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"I kind of feel that art exists because design has failed."
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When asked why Armi Ratia decided to base Marimekko in Finland out of all places, she stated that she was "not amused by easiness".
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"By looking at everything that’s not Scotland, I’m hoping to discover the true essence of the country."
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[post_content] => Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby use design as a medium to stimulate discussion about the social, cultural and ethical implications of existing and emerging technologies. OK Do met the duo, both designers and Royal College of Art (RCA) professors, to talk about critical design and their work at the intersection of design, art and science. The interview breaks ground for our forthcoming Science Poems exhibition.
[caption id="attachment_1406" align="alignnone" width="549" caption="Fiona Raby and Anthony Dunne at their London home office. "]
[/caption]
Working somewhere in between art and science, you aim to generate discussion about the relationship between technology and people. How would you define the role and purpose of design? And how do you define critical design?
AD: The question of art and design is problematic. A lot of people want to see us as artists, but we definitely see ourselves as designers trying to push the discipline forward, asking questions about design and through it. In fact, we launched the term critical design ten years ago in order to describe our work. Sometimes people think it simply means criticism; that we are negative about everything, anti-consumerist and against design. Some people relate it to critical theory; to Frankfurt school and anti-capitalist thinking. We are definitely aware of it, but then again not in that category either. Critical design is about critical thinking – about not taking things at face value. It's about questioning things, and trying to understand what's behind them. In essence, our objective is to use design as a means for applying skepticism to society at large.
[caption id="attachment_1403" align="alignnone" width="549" caption="a/b – "a sort of a manifesto that positions what we do in relation to how most people understand design" – by Dunne&Raby. Typography: OK DO."]
[/caption]
You have compared design to art, using film and literature as examples of genres that are critical yet create pleasure. What do you think design and art can learn from each other?
AD: I think that art shouldn't need to exist. In an ideal, utopian world, everyday life would be so rich, meaningful and challenging that we wouldn't need this separate category called art. I kind of feel that art exists because design has failed. Learning from artists, designers should become bolder, more imaginative and critical. I'm not sure if art needs to learn from design, though.
[/caption]
In Design Noir (2001), you wrote that "beneath the glossy surface of official design lurks a dark and strange world driven by real human needs". Do you feel that contemporary products do not match people's needs – and has this improved since you wrote Design Noir? Do you think that people are reacting to that themselves and how should they be involved in design processes?
AD: I think the internet has expanded the range of possibilities for pleasure and for fulfilling one's personal desires and fantasies, no matter how strange you are. But this still doesn't apply to products, which remain essentially functional. However, the background or the infrastructure of products has definitely transformed. Before, if you were obsessed about something unusual – like I was about strange radio cultures – it was hard to find any information about it.
AD & FR: Involving people in design processes relates to the do-it-yourself culture which we are not so interested in. Everyone can start making and modifying things themselves, but we believe it's important to have experts who can do special and beautiful things that are beyond the abilities of non-professionals.
AD: I get annoyed when people think that the DIY culture has made professionals useless. However, there are a lot of independent – yet professional – designers out there who offer radical products they create on their own.
FR: They are like activists; bottom-up designers. We like the story of activism, that there is room for free inventors. A good example is designer Panamarenko, who creates alternative flying machines that are conceptual yet functional, in theory.
We think that the line between a DIY designer and an independent professional can sometimes be quite difficult to draw. How do you define a design professional?
Someone who is committed to the highest possible standards (technical, aesthetic, ethical) and the huge effort it takes to achieve them. Professional design is also about being aware of a bigger historical story than yourself and analysing how your practice contributes to it and extends it. It's about getting paid for what you do, rather than doing it as a hobby.
What is the motivation or reason for the corporate futurologists to "keep us in place" instead of exploring new territories and approaches that, according to your ideas, might make people more engaged through "complicated pleasure"?
AD & FR: The reason is that their job is to enforce the capitalist system and make sure that the sales remain high. Creating something unusual would be risky and expensive. In some areas, like furniture, this kind of experimentation might take place – Vitra's Slow Chair designed by Bouroullec brothers is a good example – but not in electronics. Apple is active in some sense, but quite stuck to its aesthetics as well. Too many companies are driven by geeky men. If women had more power in the field, electronic objects would be more compelling.
[/caption]
Working somewhere in between art and science, you aim to generate discussion about the relationship between technology and people. How would you define the role and purpose of design? And how do you define critical design?
AD: The question of art and design is problematic. A lot of people want to see us as artists, but we definitely see ourselves as designers trying to push the discipline forward, asking questions about design and through it. In fact, we launched the term critical design ten years ago in order to describe our work. Sometimes people think it simply means criticism; that we are negative about everything, anti-consumerist and against design. Some people relate it to critical theory; to Frankfurt school and anti-capitalist thinking. We are definitely aware of it, but then again not in that category either. Critical design is about critical thinking – about not taking things at face value. It's about questioning things, and trying to understand what's behind them. In essence, our objective is to use design as a means for applying skepticism to society at large.
[caption id="attachment_1403" align="alignnone" width="549" caption="a/b – "a sort of a manifesto that positions what we do in relation to how most people understand design" – by Dunne&Raby. Typography: OK DO."][/caption]
You have compared design to art, using film and literature as examples of genres that are critical yet create pleasure. What do you think design and art can learn from each other?
AD: I think that art shouldn't need to exist. In an ideal, utopian world, everyday life would be so rich, meaningful and challenging that we wouldn't need this separate category called art. I kind of feel that art exists because design has failed. Learning from artists, designers should become bolder, more imaginative and critical. I'm not sure if art needs to learn from design, though.
[/caption]
In Design Noir (2001), you wrote that "beneath the glossy surface of official design lurks a dark and strange world driven by real human needs". Do you feel that contemporary products do not match people's needs – and has this improved since you wrote Design Noir? Do you think that people are reacting to that themselves and how should they be involved in design processes?
AD: I think the internet has expanded the range of possibilities for pleasure and for fulfilling one's personal desires and fantasies, no matter how strange you are. But this still doesn't apply to products, which remain essentially functional. However, the background or the infrastructure of products has definitely transformed. Before, if you were obsessed about something unusual – like I was about strange radio cultures – it was hard to find any information about it.
AD & FR: Involving people in design processes relates to the do-it-yourself culture which we are not so interested in. Everyone can start making and modifying things themselves, but we believe it's important to have experts who can do special and beautiful things that are beyond the abilities of non-professionals.
AD: I get annoyed when people think that the DIY culture has made professionals useless. However, there are a lot of independent – yet professional – designers out there who offer radical products they create on their own.
FR: They are like activists; bottom-up designers. We like the story of activism, that there is room for free inventors. A good example is designer Panamarenko, who creates alternative flying machines that are conceptual yet functional, in theory.
We think that the line between a DIY designer and an independent professional can sometimes be quite difficult to draw. How do you define a design professional?
