A Collective Daydream, Amsterdam Imagined in 2059. - October 4th, 2009
speculative peculiars part 2
Edwin
Gardner creative deStruction A diary of a professional creative
2058-2059 theSe are a Selection of entrieS from a diary from the future written by a young and ambitiouS ‘creative’ directing one of the beSt creative agencieS in amSterdam. in thiS particular future the extrapolation of the creative city iS explored, the home of the creative claSS aS deScribed by richard florida and aS embraced by the city of amSterdam, although by 2059 Some are having Some Second thoughtS on what it meanS to be a creative city.
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Infinite playground
Blasé
Amsterdam has become like New Babylon. The uncomfortable utopia conceived by Constant Nieuwenhuijs. Amsterdam; a city packed with so called creatives, they are the incarnations of Constant’s homo ludens, ‘the playing man’. The age of ‘the working man’ has ended, now we just spend our days playing, we’ll have to be creative until the end of time. ... Perpetual reinvention, my head aches at the idea.
I’m surrounded with well educated, eloquent and fashionable people. I hop from espresso bar to tea lounge. From restaurants in factory halls, to nightclubs in subway tunnels. From art galleries suspended between the trees, to launch events on roof tops, from conferences on zeppelins, to congresses on urban farms, from seminars on submarines to masterclasses on trains, from parties on construction sites to birthday bashes on hovercrafts. I feel so bored sometimes ...
poSt #668 - 05:42 tueSday 1St Jan 2058
poSt #694 - 06:16 Saturday 16th mar 2058
Good intentions
It’s all in the mix
poSt #671 - 17:42 monday 21St Jan 2058
When I touch newly designed objects, walk around in hip interiors I feel a form of sadness. Everything is designed, everything object has an intention. So much effort went in to make an experience, to communicate something, to make the user feel something, the obviousness of the effort makes me sad. I enjoy old objects more, the intentions of the design has faded or its functionality expired, it’s not trying so hard to prove itself anymore. The nostalgia works consoling. Also things that are engineered feel more real than things designed. Engineering has more objective goals, like that it shouldn’t break or that it should make use of a material in the most efficient way. That’s why designed objects are often more honest and less pretentious on the inside, opened up, exposing the machinery the wiring. But what I enjoy most of all are things and spaces without any intent, these are the most beautiful and consoling ... but where to find them in the city?
Satisfaction
poSt #682 - 23:30 thurSday 28th feb 2058 We got chosen with our office to make a proposal for the rebranding of the city of Amsterdam. I should be a bit more psyched about it, I mean it’s Amsterdam: Creative Capital of the world for like 14 years in or a row or something, at least according to the outdated indexes of Florida. It’s gonna be hard to make an impression on all the creative comrades out there, although we always seem to manage. It’s weird, that with getting the most wanted commission in the city I feel a dissatisfaction, instead of euphoria.
poSt #702 - 22:10 wedneSday 20th mar 2058 At the office we had an inflamed discussion about concepts for a new shoe brand. The concepts we talked about were all about a remix of this, a sampling of that or doing a retro. In other words; an exercise in rehashing it one way or another. Rehashing is the fastest way of making something new, or at least appear new, but the newness is always short lived. So no problem, it’s a perfect fit for fashion, which has no interest in the long haul. The rehash in design is different, after the first reflex-smile-of-recognition, comes the irritation that we’re only experiencing two things we already know, two everyday objects and their functions twisted, mashed up to make a new ‘unexpected’ combination. I always call it the Droog Design effect, after a period in the late 20th century when these formalistic jokes were something the Dutch got known for in the high design ‘slash’ art world, but when you look at it now, it all looks like cheap trickery to me ... It’s a recurrent sensation I have when I have to come up with something like a new shoe concept. I just can’t help it... fashion should have stayed in Milan and Paris...
Too Creative
poSt #728 - 19:14 tueSday 9th apr 2058 We had a high profile meeting concerning the new branding scheme for Amsterdam, we met with the mayor, some aldermen and the entire board of the creative industries association. The meeting was weird and inspiring at the same time . I’m not sure what to think of it yet. All these commissioners, executives and politicians
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were worried about that the creative city was becoming too exclusive and mono-functional. After Amsterdam had won the war of the creative cities, Amsterdam had become a metropolis packed with hipsters, slash artists, bohemians, gays, supermodels and whiz kids. All the weed, junks, whores, gypsies and homeless had left for Rotterdam which practically functions as a ban de lieu of Amsterdam by now. Amsterdam was clean now, and on the verge of becoming boring. All the cultural hotspots, talent breeding grounds and other forefronts of gentrifications had reached Badhoeverdorp by now. The city clearly needed more than just a rebranding. You could even feel a sense of desperation with the city’s executives, ... they gave us carte blanche.
