2KOOL4SKOOL Interview with The Rodina

1. Your statement: „I intend to question: what is the impact of something that I enjoy to the content of things I do.“ If we consider this statements it looks like you have a more artistic aproach on design than it is usually taught. Are you an artist? Or are you a designer? Do you consider yourself as designer just because of the media you work in? Or is this question not relevant anymore because the borders of design and art are completely gone?

Yes, we are educated as artists, therefore freedom is an important value for us. To be free is abut having control about what is your opinion and what shapes it. In this way we remain artists, but we are not interested in finding borders anymore. Our current questions are about properties of material we work with …

2. „…Pseudo-modernism’s “typical intellectual states” are furthermore described as being “ignorance, fanaticism and anxiety” and it is said to produce a “trance-like state” in those participating in it. The net result of this media-induced shallowness and instantaneous participation in trivial events is a “silent autism” superseding “the neurosis of modernism and the narcissism of postmodernism.“ (Wikipedia) Is it really PostPostmodernism that we are facing right now?

How would you define it? Do you think that there‘s a general definiton?

In meaning postmodernism as "discourse mash", YES we are still in. But typical postmodern aesthetic topics and issues are over. And we feel there is time for new universal discourse, whatever it is, may be it's internet.

3. „Originality in the sense of modernity, to create something „new“, is no longer the goal, pastiche and the quote of

earlier forms dominate the picture.“ (Rick Poynor) These days, we‘re dealing a lot with parody which is focused on humor again and not pastiche as it was the case in Postmodernism. In your eyes what do you think are addtional aspects of PostPostmodernism?

We think that engineers and technologies finished what modern artists begun and fail in. Under the aesthetic surface which can look postmodern, there exists "something universal". That's the post post modernism. In post digital age you can be disconnected from internet, but your fridge, car and hairdryer are connected.

4. In the era of modernism, designers tried to design objectively. In the era of Postmodernism they had an attitude which we would call egocentric. Nowadays conditioned to the extreme changing means of communication (Web 2.0, facebook,‌) everybody presents itself as an individual. (Although, when everybody presents itself in this way, theres not much individuality left.) What do you think is the future?

Are collectives, and teaming up together the way for designers to reach bigger goals?

Value of individuality is good motivation to consume. You have to still update your self-perception by buying new goods. If it works from economical point of view, we like it as designers.

It doesn't, but we don't believe that designers are the most important who will change it - most of them are the products of this system.

5. Modernism: Believe in progress Postmodernism: Acceptance took place PostPostmodernism: lack of opinion?

What ideologic approach do you think comes next? A neomodernism?

A mix up of everything due to the existing Remix-culture?

Meta Feng Shui 6. The god of internet… What do you mean by that?

The reason why we are dealing with this topic in our bachelor thesis is that we felt really overwhelmed by the Internet.

Everyday we‘ve browsed through tons of blogs, portfolios and mood-tumblr. We don‘t know why, because in a way it looks all the same. We‘ve noticed that we lost every kind of appreciation to pieces of art/design presented on onlinefolios.

What happened? Too much images, too less information? Is it a problem of the „image-society“?

Especially for young designers we think it is a problem, because they are not really reflecting on what they see. So what is the masterplan for using the internet?

We understand you feel overwhelmed by images. But Image is also information. Just uses different methodology or tools to deal with it and keep it real.

The god of the Internet is our long term artistic project, it is associative topic which help us communicate with other people and generate more specific discussion on related issues.

7. Do designers and artists nowadays escape in a digital world / paradise / arcadia / place of desire so as not to be social and political like designers and artists were about thirty years ago? Whats the reason for changes like this?

It is pretty easy: artists and designers are where the communication and crowd are. The most of the communication is done by digital tools - most of the surface are digital, people are connected.

8. Can you give us a forecast of what will happen to design?

Or will design eat itself?

The design will be always here, but will here be also designer?

We don't know.

_ The Rodina's interview for a book 2KOOL4SKOOL, a part of bachelor thesis made by Berlin students Sebastian Bareis and Lucas L채mmerhirt.