Someone who is committed to the highest possible standards (technical, aesthetic, ethical) and the huge effort it takes to achieve them. Professional design is also about being aware of a bigger historical story than yourself and analysing how your practice contributes to it and extends it. It's about getting paid for what you do, rather than doing it as a hobby.
What is the motivation or reason for the corporate futurologists to "keep us in place" instead of exploring new territories and approaches that, according to your ideas, might make people more engaged through "complicated pleasure"?
AD & FR: The reason is that their job is to enforce the capitalist system and make sure that the sales remain high. Creating something unusual would be risky and expensive. In some areas, like furniture, this kind of experimentation might take place – Vitra's Slow Chair designed by Bouroullec brothers is a good example – but not in electronics. Apple is active in some sense, but quite stuck to its aesthetics as well. Too many companies are driven by geeky men. If women had more power in the field, electronic objects would be more compelling.
[/caption]
Thinking that Finland hasn't really been the design country worth its reputation after the golden era of the 1950s and '60s, we started by discussing what made Finnish design interesting back then. Having to make the most out of the little that Finland had after the Second World War, design was blended into production, and a forward-looking spirit of collaboration between different disciplines generated intrepid, even utopian, ideas.
Marikylä ('Mari' village in Finnish) was a village designed together by the founder of Marimekko Armi Ratia and architect Aarno Ruusuvuori in the 1960s to accommodate all Marimekko personnel, to work as a laboratory of product development and to establish new ways of living. Even though this project was never realised in its full scale (housing for 3500 inhabitants, offices and a factory), the concept of Maritalo (Marihouse) was introduced in 1966 and Marimekko proved to be a lifestyle brand like no other. When asked why the cosmopolitan Ratia decided to base Marimekko in Finland out of all places, she stated that she was "not amused by easiness".
[/caption]
Another classic Finnish brand springing from a lifestyle, The Moomins, was created when the Second World War was still on. Finland's most widely read author abroad Tove Jansson wrote and illustrated her first Moomin book, The Moomins and the Great Flood, in 1945. Having been depressed by the war, Jansson said that she had wanted to write something naive and innocent. The story about the eccentric and oddly-shaped characters living close to nature was inspired by the author's close family members and a distinctive array of friends. The Moomins were bohemian, very tolerant towards diversity as well as on the verge of melancholy. Jansson's original style and topics drew on Finnish mythology and spread around the world in many books and comic strips. In the meanwhile, she also worked on art projects like the Moomin House – a 2,5-meter-high five-storey miniature of the Moomin home built together with Jansson's life partner Tuulikki Pietilä (Too-Ticky) and Pentti Eistola according to architect Reima Pietilä's floor plan.
After the golden era, the design industry has shifted from industrial art to industrial design and later to new areas such as service design which are often driven by technology and require new sensibilities and insight. However, as we brought up in the discussion, important as it is to develop new, future-oriented approaches to design, in order to create brands that people will love, the bold and personal attitude of the 50s and 60s' designers in Finland should not be forgotten. In fact, drawing on their spirit could help us regain the qualities of a design country and, again, to make new classics out of today's resources.
[caption id="attachment_1300" align="alignnone" width="549" caption="Tattijakkara (Mushroom Stool) is designed by Company and made by Pirtakka, a company specialised in wooden furniture. Photo by the courtesy of Company."]
[/caption]
An interesting contemporary design brand that respects Finnish traditions and skills yet renews them open-mindedly is Company's Salakauppa (Secret Shop). Created by Aamu Song and Johan Olin of Company, Salakauppa's collection includes furniture and clothing made in co-operation with various small Finnish manufacturers. Tattijakkara (Mushroom Stool), for instance, updates the classic Finnish fly agaric stool to a new, non-poisonous, level. Song and Olin explain that the product range called Top Secrets of Finland was designed because of their interest in the secret luxuries of Finland – the objects people have in their summer cottages, the things they find functional, inspiring and of good quality yet so everyday that people forget to tell others about them. Recently, Company did a similar project in South Korea, Aamu's home country.
[caption id="attachment_1427" align="alignnone" width="549" caption="Daniel Palillo working at his studio in Viiskulma, Helsinki. Photo by Paavo Lehtonen."]
[/caption]
Another new brand that we feel has potential to turn design products into classics is fashion label Daniel Palillo. Carrying the name of its 29-year-old Finnish-Italian founder and designer, Daniel Palillo collections are renown for their juxtapositional and original approach to fashion design. In contrast to Company's Top Secrets of Finland project, they carry little resemblance to traditional Finnish design language yet, and as we see it, show a great deal of attitude similar to that of the design minds of the golden era. Daniel Palillo dresses are worn by people ranging from grannies and teenage boys to American pop stars.
Following the traditional mindset of science fiction, OK Do's Science Poems project explores the poetry and multi-sensorial aesthetics of science rather than its functionality and logic. This spring, it will bring together a group of designers, artists and researchers in an exhibition in Paris.
The Science Poems exhibition approaches science from a creative perspective, reflecting psychological, mystical and philosophical thought without necessarily considering conventional constraints or functionality. Through the exhibition, we want to evoke discussion on scientific ideas and investigate their effects on our lives in a critical yet poetic way.
We think that applying grids of interpretation typical to the fields of art and design to the field of science (and vice versa) casts new light upon the content and can lead to new insights. The works displayed in the Science Poems exhibition function as tools to see and understand or as tools to imagine and alter the contemporary and future realities.
The exhibition sets in Paris, the home of Alphaville, a 1965 film by Jean-Luc Godard, which inspired us to start Science Poems in the first place. Paris is also the city of a current artist residency and revisitation of the OK Do members.
Based on the ongoing Science Poems project, the exhibition launches a series of print publications related to different OK Do projects. The other projects currently include Making Places, Strategies of Participation, Remix and Home-Work-Home.
[/caption]
The Book of Scotlands begins with the statement: “Every lie creates a parallel world. The world in which it is true.” Does this idea refer to using fiction as a means to tell the truth or is it more about the importance of imagining alternatives, not settling for something that’s already there?
First of all, it describes a certain approach. One of my working methods over the years has been to pose as a bastard while doing virtuous things. For instance, I was over-educated for pop music. While actually being a moralistic Calvinist, I pretended to be a sinner just because it made the songs more interesting for everybody. In writing, the same manner appears in a milder form – I pretend to be a liar. By proposing that everything in The Book of Scotlands is a lie, I can tell various truths in an oblique way. To explain this a bit further, I use two strategies in writing. One of them is the Rorschach where I’m treating Scotland as a random blot of ink, playing with its different perceptions. Another one is the Japanese technique called Ma, or negative space, which is based on the idea of making a composition out of not objects themselves but the space between the objects. I write about everything except Scotland. And by looking at everything that’s not Scotland, I’m hoping to discover the true essence of the country. It’s like a child with a colouring book – instead of colouring the map of Scotland you colour the sea around it and finally Scotland appears as a blank space. I like to call it dancing around the subject.