Utopia realized
poSt #729 - 23:47 thurSday 11th apr 2058 The recent turn of events around the city rebranding commission are keeping me awake. I can’t get my head around it. How to undo the creative city? Somehow Amsterdam has done the impossible, they were now the utopia they so desperately fought for to become, and now they didn’t like it. This thought is paralyzing and has a mind numbing effect on me... Is this it? Is this what utopia looks like?
around the world so it could find it’s way to you. Making, designing, conjuring up meaning for the physical world around us seems to be like black magic or voodoo, a ritual in which the physical dies to make the metaphysical real, ... for as long as it lasts anyway.
The uncreative city poSt #788 - 23:27 tueSday 17th Sep 2058
What to propose for Amsterdam.... Once again it has to reinvent itself, but the problem is it can’t be superficial this time. How to make the creative city uncreative? It would be good if Amsterdam could go on a gap year, backpacking around the globe, hitchhiking, do some soul searching, get some sleep. But well, cities cannot stop to take a break. We cannot get the old people out and get some new ones, we can’t bomb the city and start over, we can’t ‘‘control z’’ the whole damn place. Perhaps we could convert the gurus of creativity to preach uncreativity, ... whatever that may be. Perhaps we could dig up an old religion, or make a new one, perhaps we need a new period of iconoclasm. Perhaps we could make a funeral, and burry the creative city, send it out on a burning raft on the IJ....
Iconoclasm
poSt #796 - 00:54 thurSday 3rd oct 2058
Making meaning
poSt #742 - 16:04 Sunday 12th may 2058 When you invent meaning for an object, do you deplete the object of its own significance? What I mean is; when you desire an object, you first consume all its images, animations and sounds through the multitude of screens that surround you. The propaganda machine works overtime for your desired object, to supercharge it, to create an aura around it, an atmosphere of happiness, status, achievement and all the other bullshit. And then when you buy it, unpack it, and you switch it on ... it dies. The disappointment is immense, a disillusion. Because the object is not what you thought it would be, it didn’t give you what you believed it would give you. It’s a mere object. It’s like the life was sucked out of it, and put on billboards. It’s like the soul had left the body of your desired object and was broadcasted, wallpapered and printed
The idea was so radical, so inspiring and elevating that the city of Amsterdam, and the board of creative industries applauded it with a standing ovation. A new era of iconoclasm has been heralded in, many of the executives even showed genuine relief, that they could finally leave the period of the creative city behind, the board members of creative industries were convinced that they could get all the large design and advertising firms to cooperate, the smaller ones would follow. It felt like we went beyond a horizon, it was like new vistas were opening up, unknown, but all the more intriguing.
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Redemption
new years eve
Destroy the image, and burry the creative city. With iconoclasm we had enough historical reference material to make a grand narrative to elevate the people. One of the main pillars of devotion of all the religions that descended from Abraham was; that you couldn’t give God a name, you couldn’t make an image of God. Instead of perpetual reinvention we could now go on a quest for eternal truth and unity. Nirwana as the redemption of the creative city.
At midnight all urban screens will be switched off, billboard posters will be taken down. All fashion retailers will only sell white garments with no labels. The newspapers and magazine’s will leave their ads out. All objects will be undone of every trademark. A massive procession of ‘creatives’ dressed in white will march towards the IJ, carrying with them their images of desire. When they’ve reached the IJ, everyone will descend into the river as if they were cleansing themselves on the steps of the sacred Gangesh. The unholy images will be collected on barges that will be set aflame and float away on the river burning into the night.
poSt #797 - 11:23 friday 4th oct 2058
poSt #826 - 21:01 tueSday 31St dec 2058
Productive crisis poSt #814 - 15:45 Sunday 10th nov 2058
I am beginning to get second thoughts about my proposal for making Amsterdam ‘uncreative’ again. Not because, it’s not a brilliant idea, not that it wouldn’t work, people have long accepted the insignificance of the fact if a movement is run by politics, activists, religious parties or corporations. In the end only the meaning, the profoundness, the intention and consistency of the message, or idea matters. The boundaries between the spheres of political, commercial and civic interest have long evaporated. But wouldn’t this whole operation just be another reinvention, a crisis made productive, a point where we create new values and than again continue for a few decades, before the next crisis of creativity will unfold...?
Going Beyond
poSt #827 - 13:11 friday 3rd Jan 2059 Around the world there had been a run on the all-white, label-less designer goods. Many companies hired the Dutch to destroy their images, to cleanse their branding. All-white, the signs were all still there, but all similar: the same font, same size and no images. The messages were objective and honest, they broadcasted technical information instead of spin. No idolization, a communism of imagery, all equal... The campaign had been a worldwide success, the press was lyrical about the recent turn of the Dutch Designers. It was beyond creative, we had reached the next level of creation, nobody fully understood it yet, ... but one thing was for sure, Amsterdam was the most creative city in the world.
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Images taken from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ht9gnp94wou
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Another SID LEE collective fanzine