V&A museum.
Telling Tales Exhibition
The ‘Telling Tales’ exhibition at the V&A is a collection of works which attempt to convey meaning through design and showcases the emergence of what has been termed as ‘Design Art’. Designers come from an industrial and product design background but have created pieces which are more symbolic than functional. The pieces are said to bridge the gap between art and design. However when questioned about their designs in reference to the term ‘Design Art’ designers
Tord Boontje, Job Smeets (Studio Job) and Jurgen Bey seem quick to dismiss the term and deny the relevance to their work.
Walking through the exhibition, I was required to look at the works from the perspective of a product designer and more specifically to look at how these designs correspond with the idea of unproduct design (discussed in my previous blog). Now to do this I need to think again about what I understand by the term design and its purpose. I dont subscribe to the industrialised view of design; a mass production of products with a focus on function. I believe good design must consider form, style and indeed art in its production, however this must not be to the detriment of its functionality. I think that many of the pieces in this exhibition have lost a great deal of their functional purpose as products instead concentrating on the aesthetic qualities of their products.
Each of the pieces in the collection tells a tale; in the forest glade, designers make reference to fairy tales, and a world of fantasy; in the enchanted castle designers have created a collection which parodies historical design styles displaying affluence; in heaven and hell the designers have made pieces which question views surrounding mortality and the afterlife. It is the narrative element in each of these designs that draws them together and brings them to this exhibition.
As you walk in to the exhibition the forest glade opens up your imagination. Each of the pieces have a fantastical element to them, many referring to specific fairy tales. They center around the ability of design to allow their user to disengage with ordinary life and reconnect them to a state of innocence and wonder.
Tord Boontje is an interesting designer to look at in the forest glade, especially in terms of unproduct design. The fig wardrobe refers to the biblical notion of Paradise. It is a very beautiful object and intricate detail has been paid in its manufacture with majority of the wardrobe being hand made from luxurious materials. The meaning people attach to the story of paradise encourages positive connotations with the fig wardrobe and creates an emotional attachment to the product.
The fantastical element to his designs encourages escapism and allows its user to disengage with the stresses of modern life. With a renewed importance placed on decoration and a move away from modern minimalistic design. “I wanted to create something richer more narrative and story telling in that sense” (Tord Boontje, 2009: http://vimeo.com/5743694). By attaching a deeper meaning to design, the user engages with the product and it becomes more than just an object.
Boontje has an easily recognisable design style. His designs are very organic, their form inspired by nature and containing a magic or romantic feel to them. (http://designmuseum.org/design/tord-boontje) While this style transcends through all his products, Boontje’s earlier designs such as the tranSglass series of recycled green bottles, Rough-and-Ready furniture and the Garland light re-created and mass produced as the ‘wednesdaylight’ for habitat, look at ways of reusing existing materials, cutting down on manufacturing, and creating products that could be described as ‘unproduct’; which appears to be in stark contrast to his latest pieces. His previous designs were inclusive, in that they allowed the masses to create a ‘Tord Boontje’ design themselves, the DIY type manuals given away to help people create a piece of ‘rough and ready furniture’ out of refuse materials, and the sheet of cut metal which wrapped around a light bulb to create a decorative shade. 
This chair was made and the image posted up by a person called Versluis in his blog (http://dcaiga.blogspot.com/2009/08/thoughtfully-appealing-design.html) using the instructions gained from Tord Boontje’s website.
However this latest collection, while the products carry the same deign style, reflected in the themes of nature and fantasy, they are made up of one-off exclusive pieces, aimed at a completely different market, made of unsustainable materials and using labour intensive manufacturing processes, putting design out of reach off the masses.
Speaking briefly now of other products in the forest glade; 
the narrative themes of myth and fantasy run throughout. Almost to the point that they are creating a lie, claiming to be something they are not. I am thinking specifically of the ‘Sculpt’ wardrobe (Maarteen Bass) 
which appears to be made of a solid tree trunk but is in fact veneered steal, and ‘Table# 1′ (Patrik Fredrikson) which appears to be roughly put together using scraps of wood, in reality, ‘the logs were carefully chosen for their even, pale grain, and the highly polished cut surfaces are perfectly aligned’. Thus in attempt of a conclusion, the forest glade appears on first look to depict a fantasy which allows us to escape the reality of modern life and be consumed by these magical products, however in reality the fantasy is merely that, an unachievable dream or idea; a badly functioning product.