[/caption]
The book also contains many musical and sonic references – sentences like “They were busy looking at each other with clicking metal eyes.” or stories about a band called Sonic Flower Groove after an album by the Scottish group Primal Scream. Would you say that you experience places through their sonic environment?
Being a musician I obviously have to pay a lot of attention to that. One reason behind the Sonic Flower Groove episode is that the first time I discovered Berlin was when I came here on tour with Primal Scream in 1987. So I was thinking what if it was reversed, that I was actually coming from Berlin and experiencing Scotland in the same way. And I guess that happened with many places, I discovered them as a musician. Music was a way to get my travel expenses paid.
How would you describe Berlin, your current home city by these attributes?
Berlin is a very quiet town. It has made me lose interest in pop music. The main sound on the streets is the birds singing. Germans like to see their cities as extensions of the forest and there are trees everywhere. And that’s very different from e.g. London where there is a lot of pollution and most of the sounds come from traffic or small speakers in every corner in every sandwich bar… And time is money. In that sense, Berlin is much less capitalist, much less toxic. And you can hear it. It’s a very avant-garde, experimental city. Even when you go to concerts you often end up listening to field recordings or the sound of a contact microphone being scraped up and down, sounds of ping pong balls or balloons. All this could be seen as utterly pretentious in many other cities but here you don’t have to have an aim or a commercial purpose in what you do. One can escape all sorts of obligations and necessities. That’s probably one reason why I have stayed here for so long.
Scotland number one hundred and three reads: “A computer makes a Scotland seem almost unnecessary.” Could this thought be applied to all distant places with internet access – like Finland, my home country, which you even refer to in the book (Scotland 136) – or is it rather a comment on a lack of identity?
Well, I think we’re seeing a crisis in national identity. I was quoted in a magazine saying that my true motherland is the internet. I feel like wherever I travel I’m always in this country called the internet. Or maybe it’s the operating system that counts – and I do almost feel a certain patriotism towards Apple computers. However, there’s another part of my identity that’s very Scottish. Whatever that is.
[/caption]
You have lived in major cities around the world. What makes you move, and what made you leave Scotland in the first place?
It’s just a pattern I established very early because of moving with my father’s work when I was a child. After studying in Scotland I left for London to make it in music – a thing that all the Scottish musicians do. London felt like a bigger version of Scotland where more things were possible. Since then, my whole life has been motivated by appetite for certain things in certain cities. I’ve been lucky not having to work and being free to go wherever, even if it has made me very poor sometimes. Tokyo is my favourite city in the whole world. If my books are successful, that’s exactly where I’m going to go next.
How does the change of living environment affect your work?
When I was in Japan I felt quite isolated because I was a foreigner and I couldn’t speak too much Japanese. I found that my Scottish identity was becoming more important there. The album I made in Tokyo even has these rather strange Scottish songs on it. Berlin has brought up the need to experiment with sound because that’s just what people do here. I can spend my mornings at home writing something and the rest of the day is free for discovering something new. Then again London was a very commercial city so I tried to be successful and make lots of money. Living and working abroad makes you realize how only half of your personality is your own to control and the rest is really open to influence. I mean, we’re all chameleons in some way and the environment does change you. There’s a dialectical process going on between the environment and your personality.
[/caption]
Working somewhere in between art and science, you aim to generate discussion about the relationship between technology and people. How would you define the role and purpose of design? And how do you define critical design?
AD: The question of art and design is problematic. A lot of people want to see us as artists, but we definitely see ourselves as designers trying to push the discipline forward, asking questions about design and through it. In fact, we launched the term critical design ten years ago in order to describe our work. Sometimes people think it simply means criticism; that we are negative about everything, anti-consumerist and against design. Some people relate it to critical theory; to Frankfurt school and anti-capitalist thinking. We are definitely aware of it, but then again not in that category either. Critical design is about critical thinking – about not taking things at face value. It's about questioning things, and trying to understand what's behind them. In essence, our objective is to use design as a means for applying skepticism to society at large.
[caption id="attachment_1403" align="alignnone" width="549" caption="a/b – "a sort of a manifesto that positions what we do in relation to how most people understand design" – by Dunne&Raby. Typography: OK DO."][/caption]
You have compared design to art, using film and literature as examples of genres that are critical yet create pleasure. What do you think design and art can learn from each other?
AD: I think that art shouldn't need to exist. In an ideal, utopian world, everyday life would be so rich, meaningful and challenging that we wouldn't need this separate category called art. I kind of feel that art exists because design has failed. Learning from artists, designers should become bolder, more imaginative and critical. I'm not sure if art needs to learn from design, though.
"I kind of feel that art exists because design has failed."Having talked about "the aesthetics of use" in your work, how would you compare this to the traditional notion of aesthetics? And how do you think the role of aesthetics changes from art to design? AD: Rather than considering aesthetics only from a visual point of view, we are interested in the aesthetics – the poetry – of experience when interacting with products. A good example of this is the Truth Phone which can generate an adventure through a voice stress analyser revealing if the person you're talking with is lying. I think that the best experiences bust out from their medium. This applies to art and literature, and it should apply to design, too. In your books, you also mention placebo projects and the engineering of poetic products. Could you open up these concepts a little bit? AD: The placebo effect is based on the idea that, instead of changing reality, the perception of reality is changed. This also relates to the idea of designing "poetic" products that modify our perception of and relationship with life. Our aim is to activate the imagination and to juxtapose poetic design and ways of thinking with the more traditional problem solving approach. We are interested in questions like why does art have to be separated from everyday life, or why can't objects generate philosophical experiences on a daily basis? We think that your work shows interest towards the invisible but also the unexplained. Do you agree? What do you feel is the importance of exploring the unreal in addition to the real? AD: Yes. As a student I became interested in the aesthetic possibilities of electronic objects. In the early 90s, designers were still thinking of them as typical objects that just needed to have a nice shape and a convenient choice of materials. Through research, we discovered that electronic objects are special in that they transmit and are surrounded by electromagnetic fields which are invisible yet concrete. We thought: why not design products that draw attention to these fields in a poetic way – in a way that inspires people? In general, our work is considered unreal by many. But how do you define reality? Do real products need to be mass-produced and sold in a shop? The relationship between "real-real" and "unreal-real" is something that we are very interested in at the moment. Who decides what's real and what's not? And why are conceptual products less real than non-conceptual products? One can argue that even hallucinations are real in one person's mind.
"In general, our work is considered unreal by many. But how do you define reality?"Something that we are exploring in the OK Do Science Poems project, is the role of designers in scientific processes. You have said that designers shouldn't have to wait until scientific ideas become technology as they could engage with science in a more speculative way. Can the field of science learn from the field of design? And vice versa? AD: Developments within science, particularly life sciences, have potential to carry such dramatic impact on our lives that not only designers but all kinds of professionals need to explore their effects. As designers, we should try to influence how science becomes technology, making it more human for example. It would also be important to have debates with the public, and even the government, about different technological features before they are actualised. We see this as a shift away from designing applications – what designers are trained to do – to designing implications.
