TWO CONSERVATIVE TRENDS

OK, I need to blog this one. I know the piece fits in here if only indirectly, but it’s downright hilarious to let it pass unremarked. And if the aim of this blog is to follow the trends in culture, here I have through implication just discovered two of them – synonymous, but mutually exclusive. Let’s put it this way: conservative maximality vs. conservative minimality. And this is what the real American conservatism, an exponent of the former, has to say on the conservative European tendencies towards sustainable compactness: “Why do Yurpeens build smaller and smaller cars every year? What is their obsession with minimalism? […] So, this is to all you Yurpeens out there: America laughs about you and your ugly cars! Do you think Jesus would drive a “Smart”? I don’t think so!” Alright, alright: Jesus would drive Hummer H2… And I think I have just deserved a BigMac for dinner tonight - with everything on it and extra cheese (not a Swiss variant) as a sign of divine blessing. I’ll laugh back later.

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JORDI ROCA, SPAIN

Jordi Roca, Chef of Restaurant Celler de Can Roca, studied at Catering Trade School and Tourism of Girona and did a course with famous pastry maker Angelo Corbito. He worked in Restaurant El Bulli, Hotel Aiguablava-Begur and won many awards as “The best pastrymaker of the year 2003” , “The best desserts 2005” and was given the 1st award in the raffle of Catering School of Girona in 1996.

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PETER LUTE, NETHERLANDS

Peter Lute, once a a trainee chef at a one star restaurant, owns now a restaurant with suites, a boat, a growing fanclub, and much more. If you like being at ease, enjoy terrific food with equally terrific wines, and prefer to spend your evenings in an atmosphere that does not have the word ‘intimidating’ on its menu, go there. ‘Harmony’ is what jumps to mind. The harmony of nature is also key in Peters cuisine, where an adequate team of chefs cherishes nature’s products before they end up on a plate, all sensational and exquisite and accompanied by fine wines.

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JOACHIM SAUTER, GERMANY

After completing his MA at the academy of fine arts in Berlin Joachim Sauter studied at the ‘German Academy for Film and Television’, Berlin. He has been using computers both as a tool and as a medium from the early stages of his work. Fueled by this interest, he founded ART+COM in 1988 together with other artist, designers, scientists and technicians. Their goal was to practically research this new upcoming medium in the realm of art and design.

In the course of his work he was invited to participate on many exhibitions. Beside others he showed his work at ‘Ars Electronica’ Linz, ‘Centre Pompidou’ Paris, ‘Stejdilik Museum’ Amsterdam, ‘Museum for Contemporary Art’ Sidney, ‘Deichtorhallen Hamburg’ , ‘Venice Biennial’, ‘ICC’ Tokyo, ‘Getty Center’ Los Angeles, ‘ZKM’ Karlsruhe.

He received several awards like the ‘Ars Electronica Interactive Award’, the ‘Los Angeles Interactive Media Award’, the ‘Prix Pixel INA’, the ‘British Academy for Film and Television Interactive Award’, the ‘German Design Award’ and the ‘Swiss Design Award’.

Since 1991 he is full professor for “New Media Art and Design” at the ‘University of the Arts’ Berlin and since 2001 adjunct professor at UCLA, Los Angeles.

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DESIGN INSIDE OUT

There seem to be two general approaches to design: design as ways of organizing objects around a person (traditional approach with the main focus on the given human nature, needs and emotions) and design as ways to organize a person around objects. This last one – “change-your-body-to-suit-your-suit” type of methodolody – is somewhat problematic from a certain ethical point of view. Not a bit so in the perspective advocated by bioengineers, though. What person? What needs? What feelings and emotions? Why should all these old unverifiable subjectivistic notions be taken as irreducible constants into which everything else is to be translated or derived from? Do you feel uncomfortable in your space? Let’s just change your neuroperception of that space. The problem is in your head. You find a pile of toxic industrial waste in the residential proximity in conflict with the idea of urban sustainability? Let’s just paint that junk gold (or whatever color you still naively think pleases you) and genetically modify your biological nature to sustain or even appreciate the effects of toxicity. The problem is not the waste, but your body that is evolutionary not strong enough to adapt to the dynamic environmental factors. You do not have enough fresh air in the environment to breathe? You no longer need to breathe air – just swallow this pill for now…

John Harris, a Professor of Bioethics at the University of Manchester School of Law, joint editor-in-chief of the Journal of Medical Ethics, and the author of numerous best-selling books on genetic engineering, arguably dissects, tears down, and exposes the inherent helplessness of the so-called “strong arguments” against genetic design of better humans. In his recent Ethical Case For Making Better People the author supports designing ourselves in almost any way we desire. And it’s not only morally defensible to enhance ourselves; in some cases, it’s morally obligatory.

