itself to us once again and now, it is our turn to give an answer.

New revised edition of essays about spaces distributed inside of the cities and outside of these, inside of the ‘’close’’ and outside of this last. Reaching a new kind of environment trough different assignments and lectures related with the real world of now, breaking the based bubble attached to the ‘’what‘’ should be your space in the last 50 years. A generation is changing the screen of a real house trying to figure out this in a really different kind of space so far from your surface and so close to your rational and ‘’developed’’ imagination in the front of your screen.

Complicated, frustrating, stressing, confusing, reaching a harmony between the conceptual and the real, is how it was the beginning of what you had been reading and looking or not yet. The conceptual taking a piece of a real world and its necessities, becoming it in a messy text inside of our minds and after a tiny text in a paper or whatever. Our text is changing its purpose taking the shape of some streets and places so far from these, big yellow tracks and intense white light at night enclosure by a skull net, are inside of these places, where our co-workers begin to work depending in several times on your behavior, critical point of view and other really important things. So there should be a certain point in all this last statement where this book take advantage and begin to compile simple and clear pictures and diagrams of the whole process of creation of a new space, adding certain text to make more understandable just for some people. ’’Interactive’’ is the right word to describe our commercial approach.

An essay and nothing more should be added. We just tried to create a recreation of your world and visualize it in our way. Beforehand or not we apologize about the mistakes that just you can find inside of this essay. But we are afraid to can do nothing by the moment because this is just a reproduction of your world.

The Spirituals of Art – abstract painting 1890-1985 is a peek with a penetrating eye, into abstract painting, with paintings that  has stood and still stand symbol for many radical thinkers ideas, and big leaps forward in the visual. From Picasso to Boccioni, from Malevich to Pollock, this “pure art” in painting has played an important role through-out its history, in art and still is. Follow as the Spirituals in Art – abstract painting 1890-1985 takes you on a photo-illustrated journey. An enlightening text, covering in detail the world of abstract painting, its mysteries, in solving many of its riddles.

“A line is a dot that goes for a walk” Paul Klee. It is impossible to fully understand the genius mind, whether it is its visions, ideas, or Rothko‘s great grief , but his paintings can tell us plenty of our world and personal struggles at the time of the masterpieces creation, and now, as before the works birth. In this book is presented the paintings as keys to great knowledge- also where to find the doors. Read about the process of abstract painters. Read about the progress of abstract painting through time and the conquests within the field. Easy to browse in, rich in information, this book is a true discovery and it is unique.

The Spirituals of art – abstract painting 1890-1985  is part of the appreciated and influential book series Lacma, covering art with texts of renowned authors.

Photography is the art, science and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. Typically, a lens is used to focus the light reflected or emitted from objects into a real image on the light-sensitive surface inside a camera during a timed exposure.

When the lights are on behind a big black blanket it looks like a dusty night sky. It’s basically impossible to capture this effect, but still worth trying. The morning comes through the speakers, signaling that it’s time to move. As this decision kicks in, the doorbell rings, the body moves through darkness, stumbling down the stairs and landing with a bump! Opening the door, letting in the light, and a man with his sign. The man enters and the light comes on in the main room. He has a proposal concerning the future source of light, and one must agree to it.

In physics, a photon is an elementary particle, the quantum of light and all other forms of electromagnetic radiation, and the force carrier for the electromagnetic force. The effects of this force are easily observable at both the microscopic and macroscopic level, because the photon has no rest mass; this allows for interactions at long distances. Like all elementary particles, photons are currently best explained by quantum mechanics and will exhibit wave-particle duality, exhibiting properties of both waves and particles. For example, a single photon may be refracted by a lens or exhibit wave interference with itself, but also act as a particle giving a definite result when its position is measured.

The themes of the book can best be described with this written collage of close ups and full scale images, since the content of it isn’t words but images. The Israeli photographer Adi Nes was born in 1966 in Kiryat Gat, studied in Jerusalem and is now living in Tel-Aviv. His cultural background may evoke religious associations, and his works are also filled with references to iconic Christian imagery of especially Caravaggio. This can be seen in the clearly staged compositions of the photos and in the use of light and shade that create a high contrast, an effect known in painting as chiarascuro. Furthermore he is very interested in depicting masculine stereotypes and situations, and does so in photographic series of prisoners or soldiers.