"As designers, we should try to influence how science becomes technology."How did you end up working with electronics? AD: While doing a degree in industrial design in the early 80s, I became fascinated by the challenges and possibilities that electronics were creating. However, during my BA studies, I wasn't allowed to do an electronics project, because the evaluators were only able to assess forms designed around mechanics. It was during those days that the form and the function were becoming disconnected. One of the reasons I went to RCA was that instead of designing surfaces, I could explore products from a more complex point of view, reflecting psychological, emotional, poetic and imaginative ideas. Nowadays it seems like everybody is having a multidisciplinary approach to design projects. Do you often collaborate with experts from different fields when you work in areas such as the electromagnetic sphere? AD & FR: We have dialogues but we don't really collaborate. And when we implement a concept, we consider which skills we need to outsource – these can vary from programming and carpentering to film-making and psychological expertise. Our work is mostly self-initiated, and even when we work with companies, the projects are always designer-led. However, we are very open to exchange ideas with different people. We couldn't agree more on your statement that design should not just ask how sleek or usable some object is, but what it actually inclines us to do. Would you say that you aim to design behaviour? AD: I think a lot of designers think that design is neutral but the fact is that all design is constructed and ideological and there is nothing natural or neutral about it. We purposefully create unnatural, awkward, exaggerated and not-that-friendly objects in order to point out that design is artificial and it always involves decisions. Therefore, I'd say that instead of designing objects that stimulate behaviour, we design objects that stimulate questions. AD & FR: Our objects don't make sense and fit into the system, but instead they create another parallel world of alternative reality that makes you question the existing system and its values. We design objects that nobody wants for now. However, it's not that we are anti-industrial. Quite the opposite, we wish to ask why people seek philosophical pleasure from art and not from manufactured design products. Is it because the industry is too narrow, because people are too boring, or because the designers don't want to create such products?
"All design is constructed and ideological and there is nothing natural or neutral about it."What are you working on at the moment? AD: One of our ongoing projects looks at the future of food. The idea is that, as the planet becomes over-populated and food becomes an issue, rather than relying on governments and big industries to solve it, small groups of people – "foragers" – would get together. These teams would include hackers, guerilla gardeners, amateur horticulturalists and synthetic biologists, and they would develop devices to externalise their digestive system in order to be able to digest leaves, grass and other things that are undigestible at the moment. Alternatively, leaves and grass could be modified so that they would suit our systems. We like your work because it stimulates discussion on the social, cultural and ethical implications of existing and emerging technologies. Have you examined how designers and the industry have reacted to it? AD: We have received quite aggressive reactions from designers, especially of older generations. Many of them think that design without industry is art, unreal or fantasy, and they get upset about assigning new roles to design – probably out of feeling threatened. On the other hand, we feel that the industry is, in some way, quite positive about our approach to decouple design from the industrial agenda and link it to other contexts, like the poetical one. At RCA, we do many industry projects and have figured that companies are really interested in learning to think differently about what they do and about applying fresh thinking that translates into tangible objects. [caption id="attachment_1388" align="alignnone" width="549" caption="The Statistical Clock (left) checks the BBC website for technologically mediated fatalities and speaks them out loud. S.O.C.D (Sexual Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) is for people who enjoy porn but feel a bit guilty watching it, or think that it's wrong. Photo by the courtesy of Francis Ware."]
[/caption]
In Design Noir (2001), you wrote that "beneath the glossy surface of official design lurks a dark and strange world driven by real human needs". Do you feel that contemporary products do not match people's needs – and has this improved since you wrote Design Noir? Do you think that people are reacting to that themselves and how should they be involved in design processes?
AD: I think the internet has expanded the range of possibilities for pleasure and for fulfilling one's personal desires and fantasies, no matter how strange you are. But this still doesn't apply to products, which remain essentially functional. However, the background or the infrastructure of products has definitely transformed. Before, if you were obsessed about something unusual – like I was about strange radio cultures – it was hard to find any information about it.
AD & FR: Involving people in design processes relates to the do-it-yourself culture which we are not so interested in. Everyone can start making and modifying things themselves, but we believe it's important to have experts who can do special and beautiful things that are beyond the abilities of non-professionals.
AD: I get annoyed when people think that the DIY culture has made professionals useless. However, there are a lot of independent – yet professional – designers out there who offer radical products they create on their own.
FR: They are like activists; bottom-up designers. We like the story of activism, that there is room for free inventors. A good example is designer Panamarenko, who creates alternative flying machines that are conceptual yet functional, in theory.
We think that the line between a DIY designer and an independent professional can sometimes be quite difficult to draw. How do you define a design professional?
Someone who is committed to the highest possible standards (technical, aesthetic, ethical) and the huge effort it takes to achieve them. Professional design is also about being aware of a bigger historical story than yourself and analysing how your practice contributes to it and extends it. It's about getting paid for what you do, rather than doing it as a hobby.
What is the motivation or reason for the corporate futurologists to "keep us in place" instead of exploring new territories and approaches that, according to your ideas, might make people more engaged through "complicated pleasure"?
AD & FR: The reason is that their job is to enforce the capitalist system and make sure that the sales remain high. Creating something unusual would be risky and expensive. In some areas, like furniture, this kind of experimentation might take place – Vitra's Slow Chair designed by Bouroullec brothers is a good example – but not in electronics. Apple is active in some sense, but quite stuck to its aesthetics as well. Too many companies are driven by geeky men. If women had more power in the field, electronic objects would be more compelling.
