ABSURDITY & DESIGN INDUSTRIAL DESIGN TACTICS (GRAP1043)
Pedro Alemany Ferrer 2018-2019 RMIT
Design tactics_Absurdity & Design
I N D E X
SECTION 1
SECTION
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Design tactics_Absurdity & Design
SECTION 1 ABSURDITY & DESIGN
FIVE STUDY CASES David Perez Thomas Jacques
Pol
Walde Carelman
Alix Gallet
ALIX GALLET Introduction Who What How Why
BIBLIOGRAPHY
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ABSURDITY & DESIGN
Design tactics_Absurdity & Design
When we talk about the absurdity we talk about things that are different from the reality we live on, about things that doesn’t make sense, about things that are funny and also could be annoying. But when we talk about absurdity related to design, this strange, different, comic, incoherent, unreasonable things have a purpouse. Because the absurd designs are meant to have a purpose and to make people think about designs and about their meaning.
KEY WORDS:
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- Different
- Incoherent
- Without sense
-Surrealistic
- Strange
- Unexplored
- Unconventional
- Curious
- Shocking
- Alternative
- Unreasonable
- Ridicule
- Irrational
- Useless
- Uncomfortable
- Abstract
FIVE STUDY CASES
Design tactics_Absurdity & Design
Here are the five designers I found during my research. Firstly, I started searching absurd designers, or strange designers, but then I wanted to specialise with designers that had something important to say, that is why, I started to search about critical designers.
DAVID PEREZ POL THOMAS WALDE GIUSEPPE COLARUSSO JACQUES CARELMAN ALIX GALLET
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Design tactics_Absurdity & Design
DAVID PEREZ POL Spanish visual poet
David Perez Pol is a visual poet. The visual poetry includes a group of skills like writing, photography, sculpture and painting that tries to express an idea or a message that is the symbology of a metaphor.
Theory: What David Perez Pol is trying to do with his work is to give a visual representation of a message that he is trying to transmit with some of his poems or someone elses work. By doing this, he tries to express a symbology or a metaphor throughout the images that he creates.
Discourses: David Perez Pol says that he has to use the words as objects and the objects as words, which means, that we have to substitute the meaning of one and translated to the other, and in the opposite way, to create new ideas.
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Design tactics_Absurdity & Design
Methods: To achieve his work, David Perez Pol uses a couple of methods that help him to come with new ideas and create his images. Firstly, he takes a couple of objects, and tries to change their meaning. He substitutes the use of an object and gives to them the opposite one. Also, he tries to make new associations between different objects, to try to express a message, even though that the objects are mostly useless. And finally, he uses the poems to express a message througout these images, that he tries to put the least amount of words in them.
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Design tactics_Absurdity & Design
THOMAS WALDE Industrial designer
Thomas Walde is an industrial designer who works in the fields of furniture, and product design as a consultor and a designer. He is the co-founder of the Postfossil collective that is why he bases all of his work in the environment that surrounds him.
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Theory:
Methods:
What Thomas Walde is most interested in, is that his work has an important influence on the environment. That is why, the products that he makes, must know the rules of nature, and be very friendly with it. Because of that, all of Thomas Walde design, use renewable resources and he tries to not use, and depend on fossil fuels. Finally, his work is also based on social relevant problems that are happening right now around the world.
To do all of his products, he works in a studio with five other designers and industrial designers, that everyone has a different role, and then, they come together to decide how the product is going to be. That is why, each of the coworkers, has their own way to work.
Design tactics_Absurdity & Design
Discourses: He always tries to make his own work, and he says that he tries to conduct research on materials that assimilate a philosophy for an oiless future. Another of his discourses is that he wants to engage with the user and transmit the post fossil thought.
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Design tactics_Absurdity & Design
GIUSEPPE COLARUSSO Italian artist and photographer
Giuseppe Colarusso is an artist who makes everyday objects totally unusable, useless and funny.
Methods: Al lot of Giusseppe Colarusso work is done with photoshop or handmade objects. And to do that he has a couple of methods. Firstly, he tries to divert the functional operation of objects that surround us. So he gives different meaning to objects. And he does that by exploring the fundamental nature of objects, and see what they are made for, and give them another functionality, that most of the time is useless.