The command places a vertical band against a richly textured atmosphere. But here the creamy yellow vertical band separates two elaborately textured zones of colour. God’s initial Command “Let there be light” led to a sequence of creative acts of division: first darkness from light.

For 24 hours, to raise awareness, we are blacking out Wikipedia.

Kunst, muziek en technologie smelten samen.
Installaties waarbij de interactie met andere elementen centraal staat.
Het geluid reageert op beweging of beeld op geluid.
De videopresentatie Poème Electronique, ook wel het eerste ‘multimedia-kunstwerk’ genoemd. Voor de Wereldtentoonstelling in 1958 benaderde Phillips architect Le Corbusier met de opdracht te laten zien wat technologische vooruitgang de mensheid oplevert. Een klankgedicht: waarin architectuur, geluid en beeld samen vloeien. Een speciaal ontworpen ruimte, waar elektronische muziek van Varèse uit 400 speakers klonk, gecombineerd met metersgrote dia-projecties. Dia’s die de geboorte en dood, de verwoesting en wonderen van techniek toonden.
Technieken ontwikkelen zich verder en daarmee de mogelijkheden voor dit soort installaties.
Dit boek bevat een overzicht van een aantal kunstenaars die zich vanaf dat moment zijn gaan specificeren in deze ‘multimedia-kunstwerken’.

‘Holland in vorm’ geeft je een overzichtelijk beeld van Dutch Industrial Design uit de jaren 90; de periode dat Dutch design vanuit het niets, alom werd geroemd. Dutch design werd een begrip maar bleef, en is nog altijd, moeilijk te ontleden. Want, wat maakt een Dutch design nou zo Hollands? Misschien resulteert een kijkje in de keuken van de meest opvallende en succesvolle Hollandse designers tot antwoord.

Hella Jongerius startte in 1993 haar studio Jongeriuslab, waar zij zowel in eigen beheer als in opdracht van nationale en internationale bedrijven, producten ontwerpt. In de bewuste jaren 90 introduceert Jongerius ambachtelijke imperfecties en individualiteit in productiemethodes. Marcel Wanders brak door in 1996 met zijn Knotted Chair, een stoel van versterkt touw die hij (in samenwerking met de Technische Universiteit Delft) voor Droog Design ontwierp. Droog Design streeft hierin naar werk waarin het concept belangrijker is dan de vormgeving. De producten die hierbij gebruikt worden liggen niet voor de hand, zodat dit gezamenlijk een nuchterheid kan uitstralen. En Piet Hein Eek die in een tijd van overdaad, koos voor simpele materialen en een sobere vormgeving zoals zijn boekenkast van sloophout.

Holland in vorm laat moeiteloos zien wat Dutch design nu zou uniek maakt. Uniek blijkt het Nederlandse ontwerpproces. Het delen door middel van ideeën, technologie en materialen, geeft Nederlands ontwerp zijn uiterlijke samenhang. Een uiterlijke samenhang die vaak bestaat uit eenvoud met een grappige twist.

Holland in vorm laat zien dat Dutch design de wereld heeft veroverd.

Ever wonder what would it feel like to be able to travel through eye to eye. Eyes of people that witnessed things that you no longer have the chance/curse of seeing. Being consisted of only eyes, feeling so round that you can travel everywhere by just a simple push? Without arms, legs, a belly button, a chest… looking at things that are not yours, never will be, moments that you were not suppose to be witnessed… “Private View” offer you the experience of being the surveillance camera where there is privacy of a mind. Minds of Robertson, Russell and especially Snowdon…

Us as viewers, we usually don’t tend to see us as peeping toms when it comes to documentaries. It requires a good artist to give its viewer the feeling of witnessing something very special either there are hundreds of people in the same room or alone in the comfort of a living room. When you seek through the pages as a grown up you start to feel like Antoine Doinel sneaking through windows, not just looking but actually seeing. As this book documents fascinatingly these minds with a combination of text and image, you will not just witness a period in art history but you will also witness your alter ego taking over.