"Too many companies are driven by geeky men. If women did more in the field, electronic objects would be more compelling."Why do you think electronic objects and systems are such an effective vehicle for expressing our desires and needs, and making existentialist choices? AD: Our everyday life is mediated by social interaction much entangled with technology – for better or worse. The electronic objects and systems have integrated themselves so intimately into our lives that they have become a very powerful media. We do interact with chairs and tables as well, but the social impact of electronics is stronger: they work their way into our systems, conversations and relationships. They have become very entangled with our deepest selves. FR: At the same time, electronics are overtaking human qualities and the potential of technology is often exploited for efficiency and profit. AD: For example, it's quite rude that you can be sent email at any time of the day. Technology is often seen as either the opposite of human or as an extension of human. Many people feel embarrassed about using a certain technology, like online dating services, or about using technology too much. What do you think is the relationship between technology and identity? AD & FR: We don't think that the young generations view technology as something external anymore. For them, technology is an invisible media for living. And this internalisation actually becomes a platform for new type of activity that might, for example, be uninformed about life before the internet. Today's generations make new assumptions such as that everybody has the right to photograph or videotape anybody else – and if you don't approve that, you are a freak. [post_title] => Dreaming objects – A meeting with Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby [post_category] => 0 [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => open [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => dreaming-objects-a-meeting-with-anthony-dunne-and-fiona-raby [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2010-02-26 00:47:16 [post_modified_gmt] => 2010-02-25 21:47:16 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => http://www.ok-do.eu/?p=1344 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) [comments] => [comment_count] => 0 [current_comment] => -1 [comment] => [found_posts] => 0 [max_num_pages] => 0 [max_num_comment_pages] => 0 [is_single] => [is_preview] => [is_page] => [is_archive] => [is_date] => [is_year] => [is_month] => [is_day] => [is_time] => [is_author] => [is_category] => [is_tag] => [is_tax] => [is_search] => [is_feed] => [is_comment_feed] => [is_trackback] => [is_home] => 1 [is_404] => [is_comments_popup] => [is_admin] => [is_attachment] => [is_singular] => [is_robots] => [is_posts_page] => [is_paged] => [query] => Array ( [post__in] => Array ( [0] => 1344 [1] => 104 [2] => 338 [3] => 1274 ) [showposts] => -1 ) [posts] => Array ( [0] => stdClass Object ( [ID] => 1344 [post_author] => 4 [post_date] => 2010-01-25 23:44:40 [post_date_gmt] => 2010-01-25 20:44:40 [post_content] => Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby use design as a medium to stimulate discussion about the social, cultural and ethical implications of existing and emerging technologies. OK Do met the duo, both designers and Royal College of Art (RCA) professors, to talk about critical design and their work at the intersection of design, art and science. The interview breaks ground for our forthcoming Science Poems exhibition. [caption id="attachment_1406" align="alignnone" width="549" caption="Fiona Raby and Anthony Dunne at their London home office. "]
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Working somewhere in between art and science, you aim to generate discussion about the relationship between technology and people. How would you define the role and purpose of design? And how do you define critical design?
AD: The question of art and design is problematic. A lot of people want to see us as artists, but we definitely see ourselves as designers trying to push the discipline forward, asking questions about design and through it. In fact, we launched the term critical design ten years ago in order to describe our work. Sometimes people think it simply means criticism; that we are negative about everything, anti-consumerist and against design. Some people relate it to critical theory; to Frankfurt school and anti-capitalist thinking. We are definitely aware of it, but then again not in that category either. Critical design is about critical thinking – about not taking things at face value. It's about questioning things, and trying to understand what's behind them. In essence, our objective is to use design as a means for applying skepticism to society at large.
[caption id="attachment_1403" align="alignnone" width="549" caption="a/b – "a sort of a manifesto that positions what we do in relation to how most people understand design" – by Dunne&Raby. Typography: OK DO."][/caption]
You have compared design to art, using film and literature as examples of genres that are critical yet create pleasure. What do you think design and art can learn from each other?
AD: I think that art shouldn't need to exist. In an ideal, utopian world, everyday life would be so rich, meaningful and challenging that we wouldn't need this separate category called art. I kind of feel that art exists because design has failed. Learning from artists, designers should become bolder, more imaginative and critical. I'm not sure if art needs to learn from design, though.
"I kind of feel that art exists because design has failed."Having talked about "the aesthetics of use" in your work, how would you compare this to the traditional notion of aesthetics? And how do you think the role of aesthetics changes from art to design? AD: Rather than considering aesthetics only from a visual point of view, we are interested in the aesthetics – the poetry – of experience when interacting with products. A good example of this is the Truth Phone which can generate an adventure through a voice stress analyser revealing if the person you're talking with is lying. I think that the best experiences bust out from their medium. This applies to art and literature, and it should apply to design, too. In your books, you also mention placebo projects and the engineering of poetic products. Could you open up these concepts a little bit? AD: The placebo effect is based on the idea that, instead of changing reality, the perception of reality is changed. This also relates to the idea of designing "poetic" products that modify our perception of and relationship with life. Our aim is to activate the imagination and to juxtapose poetic design and ways of thinking with the more traditional problem solving approach. We are interested in questions like why does art have to be separated from everyday life, or why can't objects generate philosophical experiences on a daily basis? We think that your work shows interest towards the invisible but also the unexplained. Do you agree? What do you feel is the importance of exploring the unreal in addition to the real? AD: Yes. As a student I became interested in the aesthetic possibilities of electronic objects. In the early 90s, designers were still thinking of them as typical objects that just needed to have a nice shape and a convenient choice of materials. Through research, we discovered that electronic objects are special in that they transmit and are surrounded by electromagnetic fields which are invisible yet concrete. We thought: why not design products that draw attention to these fields in a poetic way – in a way that inspires people? In general, our work is considered unreal by many. But how do you define reality? Do real products need to be mass-produced and sold in a shop? The relationship between "real-real" and "unreal-real" is something that we are very interested in at the moment. Who decides what's real and what's not? And why are conceptual products less real than non-conceptual products? One can argue that even hallucinations are real in one person's mind.
"In general, our work is considered unreal by many. But how do you define reality?"Something that we are exploring in the OK Do Science Poems project, is the role of designers in scientific processes. You have said that designers shouldn't have to wait until scientific ideas become technology as they could engage with science in a more speculative way. Can the field of science learn from the field of design? And vice versa? AD: Developments within science, particularly life sciences, have potential to carry such dramatic impact on our lives that not only designers but all kinds of professionals need to explore their effects. As designers, we should try to influence how science becomes technology, making it more human for example. It would also be important to have debates with the public, and even the government, about different technological features before they are actualised. We see this as a shift away from designing applications – what designers are trained to do – to designing implications.
"As designers, we should try to influence how science becomes technology."How did you end up working with electronics? AD: While doing a degree in industrial design in the early 80s, I became fascinated by the challenges and possibilities that electronics were creating. However, during my BA studies, I wasn't allowed to do an electronics project, because the evaluators were only able to assess forms designed around mechanics. It was during those days that the form and the function were becoming disconnected. One of the reasons I went to RCA was that instead of designing surfaces, I could explore products from a more complex point of view, reflecting psychological, emotional, poetic and imaginative ideas. Nowadays it seems like everybody is having a multidisciplinary approach to design projects. Do you often collaborate with experts from different fields when you work in areas such as the electromagnetic sphere? AD & FR: We have dialogues but we don't really collaborate. And when we implement a concept, we consider which skills we need to outsource – these can vary from programming and carpentering to film-making and psychological expertise. Our work is mostly self-initiated, and even when we work with companies, the projects are always designer-led. However, we are very open to exchange ideas with different people. We couldn't agree more on your statement that design should not just ask how sleek or usable some object is, but what it actually inclines us to do. Would you say that you aim to design behaviour? AD: I think a lot of designers think that design is neutral but the fact is that all design is constructed and ideological and there is nothing natural or neutral about it. We purposefully create unnatural, awkward, exaggerated and not-that-friendly objects in order to point out that design is artificial and it always involves decisions. Therefore, I'd say that instead of designing objects that stimulate behaviour, we design objects that stimulate questions. AD & FR: Our objects don't make sense and fit into the system, but instead they create another parallel world of alternative reality that makes you question the existing system and its values. We design objects that nobody wants for now. However, it's not that we are anti-industrial. Quite the opposite, we wish to ask why people seek philosophical pleasure from art and not from manufactured design products. Is it because the industry is too narrow, because people are too boring, or because the designers don't want to create such products?