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Design tactics_Absurdity & Design
Discourses: Giuseppe Colarusso always says this: “unlikely, but not imposible”. This is the perfect resume of his work. That most of the things he makes are very strange and different, from the ones that exist right now in the world that surround us. But this can also be done, so they are not impossible, they have a purpouse. And finally, he sees his work as a kind of a surreal still life.
Theory: Giuseppe Colarrusso is an artist who does his work to make him smile and think about life, and about how things are being made in a regular way, and how can we change that. That is why he always makes this complex objects that doesn’t have any use, but they have a strong message. With that, with his work, he tries to test how people can handle their frustration with these objects and images that doesn’t have any sense.
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Design tactics_Absurdity & Design
JACQUES CARELMAN French painter and designer
Jacques Carelman was a french painter, illustrator and designer that did the catalogue of the fantastic things. In this catalogue, it appeared a couple of imaginary objects that he built to critique the everyday things.
Discourses: With his work, Jacques Carelman says that it is a criticism of our consumer society. So with that, what he is trying to say, is that we are a consumer society, that spend a lot of money on things that maybe are useless, so he tries to take different objects and give them another meaning so people think about their real use. So, to sum up all his discourse, he says that his objects are perfectly useless, because they are perfectly done to transmit a meaning, but they don’t have any use.
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Design tactics_Absurdity & Design
Methods: To transmit his work, he does a lot of sketching, and cartoons because, he says, it is the easiest and fastest way to transmit his message. Once he has his ideas in paper or in digital, then he takes the most absurd ones, and then he builds them, and take photos of them.
Theory: Jacques Carelman is centered in critique everything that surrounds him, like everyday objects and furniture, and tries to give them another meaning. He also, tries to put humor into objects. So he takes normal objects and makes the funny, so that you have a different impresiรณn of them.
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Design tactics_Absurdity & Design
ALIX GALLET French designer and visual artist Alix Gallet is a designer and a visual artist that focuses her work in disruptive communication and economics. She graduated in 2014 at Design Academy Eindhoven and she is a member of Ateliers Populaires, where they investigate the collective uses of spaces and lands with symbolic artifacts.
Discourses: What she is doing with her work is as she says, “tricking biometrics”. The biometrics identifiers are the characteristics that describe a person, so you can have psychological biometrics that involves the shape of the body, and then you can have the behavioral biometrics that involves the behavior of people. So with this biometrics, nowadays you are recognised into the software, so she says that “the idea is to replace, misplace and multiply your biometrics in order to be recognised as another person, several people or nobody.”
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Design tactics_Absurdity & Design
Theory: Alix Gallet bases her work in disruptive communication and economics. So to do that, she develops critical scenarios through fictional products and services. With her work, Alix is exaggerating reality, making it absurd, but beautiful, scary, but funny, and never dramatic.
Methods: So what she makes is a collection of jewellery using fake body parts to trick machines. She starts by asking herself “what if?� and then she develops a narrative to try to concern those who are building the future. Then, she tries to make people see the negative side of things, and combining these two methods, she develops these designs to trick biometrics.
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A L I X
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G A L L E T
INTRODUCTION
Design tactics_Absurdity & Design
Absurdity and design are two concepts that can be very related when we talk about transmitting a specific message or idea. Even though, the absurd design doesn’t have any primary function and sometimes it can be considered useless and irrational, it can be essential to express a feeling, an idea or a criticism to the way we are used to do things, or to the world that surround us. A part from all of these reasons, there are other artists that only want to test how can people handle their frustration when seeing an incoherent design. So, the main reason to combine design and absurdity is to create an impact to the audience, to make them think in a different way, and to see design from another perspective. In this essay, I am going to write about one specific designer that focuses her work in this field, combining jewellery and body parts. This specific designer is Alix Gallet.