When it comes to judging a book by its cover “Private View” is also surprising. The periodically significant domestic color scheme and the texture that resemble the most to a carpet which you can see but not feel on the book gives you the hint that the actual experience is between the pages. The dull flame of browns and beige, as you get close, will turn into not dull at all bright reds and black, as the simplicity will leave its place to complexity and heart beat. Its like when you feel that the sound of machinery is more interesting in company of elevator music. Because what makes this book special is you –as a third person- can always add the humidity, smoke, heat, actual color equivalents of the grey scale, smells, textures from your own experiences, memories and make it yours.

“Private View” will drag you room-to-room, face-to-face, leaving carpet burns all over your skin. Key hole-to-key hole giving you the guilty pleasure of voyeurism not just domesticity and how it can differ on someone’s face, in a room, on a painting but also the actual complexity of an artists brain. View your privacy among, in between, above others.

In this book we find a collection of metaphores we discover in our most private surrounding. Not even knowing to enter actively an outer sphere, we already have created it on our own, in our homes. Our privat collection of consume. An endless univere of shapes and colours that mirror ourselves. This sphere seems to be as natural as ever in our assemble, in home sphere.

Through selection and separation that is made in this book, we see the second qualities that wants to be discovered and integrated into a constructed reality of the vitrine. We enter an popy world, as intimate as the everyday advertisments. Leading us in a wild zoo. As wild as it can at least be in a zoo.

We are the builders and constructors redefining and discovering the sphere. While our thruth remains resiliant.

A revolutionary figure in the fine arts avant garde of the 20th century, Florence Deborah POPOVA (1885- 1972) is nowadays also seen to be central for the emancipation of  the female Eastern European Art.

Born in 1885 in Omsk, Siberia, close to the border of Kazakhstan to a Jewish-Hungarian mother and a French aristocratic father she soon discovered the human body as her source of warmth and inspiration in the unreal and remote surrounding of her homeland.  At the age of six POPOVA had her first gaze at Italian and French paintings of the 16th and 17th century and they immediately took away her breath and would later form a huge influence on her process of work. After graduating in Sculptor from the Russian Academy of Arts in Moscow in 1906 she agitated the conservative local art lovers and mingled among the intellectual elite. Her new conception of the nude shattered all previous thoughts and shocked the consistently male art scene. During that period POPOVA was acquainted with personages such as Kazimir Malevich, El Lissitzky and Vladimir Tatlin who she soon despised for their “tame manners” and thereupon headed off to Paris in 1910. Once established in the most vibrant, stimulating and lustful city on the planet whose charm had been haunting the foreign artist’s souls with the vague promise of the muse’s kiss POPOVA was able to unfold all of her thoughts and skills. Liaison after liaison followed and she became an integral part of Parisian art scene. POPOVA‘s “Cycle of Butt” (1912) was heavily disputed by the critics and entered the annals of early 20th century history of art. In 1914 at the outbreak of World War I the artist broke away to the south of France to escape a possible invasion of German troops. There POPOVA bought land in Bouches-du-Rhône and subsequently founded a new art collective together with some female artists she encountered during her years in Paris. They called themselves “Les Enfants de la Terre”. The collective’s aim was freeing the body from the bonds of social uptightness and to focus on the human ass in all its variety. In the Russian year of revolution 1917 she tried to go back to her home country but was unable to do so due to the birth of her twins Dora and Lea. After the end of the war together with her children and most of the collective’s members POPOVA moved back to Paris and started all over again. The piece “Analysing the Rear Part” (1919) can bee seen as the intersection of her life as well ass her work…

This book deals with POPOVA‘s fascinating life and manifold oeuvre and tries to focus upon the influences of old masters (such as Poussin and Pontormo) on her paintings and drawings. New extracts from POPOVA‘s diary give a an insight into her inner feelings and experiences and never before shown images let one of the most mesmerizing artists of the 20th century appear ass if back to life again.