"All design is constructed and ideological and there is nothing natural or neutral about it."What are you working on at the moment? AD: One of our ongoing projects looks at the future of food. The idea is that, as the planet becomes over-populated and food becomes an issue, rather than relying on governments and big industries to solve it, small groups of people – "foragers" – would get together. These teams would include hackers, guerilla gardeners, amateur horticulturalists and synthetic biologists, and they would develop devices to externalise their digestive system in order to be able to digest leaves, grass and other things that are undigestible at the moment. Alternatively, leaves and grass could be modified so that they would suit our systems. We like your work because it stimulates discussion on the social, cultural and ethical implications of existing and emerging technologies. Have you examined how designers and the industry have reacted to it? AD: We have received quite aggressive reactions from designers, especially of older generations. Many of them think that design without industry is art, unreal or fantasy, and they get upset about assigning new roles to design – probably out of feeling threatened. On the other hand, we feel that the industry is, in some way, quite positive about our approach to decouple design from the industrial agenda and link it to other contexts, like the poetical one. At RCA, we do many industry projects and have figured that companies are really interested in learning to think differently about what they do and about applying fresh thinking that translates into tangible objects. [caption id="attachment_1388" align="alignnone" width="549" caption="The Statistical Clock (left) checks the BBC website for technologically mediated fatalities and speaks them out loud. S.O.C.D (Sexual Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) is for people who enjoy porn but feel a bit guilty watching it, or think that it's wrong. Photo by the courtesy of Francis Ware."]
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In Design Noir (2001), you wrote that "beneath the glossy surface of official design lurks a dark and strange world driven by real human needs". Do you feel that contemporary products do not match people's needs – and has this improved since you wrote Design Noir? Do you think that people are reacting to that themselves and how should they be involved in design processes?
AD: I think the internet has expanded the range of possibilities for pleasure and for fulfilling one's personal desires and fantasies, no matter how strange you are. But this still doesn't apply to products, which remain essentially functional. However, the background or the infrastructure of products has definitely transformed. Before, if you were obsessed about something unusual – like I was about strange radio cultures – it was hard to find any information about it.
AD & FR: Involving people in design processes relates to the do-it-yourself culture which we are not so interested in. Everyone can start making and modifying things themselves, but we believe it's important to have experts who can do special and beautiful things that are beyond the abilities of non-professionals.
AD: I get annoyed when people think that the DIY culture has made professionals useless. However, there are a lot of independent – yet professional – designers out there who offer radical products they create on their own.
FR: They are like activists; bottom-up designers. We like the story of activism, that there is room for free inventors. A good example is designer Panamarenko, who creates alternative flying machines that are conceptual yet functional, in theory.
We think that the line between a DIY designer and an independent professional can sometimes be quite difficult to draw. How do you define a design professional?
Someone who is committed to the highest possible standards (technical, aesthetic, ethical) and the huge effort it takes to achieve them. Professional design is also about being aware of a bigger historical story than yourself and analysing how your practice contributes to it and extends it. It's about getting paid for what you do, rather than doing it as a hobby.
What is the motivation or reason for the corporate futurologists to "keep us in place" instead of exploring new territories and approaches that, according to your ideas, might make people more engaged through "complicated pleasure"?
AD & FR: The reason is that their job is to enforce the capitalist system and make sure that the sales remain high. Creating something unusual would be risky and expensive. In some areas, like furniture, this kind of experimentation might take place – Vitra's Slow Chair designed by Bouroullec brothers is a good example – but not in electronics. Apple is active in some sense, but quite stuck to its aesthetics as well. Too many companies are driven by geeky men. If women had more power in the field, electronic objects would be more compelling.
"Too many companies are driven by geeky men. If women did more in the field, electronic objects would be more compelling."Why do you think electronic objects and systems are such an effective vehicle for expressing our desires and needs, and making existentialist choices? AD: Our everyday life is mediated by social interaction much entangled with technology – for better or worse. The electronic objects and systems have integrated themselves so intimately into our lives that they have become a very powerful media. We do interact with chairs and tables as well, but the social impact of electronics is stronger: they work their way into our systems, conversations and relationships. They have become very entangled with our deepest selves. FR: At the same time, electronics are overtaking human qualities and the potential of technology is often exploited for efficiency and profit. AD: For example, it's quite rude that you can be sent email at any time of the day. Technology is often seen as either the opposite of human or as an extension of human. Many people feel embarrassed about using a certain technology, like online dating services, or about using technology too much. What do you think is the relationship between technology and identity? AD & FR: We don't think that the young generations view technology as something external anymore. For them, technology is an invisible media for living. And this internalisation actually becomes a platform for new type of activity that might, for example, be uninformed about life before the internet. Today's generations make new assumptions such as that everybody has the right to photograph or videotape anybody else – and if you don't approve that, you are a freak. [post_title] => Dreaming objects – A meeting with Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby [post_category] => 0 [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => open [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => dreaming-objects-a-meeting-with-anthony-dunne-and-fiona-raby [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2010-02-26 00:47:16 [post_modified_gmt] => 2010-02-25 21:47:16 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => http://www.ok-do.eu/?p=1344 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) [1] => stdClass Object ( [ID] => 1274 [post_author] => 3 [post_date] => 2010-01-21 11:21:37 [post_date_gmt] => 2010-01-21 08:21:37 [post_content] => Last week, we participated in a panel discussion on New Finnish Classics organised by the local Euro RSCG agency as part of their research project on the future of Finnish design brands. One of the central topics was how to make international brands with Finnish values. The event gathered Finnish designers and executives from big companies such as Marimekko to smaller practices like OK Do as well as academics from the University of Helsinki and the new Aalto University to present their views on the present and the future of Finnish design. [caption id="attachment_1275" align="alignnone" width="549" caption="Marimekko lifestyle in Maritalo (Marihouse) by Aarno Ruusuvuori, 1966. Photo by the courtesy of the Museum of Finnish Architecture."]
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Thinking that Finland hasn't really been the design country worth its reputation after the golden era of the 1950s and '60s, we started by discussing what made Finnish design interesting back then. Having to make the most out of the little that Finland had after the Second World War, design was blended into production, and a forward-looking spirit of collaboration between different disciplines generated intrepid, even utopian, ideas.