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WHO
Design tactics_Absurdity & Design
Alix Gallet is a French designer and a visual artist. She was born in Le Mans, which is a small town in France. Since she was a small kid, she always knew she wanted to do something to contribute to social life, since her parents were very involved in the political life. Also, she was always interested in creativity and art, especially in a multidisciplinary approach to creativity because as she says, she didn’t want to be limited to one specific medium. She started studding fashion in France, to try to combine products and messages. Then she moved to Holland, to focus in a design education. Finally, she graduated in a fashion degree in 2014 at the Design Academy Eindhoven. Her graduating project was “Tricking Biometrics” in which she made a collection of jewellery based in body parts, to express a message that since the evolution of technology, all of our data is very accessible, and thanks to her jewellery, we can protect our physical identity. Nowadays, she is a member of the Ateliers Populaires de Paris, a studio where they investigate the different uses of spaces with symbolics artefacts.
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To describe her work, she raises a question: “Are we destined for a world where anonymity is a thing of the past?”. With this, what she is expressing about her work is that nowadays we don’t know how our data may be used, so she made this funny jewellery to replace, misplace and multiply our biometrics. Also, what she says about her work is that humour has played an important part in it, since she didn’t want be too dramatic with the topic that concerns her. By doing this, people saw her work just as a funny thing, a joke, just to make things in a different way. But when they learnt the purpose of her work, things changed. And then, they started to see the negative things in new technologies and the problems of not having a private life anymore.
WHAT
Design tactics_Absurdity & Design
Alix Galet most important work is the one she made for her final project before graduating. This project is the one called “tricking biometrics” and it was published in the funambulist magazine, the 6th edition that talked about “object politics”. In this edition of the magazine, it was described the importance of objects because they surround us, we use them, and we eat them. To begin to explain this project, first we need to know what biometrics are. Biometrics identifiers are a hole of characteristics that describe and define how is a person from the inside and from the outside. There are two types of biometrics; the physiological biometrics that describe all the physical characteristics that define a person, such as the shape of the body, the fingerprints, DNA, palm print, retina, etc. And then, there are the behavioural biometrics, that describe the behaviour of a person, such as the voice, gait, rhythm, etc.
And by that, we don’t have privacy anymore. So, with her project, what she is trying to do, is trick those biometrics by making a collection of jewellery, based of different body parts that represent different biometrics, to be recognised as another person, several people or simply, nobody. Also, Alix Gallet, contributed in the “DDW: Thing nothing”, exhibition in the Design Academy Eindhoven, where they expressed how design is dealing with different materials, shapes and production processed. Finally, she contributed in an exhibition called “A glimpse of future homes, then get to work”, that opened the 9th of March to the 11th of March of 2017 in Paris. And in this exhibition a lot of designers contribute to explain how the houses have changed during the years.
She says that nowadays, we can be recognised very easily, because all of our biometrics are inserted in different data around the world.
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Design tactics_Absurdity & Design Here are some pictures of the magazine she has been exposed and some of the work that was exposed in the exhibitions she has been involved.
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HOW
Design tactics_Absurdity & Design
Metdod cards from IDEO 1. What if? 2. Create a narrative to concern those who build the future 3. Make People see the negative side of things
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Learn
Look
Ask
Try
What if? HOW: Asking to yourself what if we change the things we do, the way we live, and the way we see our surroundings. By doing this, we will have another perspective of the world, and we can think of new designs in a different way. WHY: This method will help us to open our mind, and trying to find new possibilities to our surroundings. Just by thinking that maybe things could be done in a different way. WHEN: We could use this method, whenever we want to isolate from the usual thing that we do, and we need to find new possibilities to the thing that surround us.
www.ideo.com
Learn
Look
Ask
Try
Create a narrative to concern those who build the future HOW: Trying to develop a story to make a criticism to the new technologies that surround us in the present days and the ones that will be with us in the future. WHY: This method will help us to see the two sizes of everything. The benefits and the deficit of the objects we use every day in our life. And in this way, we would be able to see the different possibilities that things can have. WHEN: We can use this method when we think we are finishing a project but we want to make sure that everything is right. So, we examine it, trying to see, all the possibilities, in which the project can go wrong.
www.ideo.com
Learn
Look
Ask
Try
Make People see the negative side of things HOW: Convincing people that all the things have a negative side. And everything can go wrong at some point. Asking them if they can tell you all the thing that are not okay of something. WHY: By applying this method, people will know when a thing is not going in a good direction. You will be sure if a thing is not good, because someone will explain it to you from a different perspective. WHEN: This method can be applied when you are finishing a project and you want to make sure that everything is okay. So, you ask people to give them their opinion trying to be the most pessimist possible.
