ExperimentaDesign is an international platform open to reflection and experimentation and devoted to design, project culture and creativity. As of 2008, this innovative, multidisciplinary event, founded in Lisbon, will take place alternately in Lisbon and Amsterdam. Its focus is design in its broadest sense: design as a tool, as a process of creation. ExperimentaDesign positions itself at the cutting edge of the modern culture, promoting the creation of laboratories, setting up international working parties and developing strategic synergies between cultural agents.

Challenge and experiment
ExperimentaDesign is essentially a reason for creating, and then, also, a space for exhibiting. It programmes possibilities, challenges participants, crosses paths, questions, experiments. It thinks about aesthetics,
ethics, social cohesion, industry, sustainability and economy. But above all it thinks about people.

Coming soon to Amsterdam

ExperimentaDesign’s first four editions took place in Lisbon. Now, in 2008, with the new platform created between the Dutch and Portuguese capitals, Amsterdam will host ExperimentaDesign for the first time. The theme this year is Space and Place, focusing on the questions raised by new urban landscapes and contemporary living in cities.

As in all other editions of ExperimentaDesign, the programme is designed to appeal to a range of audiences, from professionals to the general public. The opening week, filled with exhibitions, conferences, debates and
urban interventions, is a moment of strong social experience. People come from all around the world to listen, see, share and celebrate design and architecture.

ExperimentaDesign – Lisboa/Amsterdam is the result of a collaboration between ExperimentaDesign and the ExperimentaDesign Amsterdam Foundation, and between the cities of Lisbon and Amsterdam, with the local partnership of Droog Design.

Too many old paper in your flat? Before you give it to recycling, re-use it on your own: Old newspapers are perfect to sit on – it’s warm and cozy. The vinyl stickers »STACK CHAIR« by Amplifier of London reshapes the old paper to an adequate chair. Design is an illusion…

Guter Konsum – böser Konsum

David Carlson has been working with design as a competitive weapon for twenty years. With design as an added value the Swedish designer helps his assigners create attractive brands ready for the challenges of the future. His assigners include Absolut, Level Vodka and Sony Ericsson to mention a few.

Since 2005 Carlson is sharing his thoughts on design in a quaterly report, called the »David Report«. The latest issue »I shop therefore I am« is about our consumption. Sponsor is the vodka brand »Absolute« from Sweden. The report consist of his thoughts and insights on consumption and also has an interview with Mathilde Tham, a professor of Beckmans College of Design and features Kristina Dryza, a trend forecaster and Sante Poroma, a Zen teacher from Stockholm.

[…] maybe it’s time to divide our consumption into good and bad consumption? […] we do have the opportunity to, through our consumption and our choices, create a better world (one mustn’t forget that the power of the consumer is enormous). It is all about WHAT Continue Reading »

From Studio Düsburg, a studio for experimental architecture, comes an interesting architecture project that deals with the re-intergration and transformation of former industrial areas into modern lifestyle and culture.

The “Autobahn 59″ is a highway built in the sixties and connects parts of the Rhein-Ruhr-Area in North-South direction. Even today it is a construction of high technical standard, because a lot of parts of the highway are bridges. Near to the exit Duisburg-Marxloh there used to be a railroad bridge. When the railroad track went out of use they reconstructed Continue Reading »

Leo Kesting Gallery in New York is showing an intersting artist: David Meanix. The artist tears photographs and collages them back together. The portrait has been taken and is ripped apart to then be remade representing a fresh look at our personal identities. Meanix plays with the implification of truth and definitiveness a picture is limited through. By opening and destroying the final structure he is able to reinterprete the meaning of the whole picture.

His artwork is shown in company to paintings of Beka Goedde.

March 20 – April 6, 2008
Opening Night Reception: Thursday March 20, 7:00 – 10:00 pm
812 Washington St (at the corner of Gansevoort) New York, NY 10014

Viel Spaß in der Ausstellung!

Art and design have had an enduringly productive relationship. Artists and designers, as well as graphic artists, fashion designers, and architects, share common strategies, methods, and aims. While some artists employ design strategies to make socially critical statements, others use design as a way of reflecting everyday phenomena, emotions, or conceptual approaches. (Picture: Martino Gamper, Gallery Furniture, 2007 © Francis Ware)

Many designers on the other hand, having dispensed with any belief in the ideal of neutrality, intervene increasingly in social, political, ethical, or ecological discourses. This exhibition confronts ten contemporary positions on the edge of reality, on the border of what is possible. Featuring: Jurgen Bey (NL), Bless (FR/DE), Dexter Sinister (GB/US), Dunne & Raby and Michael Anastassiades (GB), Alicia Framis (ES), Martino Gamper (IT/GB), Ryan Gander (GB), Martí Guixé (ES), Tobias Rehberger (DE) and Superflex (DK). A co-production with the Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève and the Haute école d’art et de design Genève.