Marikylä ('Mari' village in Finnish) was a village designed together by the founder of Marimekko Armi Ratia and architect Aarno Ruusuvuori in the 1960s to accommodate all Marimekko personnel, to work as a laboratory of product development and to establish new ways of living. Even though this project was never realised in its full scale (housing for 3500 inhabitants, offices and a factory), the concept of Maritalo (Marihouse) was introduced in 1966 and Marimekko proved to be a lifestyle brand like no other. When asked why the cosmopolitan Ratia decided to base Marimekko in Finland out of all places, she stated that she was "not amused by easiness".
When asked why Armi Ratia decided to base Marimekko in Finland out of all places, she stated that she was "not amused by easiness".[caption id="attachment_1277" align="alignnone" width="549" caption="Tuulikki Pietilä (Too-Ticky), Tove Jansson and Signe Hammarsten-Jansson on the island of Klovharu, 1958. Photo by Alf Lidman."]
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Another classic Finnish brand springing from a lifestyle, The Moomins, was created when the Second World War was still on. Finland's most widely read author abroad Tove Jansson wrote and illustrated her first Moomin book, The Moomins and the Great Flood, in 1945. Having been depressed by the war, Jansson said that she had wanted to write something naive and innocent. The story about the eccentric and oddly-shaped characters living close to nature was inspired by the author's close family members and a distinctive array of friends. The Moomins were bohemian, very tolerant towards diversity as well as on the verge of melancholy. Jansson's original style and topics drew on Finnish mythology and spread around the world in many books and comic strips. In the meanwhile, she also worked on art projects like the Moomin House – a 2,5-meter-high five-storey miniature of the Moomin home built together with Jansson's life partner Tuulikki Pietilä (Too-Ticky) and Pentti Eistola according to architect Reima Pietilä's floor plan.
After the golden era, the design industry has shifted from industrial art to industrial design and later to new areas such as service design which are often driven by technology and require new sensibilities and insight. However, as we brought up in the discussion, important as it is to develop new, future-oriented approaches to design, in order to create brands that people will love, the bold and personal attitude of the 50s and 60s' designers in Finland should not be forgotten. In fact, drawing on their spirit could help us regain the qualities of a design country and, again, to make new classics out of today's resources.
[caption id="attachment_1300" align="alignnone" width="549" caption="Tattijakkara (Mushroom Stool) is designed by Company and made by Pirtakka, a company specialised in wooden furniture. Photo by the courtesy of Company."][/caption]
An interesting contemporary design brand that respects Finnish traditions and skills yet renews them open-mindedly is Company's Salakauppa (Secret Shop). Created by Aamu Song and Johan Olin of Company, Salakauppa's collection includes furniture and clothing made in co-operation with various small Finnish manufacturers. Tattijakkara (Mushroom Stool), for instance, updates the classic Finnish fly agaric stool to a new, non-poisonous, level. Song and Olin explain that the product range called Top Secrets of Finland was designed because of their interest in the secret luxuries of Finland – the objects people have in their summer cottages, the things they find functional, inspiring and of good quality yet so everyday that people forget to tell others about them. Recently, Company did a similar project in South Korea, Aamu's home country.
[caption id="attachment_1427" align="alignnone" width="549" caption="Daniel Palillo working at his studio in Viiskulma, Helsinki. Photo by Paavo Lehtonen."][/caption]
Another new brand that we feel has potential to turn design products into classics is fashion label Daniel Palillo. Carrying the name of its 29-year-old Finnish-Italian founder and designer, Daniel Palillo collections are renown for their juxtapositional and original approach to fashion design. In contrast to Company's Top Secrets of Finland project, they carry little resemblance to traditional Finnish design language yet, and as we see it, show a great deal of attitude similar to that of the design minds of the golden era. Daniel Palillo dresses are worn by people ranging from grannies and teenage boys to American pop stars.
"One can never be entirely free, if one admires someone else too much." - Snufkin in a Moomin storyLike the Top Secrets of Finland and Daniel Palillo's collections, many of the most interesting design projects back in the 50s and 60s were not commissions but self-initiated collaborations. They originated primarily from artistic motives. In addition to suggesting a return to a more artistic design approach, we also brought up social innovation as a field Finns are famous for having known their way around before. Why not take inspiration from the maternity package for instance, a Finnish invention from the 1930s providing all new parents with necessities such as clothes, linen, nappies as well as a box to function as the first bed? Or why not productise the rarities of Finland such as the sensation of being cold or having to be aware of bears? It is important to consider what makes us different from others – especially in a curious, unusual way – and draw on that. We feel that many Finnish brands nowadays have a tendency to try and be international through looking at what other international brands do. However, as Snufkin, one of the Moomin characters said "one can never be entirely free, if one admires someone else too much". [post_title] => New Finnish Classics [post_category] => 0 [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => open [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => new-finnish-classics [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2010-02-26 00:44:37 [post_modified_gmt] => 2010-02-25 21:44:37 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => http://www.ok-do.eu/?p=1274 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) [2] => stdClass Object ( [ID] => 338 [post_author] => 3 [post_date] => 2009-12-05 13:15:02 [post_date_gmt] => 2009-12-05 10:15:02 [post_content] =>
[post_title] => Paris exhibition on Science Poems in spring 2010 [post_category] => 0 [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => open [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => paris-exhibition-on-science-poems-in-spring-2010 [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2010-02-11 19:06:35 [post_modified_gmt] => 2010-02-11 16:06:35 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => http://www.ok-do.eu/?p=338 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) [3] => stdClass Object ( [ID] => 104 [post_author] => 3 [post_date] => 2009-09-11 14:00:23 [post_date_gmt] => 2009-09-11 11:00:23 [post_content] => I recently met with Nick Currie aka Momus, a Scottish writer, design journalist and musician who has lived in London, Paris, New York, Tokyo and now Berlin. Exploring his “inner Scotlands” as well as the country’s current efforts towards independence, he just released a book on one hundred and fifty-six Scotlands, which currently do not exist anywhere. The Book of Scotlands dreams about potential parallel worlds in the spirit of Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities – without the limitations of modern urban theory. It casts both utopian and dystopian scenarios on the writer’s place of origin. Along with Currie’s brilliant new book and redesigning his native country, we talked about Berlin, my place of wonder and fascination. [caption id="attachment_375" align="alignnone" width="549" caption="It's Momus."]
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The Book of Scotlands begins with the statement: “Every lie creates a parallel world. The world in which it is true.” Does this idea refer to using fiction as a means to tell the truth or is it more about the importance of imagining alternatives, not settling for something that’s already there?
First of all, it describes a certain approach. One of my working methods over the years has been to pose as a bastard while doing virtuous things. For instance, I was over-educated for pop music. While actually being a moralistic Calvinist, I pretended to be a sinner just because it made the songs more interesting for everybody. In writing, the same manner appears in a milder form – I pretend to be a liar. By proposing that everything in The Book of Scotlands is a lie, I can tell various truths in an oblique way. To explain this a bit further, I use two strategies in writing. One of them is the Rorschach where I’m treating Scotland as a random blot of ink, playing with its different perceptions. Another one is the Japanese technique called Ma, or negative space, which is based on the idea of making a composition out of not objects themselves but the space between the objects. I write about everything except Scotland. And by looking at everything that’s not Scotland, I’m hoping to discover the true essence of the country. It’s like a child with a colouring book – instead of colouring the map of Scotland you colour the sea around it and finally Scotland appears as a blank space. I like to call it dancing around the subject.