That’s all right. But in some cases, I sort of like my weaknesses. And in some cases, I can wait on becoming a perfect construct of a laboratory science.

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FROM NIHIL TO EVERYTING

So much going on in the world of design! – qualitatively and quantitatively much more than, say, in the sphere of politics that seems to keep inventing it’s wheel over and over again – perpetually introducing and canceling the same old pragmatic laws, depending on the current arrangement of social prejudices and forces that switch back and forth, from pro to con and vice versa in a vicious and deadening tautological circling. But when it comes to aesthetic forms (here they rarely skin a cat twice), I find myself in the infinite cosmos of unprecedented and astonishing information, and I can practically float in any direction without fear of ever loosing the ground, or, rather, the paradigmatic fluidity that characterizes the domain and in a certain reactive measure shifts with me.

But in these open conditions, I do have some issues. Considering the economy of the space (there is no way I can cover everything that is noteworthy), every time I am about to publish an article, I go through mental pain of intuitively calculating a degree of relevance of the basically relevant and interesting material. And in the final analysis, it’s my irrationality that sets one news over another – both equally fit-to-print. And in some instances, I am almost tempted to introduce the piece with a disclaimer to the effect: the views expressed in this article do not represent the thinking of design hotels ™. Indeed, does the content of the Furoshiki manual really denote “the idea of sustainable and holistic existence“? Honestly, this view is a bit far-fetched.

But I have no concerns of this nature and no reservations on pertinence in the face of the following fact: ARNE QUINZE… a true nomad, whose personality epitomizes the idea of creativity with a claim from Nihil to Everyting, intimately close to the heroic definition of the Artist: the one who creates high values out of nothing and by this gesture provides the justification for the Art in its entirety – as a form of the most genuine and fulfilling existence. Quinze is to share his ideas at the Future Forum 2007.

“Trail-blazing, innovative, bursting with energy, provocative, self-made – it’s all but impossible to reduce the personality of founding director Arne Quinze (1971) to a few words. ‘Leader of a rock band’ probably comes closest – but, hey, we are talking about design here.

Maybe that’s the problem: to describe him as a ‘designer’ just doesn’t do the trick. Lacking a sterling education and shaped by the street life of his youth, Quinze epitomizes the self-made man. Homeless at the age of fifteen, he roamed the streets for half a year, stealing food to survive. He says graffiti kept him going. ‘It was my creative outlet.’

In the two years that followed, he hung out with a motorcycle gang. All his energy went into street art sprayed on hundreds of trains, tunnels and walls. He experienced what it meant to have something worth fighting for. That ’something’ was his creativity, the only thing he had to hold on to. It gave him a healthy veneer of arrogance and the perseverance needed to conquer every obstacle in his path. He hasn’t lost that fighting spirit, but it’s been translated into the ability to get things done – the kinds of things other people consider impossible. ‘A project doesn’t really catch my interest until i hear the words “can’t be done”.’

Kicking off Quinze’s first defiant collection in 1999 was Primary Pouf, which shook the very foundations of the lethargic world of design. A resounding success that still sells at the amazing rate of over 15,000 pieces annually.

In addition to designs for his own label, he creates furniture for Moroso, a firm with close ties to Quinze & Milan. In 2006, the father of four – the perfect man for the job – launched Minus+, his first children’s collection.

But Quinze & Milan is more than a design agency. It’s a platform, a label that also features the work of other designers – ‘I find the synergy enormously fascinating’ – and that supports architects and designers in the realization of their ideas. And quinze designs more than just products. Think installations, graphics, architecture, sportswear, perfume bottles, house hold accessories, lorries. Far beyond his modular seating for public spaces and private homes, another world feels the touch of Quinze’s pencil.

Take those words literally and consider villa tinto, a ‘house of pleasure’ in Antwerp; a high-end truck for radiator company Jaga; and two projects commissioned by architecture firm Oma: interior seating for the Seattle Library and, more recently, a light system for Dark, the interior design of the prestigious Charles and Dee Wyly Theatre in Dallas. Japanese brand Onitsuka tiger partnered with Quinze for the design of a total concept: putting his touch to their collection. It’s a job that’s right up his alley: crafting the dynamics of a entire outfit in terms of branding, marketing, the whole package.

