Designblog

The first idea Paul and Elke had, for making an exchange tool, was a contraption that forced Paul’s legs into a manly stand, Paul usually has a rather feminine stand. After receiving some criticism by the teacher, they came with another plan; to combine two lists composed of stereotype feminine and masculine household objects, suggested by members of the class. They plan to make a glass baseball bat and a handbag which could be used as a lipstick that holds a razor blade. Paul and Elke say they are quite handy, so the rest will probably follow soon.

Many objects are designed to be perceived as clearly male or female (think of Gilette and Venus razors for example), whereas more essential ones (kitchen appliances, electronic media, tables and beds) are made „unisex“. But when we look at the same essential objects made for children: suddenly it’s all either pink or blue!

Why this sudden change in attitude?
Why – in a world supposedly freed from gender oppression – are boys and girls being subconciously made to feel so different from one another by media and toy companies?

Is it because this makes it easier for companies to supply new products, because they don‘t have to create innovative design and can just stick to typical army- and flower-pattern? Useful as it may be to manufacturers, I doubt it‘s good for children‘s self-image and leads to much teasing in schools that could be avoided by parents paying more attention to a less stereotyped environment for their children.
Would a little girl‘s gender identity be damaged if she used a neutral or (heaven forbid) blue notebook instead of a pink one?

P.S.: a bit of ha ha

Here the assignment “make a connection” became the inpiration for some reasearch on how to change two bodies into one. How to become a siamese twin. It is interesting to see the new shapes the bodies make, recognizable but totally new.  This project posts questions like; what would fashion look like if the human body was formed differently and how much can fashion form our appearance. It is interesting to think about what effect clothes that conjoin two people would have on our behavior and relationships.

Usually your body decides what kind of clothes you will wear, but what if it would be the opposite way – that the clothes would form your body? If a woman without curves would wear a dress made for a curvy female, there would be empty spaces between the body and the dress. What Anniek Mol thought of, was to design an insert to, in this case, fill the holes with. The idea is to be able to adapt your body to the clothes you are wearing. In addition to that it would change the way you look, you would also move and feel differently. This all started from Annieks uncomfort concerning her body, the question is though – would there not be a greater uncomfort with her design? Or is it after all the same principle like the push-up bra?

Link: Nagi Noda

Wouldn’t it be nice to have an opinion machine. In witch you could exchange your opinion for that of someone else.
But how would you make such a thing work?
You could categorize into subjects, such as politics, weither, celebrities etc. But you would end up with an endless amount of subjects.
Or you could leave it up to the opinion exchangers to bring the context themselves.
This to me sounded excellent. You could start out the day absolutely hating the way your hair looks. And end up the day singing your heart out – because you are the best singer in the world.

Let’s go a bit deeper into the word indivisuality and subjects around it. Especially the subject exchange. Would you exchange your indivisuality with someone else? If you would, would you go all the way and even change your name and habits, or is it only about visual appearance? Where is the line between individuality and visuality. Can you see these two things as two different things which can be separated or are the always connected with each other? Is it possible to exchange only parts of the indivisuality or do you have to go all the way? Can you exchange your indivisuality? Or can you only pretend?

http://www.marykay.com/whatsnew/virtualmakeover/default.aspx

I was asked to be a pedestal for Jesse Muller’s paper mohawk headpiece.
It was a delicate square helmet made from paper bags you would find at a greengrocer’s shop. It somehow reminded me of all the punk shows I used to go to when I was a teenage boy. All the loving memories I have. Beer flying though the air, people jumping over each other, off the stage, slipping on the beer stained floor, falling, bruising, laughing, the dirty squat houses, the friendly violence, the loud music, singing along. I think it’s maybe the most fun a person can ever have in his life.

posted by Tim Matijsen

Link: massa

How does all this work come into being? It is, of course, the product of the autonomous genius that is the artist, exploring depths where no mind has gone before and bringing back ideas that are completely original. Yeah right.
Most assignments, especially in the Design department involve a lot of research into existing artworks and other media. For instance, the picture above is an in-between work that started with the title of a book “Take my eyes and through them see you“, by Cerith Wyn Evans.
This made the teacher come up with the idea to have the students exchange clothes.
The photo’s gave a student the idea to cut them up and recombine them by hand.
In versions to come, the student said that she might combine it with the 7 sins, because of those sinful Dolce & Gabbana adverts. It made me think of those Magnum commercials from a while ago.
We’re all truly original…

posting by Arthur Perdijk

“Create a siamese twin with the fabric you have” was the assignment Emma Olanders and her classmates were given when starting the textile design lesson during the exchange project. Emma and a classmate started working with dependency by means of having a nylon stocking between them and letting Emma actually hang from it. They tried out different ways of hanging, pulling, pushing, giving and receiving weight with different materials between different body parts. They discovered that there are some things that you can do on your own. Having a partner, those small movements or pressures when pushing become unpredictable. The way they were depending on each other and giving/receiving weight has a rather strong connection to the dance technique “contact improvisation“.