www.ideo.com
WHY
Design tactics_Absurdity & Design
Alix Gallet made this project to create a statement, about how new technologies can be very good and useful, but at the same time they can be very dangerous. Because, if all of our data is everywhere, then everybody else, knows how are you. And by knowing that, you can lose your identity, and don’t have privacy. So basically, she is making this jewellery to make people feel invisible and not that visible to all the machines that surround us. A part from this, she also wants to express different ideas from her project. Firstly, she is doing all of this because she wants to make people see the negative side of things. Because as she says, there is always a negative part of everything, and by doing that, it is easier to see all the possible mistakes that can be in our surroundings.
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Also, she says that she wants to exaggerate reality, by making it more absurd but at the same time, more beautiful, also she wants to make it scary, and also funny but the most important thing is not to make it dramatic. Because, although she says that we need to see the negative side of things, we should do it from a funny perspective, and trying to improve it in a funny way. Finally, she is making this project because as she said, since she was a young girl, she always felt devoted to contribute to do something for people, since her parents were very involved in the political life. So, she did this to try to help people in a metaphoric way, by giving them this tool that can make them invisible for a short time.
Design tactics_Absurdity & Design
SECTION 2 METHODS 01. Make new associations
between objects
02. Give objects anotherfunc-
tionality
03. Create objects that are
perfectly useless
CONCLUSSIONS BIBLIOGRAPHY
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Design tactics_Absurdity & Design
01. Make new associations between objects
Learn
Look
Ask
Try
Make new associations betwen objects HOW: Asking what could happen if we could take different objects and mix them, trying to make a new object with these two other ones. WHY: This method will help us to see things from another perspective. In this way, we are going to be able to make new associations, and combinations that can lead to new designs and objects. WHEN: This is a method that we can use when we are not sure what to design, but we have some references that we wanted to include in the new design
www.ideo.com
This is a method that helps us to create new objects by the association of other objects that already exist. The best way to do this, is to pick different objects from different scenarios and try to combine them in some way that it could become a new thing with a new meaning and a new use. What I did to complete and try this method, is drawing different objects that surround me, and then combine them in a very short period of time, to see what new thing can appear from these new associations. Here are the results of the method I tried
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Design tactics_Absurdity & Design
In this first drawing I combined a ball of basketball with a pencil case, creating this new pencil case with the structure of a ball
In this second drawing I combined a colander with a light creating this new lamp, that I will explain it with more detail in the next method
Finally, in this last drawing I combined an harp with some hangers creating this kind of clothesline to put all your clothes and dry them here
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Design tactics_Absurdity & Design
02. Give objects another functionality
Learn
Look
Ask
Try
Give objects another functionality HOW: Trying to take different objects and give them another functionality. By doing this, you will learn that the shape and structure of different objects can lead you to another idea of another object. WHY: This method will show you the possibilities of different objects and the many ways you can use them. WHEN: When you are stuck with a project, and you don’t have more ideas, you can take different objects from your surroundings and see what can happen if you use them in a different way.
www.ideo.com
This is a method that helps us to see the different options that different objects can have. By applying this method, you will see that the greatest ideas are just in front of you, just by taking objects of your surrounding ang giving them another functionality. What I did to complete this method, was taking different objects of my surrounding, and taking pictures of myself, to show that they can have another functionality. Here are the results of the method I tried
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Design tactics_Absurdity & Design
First of all, I took a chair of my kitchen and i turn it around. Then, I puted another chair below to make the structure more high. And finally, with this structure created, it became a coat rack tu put all your clothes. This helps us to see the different functionalities that a chair can have. Then, I took a colander from the kitchen, and I did the same as the chair. I turn it around and I say that the holes that it had, could create good images. So I turned the colander into a lamp I inserted below the colander a light and it created this amazing drawings in the wall of the room.
