Designblog

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

Inup and his class had to form a tribe for one of the design blocks. They had to create their own outfits, according to a social handicap, chosen from real life, exegerated or immagionairy. And then they had to make a costume, a dress, a mask or a body extension to make clear what is disfunctioning. Some people choose mental illnesses as chizophrenia. Some people locked their heads up in boxes. Some people wore peculiar transparent dresses with almost nothing under it. Then they had to write something about their handicap in a book that is going around all the classes where the design teacher comes to turn the group into a tribe. Inup, what was your handicap? I asked. But he finds it hard to talk about it. How did you work as a tribe? How did you communicate with each other? What did the costume made you feel like? He wants to answer. He understands me. His face moves. His eyes are focussed. The answer is so close, but the language is a punishment. His lips are sealed.

Link: Silence?

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

Imagine what it would be like to be attached to someone else – in a way even morphed together – for an indefinite time. Covering yourself with textile to form as one.
Would you feel a bond with one another? Or would you feel uncomfortable and intruded into your personal space?
Think of all the different forms you could become just by working together.

To me using textiles to cover and form your body’s together as one sounded beautiful.

Erwin Wurm is an artist that also uses the underlying shapes to form the sculpture.

mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, nephews, nieces, uncles, aunts, grandmothers, grandfathers, stepmothers, stepfathers, stepsisters, stepbrothers, best-friends, best-friends mothers, best-friends fathers, best-friends sisters, best-friends brothers, best-friends nephews, best-friends nieces, best-friends uncles, best-friends aunts, best-friends grandmothers, best-friends grandfathers, best-friends boyfriends, best-friends girlfriends, friends, friends mothers, friends fathers, friends sisters, friends brothers, boyfriends, boyfriends mothers, boyfriends fathers, boyfriends sisters, boyfriends brothers, girlfriends, girlfriends mothers, girlfriends  fathers, girlfriends sisters, girlfriends brothers, roommates, acquaintances, vague friends, enemies, haters, ex-lovers, lovers, crushes, flirts, flings, one nightstands, soul mates, dates, relations.

make a list of all the nicknames people gave to you.
make a list of all the nicknames you gave to people.

link to this movie: http://www.youtube.com

posted by Karoenja Woudenberg

An assignment in jewelry design that was supposed to end up in an object that could roll on your body, became something else for Raz Barsatie.

The objects which could not roll on a body came to have more to do with the body, than the object she made that actually could roll on someone. When watching her objects rolling the mind directly makes a connection to the animal and human. The blue object (see photo above) makes the sound of a tiny horse, whereas the movement is more one of a rather slow, clumsy and unsteady walk of a human. It is interesting how these objects cannot roll on the body but are, instead, independent bodies themselves.
link to youtube

posted by Nadja Voorham

Charlie hasn’t been very lucky at finding the information she needs to write for the Rietveld’s DesignBlog. Before, she wrote something about Typography artist Bram de Does. She told me all about her search to find the information she needed, which was all in one book ‘The Kaba Ornament’. Totally fixated on that one book, she searched the Gerrit Rietveld library, the Rijksacademie Library and even the Amsterdam Public Library, to find nothing but a video on de Does. Now Charlie has to write something for the blog again, which involves a handmade book from Rietveld students. But this book too proved hard to find.

Five days before the deadline of the Bram de Does piece, she found the publisher of the book, who shared a number of useful anecdotes with her. Let’s hope she’ll be successful in finding the handmade book as well.

link to ilovetypography.com

posted by Jesse Muller

While working on a Graphic Design assignment, a Rietveld student experienced computerphobia, or fear of computers.
A research team has identified three types of computerphobia and treatment for each. In brief:

The Anxious Computerphobic, with physical symptoms such
as sweaty palms and back tension. Treatment: systematic
desensitization, relaxation techniques, imagining situations in which
computers have been a source of anxiety.

The Cognitive Computerphobic, certain that the computer is smarter than he or she is. Treatment: stop the negative thoughts by “creating a void”, and replacing them with positive thoughts to give a feeling of competence.

The Uncomfortable User, among other things done in
this treatment process, the insides of a computer are shown and
floppy disks are cut apart.

Or you could take a look at: “Fingerprint: The Art of Using Handmade Elements in Graphic Design”
by Chen Design Associates. Or this video X

posted by Arthur Perdijk

Can you imagine how great it would be to have a Rietveld’s pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale one day?
Well, last month group F did imagine that together with Carla Boomkens.

That special relation between the water and the land present both in Amsterdam and Venice was a starting point for their design assignment.
The projects and approaches differed a lot; from questioning the space by creating a path leading to the building to reacting on the ecological issues.
But just like the motto of this year biennale – ‘Architecture beyond the building’ all of their projects try to define space as the one measured in years, lifes and tons of melted ice, not necessarily in square meters.

posted by Marcin Przybile

The room is dark. In the speakers is heavy breathing. In the far en of the room is a black tent, it is moving from within as if something is trying to get out. On the floor is twenty white parallel lines leading away from the tent and branching out into a labyrinth. As the breathing stops a heavy beat start to pulsate. Out of the tent comes, one after the other, strange figures in costumes, they look as if they were characters walking out of a Bosch painting. This is the beginning of a performance that was the result of a Design class in word and image. The performance makes me think of the finnish artist Riita Ikonen who uses costumes in her performances but in a more playful way.

posted by Emilia Bergmark

It al started with a confusing assignment, or was there even an assignment?

An inarticulate happening, which nobody can define, but it does have all the aspects of image and language. Control-able vagueness including ideas about social subgroups. Collaboration with a confusing problem that was created out of nothing. Or was the problem there already? Is it complete chaos or efficient harmony. If this “class” has a name, we don’t know what it is. But we don’t know if it needs a name. And where are the boundaries? Are there boundaries? Do we need them? link to: perspicuity.net/paradox/vagueness

posted by Vincent Knopper

I want to introduce Nadja Voorham. She likes to dance and she wants to be a part of a tribe with no rules and religion. The biggest rule of them is “ music” and they call themself  “Bling Bling”.  It is a very strange tribe, because when music is playing around, they begin to dance. Very strange. They have to hear one tune and the dance automatically comes out. And when the music stops, the dance also stops. The tribe doesn’t care about the comment of the society. They are very loyal to their rule and their reputation. link to bling bling

posted by Raz Barsatie

After having spend the whole day yesterday with the Jackson 5 ABC song in my head, I clearly was inspired by the subject and couldn’t let it rest!

While still searching for an alphabet, Karoenja sat down eating his peanut butter sandwich with a surprising huge fascination of the relief of the butter! He started looking at all other kinds of structures in vegetables. He dove into the Dutch foods; which reminded him of mashed food (hollandse trots!). First have the vegetable in their natural “earthy” state, then you peel of the skin, cook them, mash them, pour gravy over it, finally eat it!
During this process he documented every step by photographing his actions, witch resulted in his personal alphabet

posted by Tessel Schole