posting by Nadja Voorham, photo by Benno Voorham

Isn’t that a great name Merel Woudwijk. You know i am wondering about Merel, because she got an idea to make her own alphabet.  An alphabet  that no one can understand. Very abstract and powerful alphabet. She call it “The alphabet of spaces”.

Why these abstraction, because of the inspiration of artist Sol Lewitt and her conceptually idea spread away in her mind to make such alphabets. There were more than 100 prints in woodcraving, some prints in silkscreen, 32 prints in etchings, and 42 prints in lithograph full with care and patient. She choose the basiccolor black for her alphabet, because it gives her good results and comments

posting by Raz Barsati

links to Centraal Museum and Viktor & Rolf

posting by Merel Woudwijk

Seeking: a tool to exchange one woman‘s masculinity for one man‘s femininity (read carefully)

Most people‘s gender-conciousness & gender-identity is located in the mind, so a physical tool could only manipulate the exterior signs. Thus, the tool‘s effects are limited to the exterior, and disappear once the interaction with the tool stops. This could mean altering someone‘s posture, movement, appearance etc.

So there will be a physical difference, but one could also try to show the cause along with the effects: Where does the excess masculinity or femininity come from? Are they rooted parts of this person‘s genes or did they arise out of circumstance/necessity/coincidence during the building of their identity?

Interesting gender phenomenon in Native American cultures

A doll, a women, a hospital, something to discuss…
Out of bringing a photo of an old hospital with in front a doll bigger than the women, who made it… the interests were big, and she really liked the photo in its time…
In between she worked with an appointment by a doctor…
Inspired by this situation, she started to create her own reaction to it…
A video of herself with half doll, half human body…
She is walking into the camera and the sentence `do you want to see my penis` is lightning up…

After asking my friend about her experiences in her new design class, I’m just as confused as she was when she attended the class last week. Even now, she seems a bit lost when talking about it. She was talking about having to work with strangers, disagreements, posing, shyness, copy-machines and silhouettes. Although these words might seem a bit random, they’ve all got to do with making a booklet, with writings about their experiences in the design class. This is going to be published and I must admit; it sounds an awful lot like what we’re doing the coming three weeks on the designblog!

link: http://www.museums-vledder.nl/eng/index2.html

What is your identity? And in what level are you aware of your
identity, of your individuality? That is an interesting word. But what
does that mean? The word is not in the dictionary en Google can only
finds design companies. A definition was not found. But for sure it is
a combination of the words individuality and visual. How important is
the relationship between the way you are and your visual appearance?
Should it be equal or is it actually a mask? Do you hide your identity
or do you use your visual-part to show it?

Link: http://www.vertaalwoord.nl/translate.cgi?woord=indivisuality&van=nederlands&v=vertalen

After visiting “deBazel”, a monumental building in the center of Amsterdam holding the new city archieves, we became intrigued by the architectonic philosophies behind the construction of this colossal building. Build around 1923 it was soon called “the Temple” a common reference to its general shape. In actual fact that name was not so far from the original theosophical philosophy architect de Bazel used for the total design concept of this building. He saw not just each house, but each room as a reflection of the cosmos, every part of which must be in harmony with every other.“ (K.P.C. de Bazel – designer to the elite, written by Yvonne Brentjens). This reflects in the buildings structure aswell as the interior and artifact he designed for it. De Bazel

Enjoying a tour through the building, we started to become fascinated by the way this concept was connected to the original use as a bank office and the details in which the theosophic ideal –that everything grows from within (wall colors become lighter as they are farther from the center)– reflects the rigid bank’s hiearchy.

How does this reflects on our own living surroundings. What object represents a “centre” in our own house, who designed it and how do we reflect upon it. 21 students of the foundation Year’s F group try to answer these questions through the small postings you can read below:

more in ...... (posting 214)