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Design tactics_Absurdity & Design
03. Create objects that are perfectly useless
Learn
Look
Ask
Try
Create objects that are perfectly useless HOW: Asking what could happen if we could take different objects and mix them, trying to make a new object with these two other ones. WHY: This method will help us to see things from another perspective. In this way, we are going to be able to make new associations, and combinations that can lead to new designs and objects. WHEN: This is a method that we can use when we are not sure what to design, but we have some references that we wanted to include in the new design
www.ideo.com
This is a method that helps us to see the perfection of every object that surround us, and the importance of every part of that object. Because, if you get rid of some part, that can become totally useless. That is why, this method is so important to show us, the necessity of all the elements of n object. What I did to complete and try this method, is making some kind of collages with photoshop and drawings, getting rid of parts of some objects to see what can happen if we take those parts. Here are the results of the method I tried.
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Design tactics_Absurdity & Design
First of all, I did an umbrella that doesn’t have the textile part, so in that way, with this umbrella, you can get totally wet. And that reminds uus the importace of that part
And then I did a cup that has a hole in the middle of it, so everytime you put some liquid inside, this one is gonna go outside. So that reminds us of the importance of every part of an object.
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CONCLUSION
Design tactics_Absurdity & Design
After realising this project there a few things I learnt from it. First of all, I understood the meaning and the purpose of absurdity related to design. And even though is not very useful and sometimes it can be associated with something incoherent, it has an important message that wants to be transmitted. So, in the case of Alix Callet, she made this strange and unconventional jewellery just to make her point clear, not to try to make people wear her products. Also, by doing this project I learnt more about this specific designer, Alix Gallet. By getting to know her and her projects, I learnt some of the methods she uses to get inspiration, that I founded very interesting and useful. So, she helped me to see things and make things in a different way, and not the conventional. Finally, also thanks to these methods, I could create new ideas of new designs in a very short period of time, because all of my three methods required to bee done very fast to get the maximum of idea possible. And I learnt, that absurdity and design can be a very good combination because, thanks to it, you understand the meanings of thing, and why are they done in one way or another. Also, at the end of this project, I hink tthat my research skills have improved in a very positive way.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
Design tactics_Absurdity & Design
Students: traking biometrics by Alix Gallet. The funambulist. [searched on the 10 of May]. You can find the information here: https://thefunambulist. net/articles/students-tracking-biometrics-alix-gallet Put on your internet fase. Designindaba. [searched on the 9 of May]. You can find the information here: http://www.designindaba.com/articles/ creative-work/put-your-internet-face Trking biometrics. Alix Gallet Blog. [searched on the 9 of May]. You can find the information here: https://alixgalletblog.wordpress.com/2016/08/22/ tricking-biometrics/ The Imaginary interna lof living your work wich Glimpse of future homes, then get to work at Glassbox. Aqnb. [searched on the 7 of May]. You can find the information here: https://www.aqnb.com/2017/03/29/the-imaginary-internal-of-living-your-work-with-glimpse-of-future-homes-then-getto-work-at-glassbox/ The funambulist nº6 Object politics. The funambulist. [searched on the 10 of May]. You can find the information here: https://thefunambulist.net/ magazine/object-politics Thing nothing. Design Academy. [searched on the 10 of May]. You can find the information here: https://www.designacademy.nl/events/archive-events/thing-nothing A Glimpse of Future Homes, Then Get to Work’ at Glassbox Centre d’Art, Paris. Tzvetnik. [searched on the 5 of May]. You can find the information here: http://tzvetnik.online/portfolio_page/a-glimpse-of-future-homesthen-get-to-work-at-glassbox-centre-d-art/ · Designindaba. Put on your internet face. [searched on the 03 of April]. You can find the information here: http://www.designindaba.com/articles/creative-work/put-your-internet-face · Ersilias. Díez + Zeíd, poeta visual. David Perez Pol. [searched on the 20 of March ]. You can find the information here: https://www.ersilias.com/diezzeid-poeta-visual/ · Itsnicethat. Jacques Carelman’s Impossible Objects. [searched on the 19 of March]. You can find the information here: https://www.itsnicethat. com/articles/impossible-objects · Giuseppe Colarusso. [searched on the 19 of March]. You can find the information here: http://www.giuseppecolarusso.it/ · postfossil. Thomas Walde. [searched on the 20 of March ]. You can find the information here: http://www.postfossil.ch/about/thomas-walde/
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