The exhibition »Would it be nice…« can be seen in the Museum of Design Zurich till 25 May 2008.

Is there a relationship between the conceptual thinking behind Marcel Duchamp’s 1917 urinal and contemporary design practice? Design writer and Design Observer contributer Nick Currie believe’s there is. In an AIGA feature of 1995, Currie presents some interesting thoughts on the evolution of Conceptual Art and its impact on designing for social impact. Currie’s feature, Conceptual Design: Building a Social Conscience begins by exploring if there has ‘ever been “Conceptual Design?”’ and moves on to discuss how the conceptual arts of the early 1900s has led young designers to think more about social issues than consumer goods.

“There’s a generation of young designers who, almost a century after Duchamp, seem to share something of his spirit… Rather than products, these people are designing situations, intervening in existing arrangements, framing everyday activities in ways that make us think of them, unexpectedly, as “design.” And although they’re often satirical in tone, these designers share a concern with ethics and responsibility; one of the reasons the design they make is so often immaterial is their sense that the last thing the world needs is more objects, more consumer goods. The widening ripples of Duchamp’s gesture blend, in their work, with the repercussions of a gathering concern around issues like sustainability, community and responsibility: to be conceptual is, after all, to be thoughtful. “

Although, I do see the connection between Conceptual Artists influencing the IDEO-esq thinking and design practice of today, I find it difficult to trust Conceptual Art Continue Reading »

Whilst undertaking some extensive research into The Future of Design Education, I came across a beautiful piece of creative writing, from Lap Le, a Graphic Design Student at Oregon State University.

“To me, there was once a time when designers were warriors—trained and battle-hardened. They honored their craft, and practiced their bodies and minds to perfect it. The weak died, the strong lived and everyone in between knew that line…

I read and research everything I can and will continue to do so, but I question whether this will be enough to survive against a rising force. Deep down I know that the core principals I learn will provide sustenance and sustainability, but for every one of them that fails, a hundred will replace them. Will they overwhelm us? And if so, how will design, and our roles, be affected when everyone becomes a ‘designer’?”

Ref:
Le, L. (2006). The New Battlefield. New York: AIGA.

The above is the title of the picture you see to the left – it is an artwork that participates in the »NanoArt 2007«. It is an exhibition that takes place online.

»This site was founded by the artist and scientist Cris Orfescu to promote worldwide the NanoArt as a reflection of the technological movement. NanoArt is a more appealing and effective way to communicate with the general public and to inform people about the new technologies of the 21st Century and should raise the public’s awareness of Nanotechnology and its impact on our lives.«

Using religious or romantic symbolics to communicate what impact nanotechnology will have in our future is probably the wrong approach. Or did those artworks make you think about the critical aspects of new technologies? Design offers better possibilities to experience future technologies or products. On the Interaction Design Department of the Royal College of Art (lead by Anthony Dunne) so called »What If« scenarios are used to display what could happen if certain technologies get applied to the objects that surround us.

Mediacity is the name of a project that is financed by the Marie Curie mobility programme »Transfer of Knowledge« of the European Commission. It takes place at the Bauhaus-University Weimar and explores »the social settings and spaces of the city are created, experienced and practiced through the use and presence of new media.«

On January 18-19 now, Mediacity organizes the conference »Situations. Practices. Encounters.« That’s the chance to get a better understanding of the project and its interesting subject. Here’s a random choice from the speach titles in the programme: »Situating Design – Designing Situations«, »Territories, Prolongations, Visibilities: the Editing of Urban and New Media Environments«, »The Significance of Media in Promoting Social Interaction and Spatial Integration: The case of Johannesburg Inner-City« or »The Impact of Mobile Phone Use on Privacy Perception in Public Spaces.«

The conference has three speaker sessions, a workshop and »several additional activities« (whatever that means). Even if there are no big names on the speakers’ list: As it is an exciting subject and the project is interdisciplinary positioned it could be worth to take the trip to the beautiful city of Weimar and experience the Bauhaus-University and other things worth seeing like the houses of Goethe and Schiller, the Buchenwald Memorial or the Bauhaus Museum.