"By looking at everything that’s not Scotland, I’m hoping to discover the true essence of the country."In the spirit of these working techniques, your book includes many visual and symbolic ideas. I particularly enjoy this one, Scotland number seventy-eight: “The Scotland in which all maps of the country are displayed upside-down and back-to-front to make everything fresh.” You also touch the future in e.g. Scotland fifteen: “The tremendously powerful Scotland which nanotechnology has made, by and large, too small to see.” In my view, your work with the book is very close to design. How do you feel about this interpretation? As a matter of fact I was rather influenced by a design group called REDESIGNDEUTCHLAND. Ingo Niermann, the editor who commissioned The Book of Scotlands was actually part of this group. He had previously written Umbauland, a book on ten ideas for a better Germany applying design principles to the nation itself. Although generally considered more a writer than a designer, he managed to come up with a plan including a new grammar, a new political party as well as a system of assigning allotment gardens to unemployed people and retirees. So yes, I guess you might as well call my book Redesign Scotland. I find design interesting because it can be very utopian. Yet, when talking about design, people often pay attention to change more than continuity. And I think it’s very important to think about continuity. [caption id="attachment_287" align="alignnone" width="549" caption="Scotland as Rorschach. The Book of Scotlands, pp. 80-81."]
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The book also contains many musical and sonic references – sentences like “They were busy looking at each other with clicking metal eyes.” or stories about a band called Sonic Flower Groove after an album by the Scottish group Primal Scream. Would you say that you experience places through their sonic environment?
Being a musician I obviously have to pay a lot of attention to that. One reason behind the Sonic Flower Groove episode is that the first time I discovered Berlin was when I came here on tour with Primal Scream in 1987. So I was thinking what if it was reversed, that I was actually coming from Berlin and experiencing Scotland in the same way. And I guess that happened with many places, I discovered them as a musician. Music was a way to get my travel expenses paid.
How would you describe Berlin, your current home city by these attributes?
Berlin is a very quiet town. It has made me lose interest in pop music. The main sound on the streets is the birds singing. Germans like to see their cities as extensions of the forest and there are trees everywhere. And that’s very different from e.g. London where there is a lot of pollution and most of the sounds come from traffic or small speakers in every corner in every sandwich bar… And time is money. In that sense, Berlin is much less capitalist, much less toxic. And you can hear it. It’s a very avant-garde, experimental city. Even when you go to concerts you often end up listening to field recordings or the sound of a contact microphone being scraped up and down, sounds of ping pong balls or balloons. All this could be seen as utterly pretentious in many other cities but here you don’t have to have an aim or a commercial purpose in what you do. One can escape all sorts of obligations and necessities. That’s probably one reason why I have stayed here for so long.
Scotland number one hundred and three reads: “A computer makes a Scotland seem almost unnecessary.” Could this thought be applied to all distant places with internet access – like Finland, my home country, which you even refer to in the book (Scotland 136) – or is it rather a comment on a lack of identity?
Well, I think we’re seeing a crisis in national identity. I was quoted in a magazine saying that my true motherland is the internet. I feel like wherever I travel I’m always in this country called the internet. Or maybe it’s the operating system that counts – and I do almost feel a certain patriotism towards Apple computers. However, there’s another part of my identity that’s very Scottish. Whatever that is.
"I feel like wherever I travel I’m always in this country called the internet."Furthermore, Scotland number eighty-eight states: “I want Scottish people, rather than tourists, to be the curators of this culture…” Next to the developing “Scottish way of being”, how would you characterize living and working in Berlin? I guess a Berlin way of being is collaboration between the Berliners and the immigrants – either the Turkish immigrants or the creative immigrants – who all work together to make the city enjoyable. Someone for example built this relaxed patio where we’re sitting here in Prenzlauer Berg. And like Prenzlauer Berg, Berlin obviously has different villages. My particular village is Neukölln where there’s a lot more immigrants than here. I really enjoy the Turkish markets and the exoticism in Neukölln. People are also a bit more economically motivated, though it’s pretty easy to live in Berlin not thinking commercially at all. Compared to Neukölln, Prenzlauer Berg almost feels like a white bourgeois paradise. And that makes me a bit uneasy. I feel a need to rebel against monoculture, yet paradoxically, when I’m in Neukölln I can embody the values of Prenzlauer Berg without feeling like it’s a cliché. [caption id="attachment_286" align="alignnone" width="549" caption="Momus at home in Neukölln, Berlin."]
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You have lived in major cities around the world. What makes you move, and what made you leave Scotland in the first place?
It’s just a pattern I established very early because of moving with my father’s work when I was a child. After studying in Scotland I left for London to make it in music – a thing that all the Scottish musicians do. London felt like a bigger version of Scotland where more things were possible. Since then, my whole life has been motivated by appetite for certain things in certain cities. I’ve been lucky not having to work and being free to go wherever, even if it has made me very poor sometimes. Tokyo is my favourite city in the whole world. If my books are successful, that’s exactly where I’m going to go next.
How does the change of living environment affect your work?
When I was in Japan I felt quite isolated because I was a foreigner and I couldn’t speak too much Japanese. I found that my Scottish identity was becoming more important there. The album I made in Tokyo even has these rather strange Scottish songs on it. Berlin has brought up the need to experiment with sound because that’s just what people do here. I can spend my mornings at home writing something and the rest of the day is free for discovering something new. Then again London was a very commercial city so I tried to be successful and make lots of money. Living and working abroad makes you realize how only half of your personality is your own to control and the rest is really open to influence. I mean, we’re all chameleons in some way and the environment does change you. There’s a dialectical process going on between the environment and your personality.
"There’s a dialectical process going on between the environment and your personality."Your blog, Click Opera blurs the boundaries between work and personal life as well as between different disciplines from design to music and social enquiry. I think it captures the essence of now. Do you have a working philosophy? The current theme in a lot of my work is Scheherazade, the wife of the king in One Thousand and One Nights. Scheherazade was the only one of the king’s wives who he didn’t kill. And that was because she told stories. Everyday she told him a new story and left it in a very interesting place where she stopped so that he had to keep her alive to hear what happened next. I really like this idea of challenging yourself by pulling something out everyday, telling a story in public to stop people from killing you. [post_title] => Dance around the subject – Momus on place and the creative process [post_category] => 0 [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => open [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => dance-around-the-subject-%e2%80%93-momus-on-place-and-the-creative-process [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2010-02-11 19:07:18 [post_modified_gmt] => 2010-02-11 16:07:18 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => http://www.ok-do.eu/?p=104 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) ) )
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