He likes pushing the boundaries – his own and those of the people around him. In Quinze’s cosmos, boundaries exist only to be shifted. By giving himself a continual barrage of challenges, he finds himself on a series of untrodden paths. Although it might be more accurate to say he blazes new trails that start deep within a creative mind he describes as ‘organized chaos’. Emerging from chaos like a ticking time bomb, fed by constant bursts of creativity, spurred on by hungry clients, always wondering what’s next. Aeroplanes? ‘Could be.’ Urban design? ‘definitely interesting.’ ‘Expect the unexpected’ probably covers it all. Be aware.” – Future Design Days

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TWO HUNDRED SEVENTY FIVE KUBIKS

“Where do architecture, sustainability, light and music converge? At Kubik, a very hip, greenly-designed nightclub currently located in Barcelona. Kubik is a temporary open-air installation linking architecture, light and music with a contemporary air of reclaimed material usage. A radically different nightclub, the space is open to the sky and besides the sea, the structure built from hundreds of reclaimed, stacked, and illuminated industrial tanks…

Founded and first installed in Berlin, Kubik now settles for the limited time of four months from June 13th until September 29th at the Fòrum Barcelona. Two-hundred seventy-five illuminated industrial tanks are piled one on top of each other, building a spectacular designed object of walls and columns. Inside Kubik, visitors experience illuminated cubes, whose light geometry constantly changes to the rhythm of music.”

http://www.kubikbarcelona.com

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WHAT’S ON “THE MIND”?

Now, this is an interactive system designed to sample and output a collective voice of the audience during an event. The collective logos is supposedly symptomatic of the aggregate mood and deep feeling, technically constrained in its expression to one word at a time. How the thing works: people send short sms messages to one telephone number; the messages are being processed by a computer software that generates semantic trees. Eventually, layers of texts build up a cybernetic foliage of collective psyche. Simple as that. I have a little problem with all this though - that of interpretation… Excuse my Italian, but do you see the word VODKA down there in that foliage of verbally reduced minds? Does it mean they had too much of it or not at all? It makes some difference, right? The Zeitgeist lost in language…

“Night is One is a format of 5 events around Italy to present the new BMW series 1.”

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SOAKED WITH THE MESSAGE

Shall we call it “the spillovers of advertising?” In this particular case, the message has spilt well – as long as it’s not your family van.

Advertising Agency: TM Advertising

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WILL TO STYLE

It was Friedrich Nietzsche who once postulated the “will to Power” as a basic principle of human conduct. And it was a century later when Michel Foucault, a French philosopher, transposed this notion into the “will to Truth” — with no other aim as to conceptually finish it’s very possibility along with that of the endogenous Self so fundamental to modernists. Since then relieved of the troubling philosophical requirement of finding the essence in our personal choices, their elemental and central meaning, we are free to postulate the coming of the age of the Forms: we now aspire to Style. And this new aspiration is profound.

“I am aware that this is considered to be a five-star Hilton,” said Nicole Brockett, 22. See, seeking transitory experiences of the highest order and in her situation having shopped around for the best accommodations available, Brockett finally booked into one of the jails about 30 miles southeast of Los Angeles. “Everyone here is really nice. I haven’t had a problem with any of the other girls. They give me shampoo.” I am now reading an article in New York Times that describes a new trend in, how to better put it, the enforced hospitality industry. For offenders whose crimes are relatively minor and whose bank accounts prove lofty in advance, a few jails in the United States offer the design upgrades. For some hundred bucks a day, the convicts — who are appropriately re-titled as “clients” — enter the “boutique” jail through a lobby (as opposed to the driveway reserved for the arrival of the not so style-minded prisoners), get a separate room and, in some cases, have the right to bring an iPod. Style-wise, an IPod in a prison cell is a delightful abundance by itself, but the major design advantage is in something else and not as tangible (well, it really depends on the definition of tangibility) — it is a delicately beautiful idea of isolation which comfortably means that a client avoids the whole pack of the prison gang issues. There is a marketing wisdom behind this spectacular development in the correctional hospitality industry. The sales pitch is right on target: “Bad things happen to good people.” While all people, in accordance with their means and imagination, strive for Forms.

“Contemporary, good value cell in the centre of nowhere”.. Eh? Perhaps not.

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