Moving on from the forest glade, I walk into ‘The Enchanted Castle’ a section of the exhibition which has a satirical look at historical design, and the references it made to status. 
One of the more appealing pieces in the collection for me, was the pixellated chair by Jurgen Bey. Its simplicity and rustic feel appeal to me in the same way that Boontje’s rough and ready furniture does. It looks at a beautiful design and deconstructs it, creating something that resembles the original, but takes on a character all of its own. This ‘innappropriate’ use of poor materials and modern manufacturing process creates a parody between this chair and the 18th century design it resembles, which was produced in a time when ‘style and design were a visual language that indicated social and worldly status.
Jurgen Bey is also an interesting subject when considering the question of ‘unproduct’.
“Jurgen Bey (1965) is driven by the ambition to understand the world. He is able to question it in a unique manner. According to him, wanting to think or create something new is bizarre, for every thing or solution we can possibly dream of does already exist in the world around us. It is just a question of recognizing it and then of being able to translate it into something people want to use.” (Louise Schouwenberg)
Jugen Bey’s contribution to the ‘Designing Critical design’ exhibition demonstrates a look at design from an ‘unproduct’ stance. His designs are produced by recycling and reusing existing materials seen in his collection of ‘crate furniture’ displayed at the z33 exhibition, and by converting waste materials, such as dust in his production of ‘vacuum bag furniture’
To look at other exhibits from the ‘Desigining Critical Design exhibition’ click here.
Another exhibit which attracted my attention in the Enchanted Castle collection, for completely different reasons, was the ‘Robber Barron Collection’ by Studio Job. This collection consisting of the mantel clock, table, cabinate, standing lamp, and jewel safe, resemble 18th century design.
The Robber Barons were those ruthless 19th-century American industrialists who amassed – and spent – vast fortunes. The objects in this collection, decorated with imagery drawn from heavy industry and warfare, may appeal to the Robber Barons of today: power-hungry despots, oligarchs and bankers
In my opinion these pieces have a very interesting narrative quality, the longer you look at them , the more detail you notice about the ‘tale’ they are telling. 
The standing lamp for instance is based on the shape of the empire state building, however if you look closer at the base of the lamp, it appears to be built on top of an ancient roman building telling the tale of historical origins. The top of the building has been replaced by the roof of the Whitehouse and there is some sort of airship crashing into it, suggesting some relation to the 9/11 disaster, the middle of the building is surrounded by gold balls which resemble an explosion. This use of warfare imagery makes this a very evokative narrative piece.
However as design pieces the functionality of these products have had wide criticism, they “ err on the side of dysfunction” and in an interview with Smeets he admits to not being interested in functionalism (NY times http://themoment.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/12/studio-job-the-art-of-clicheed-design/) . It is as if Studio job has ‘taken functional, everyday objects, yet rendered them useless’ (NY400, http://www.ny400.org/arts/dutch-design-studio-job-loves-clich)
The pieces by Studio Job could not be further from the idea of unproduct, they are produced without focus on their funtionality, made as one off production from expensive materials. However if we consider where these pieces will end up; in the houses of modern ‘Robber Barons’ as discursive pieces, then technically they fulfil the function they were designed for, and cant be criticised for that.
Finally moving into the ‘Heaven and Hell’ section of the exhibition, this was the section as a product designer I was the least inspired. 
They were very evokative, thought provoking pieces, but in most cases I couldnt see how they translated to functioning products, for example look at the storm chair, visually representing both the form of a chair, and the chaos of a storm, but completely useless as a product.
The pieces in this section seem to hold the most meaning; the other sections tell tales that we can remove ourselves from, the fantasy of fairytales and magic of enchanted castles, this final section tells a tale of death, one which eventually will be a reality for us all. The meaning behind the majority of these pieces relies upon these associactions with death and our anxieties surrounding our own mortality.
From an unproduct stance, the two pieces which look at taxidermy; the ‘Moulded Mole Slippers’
( Niels van Eijk , and Miriam van der Lubbe), and the stuffed fox stool 
‘Do you hear what I hear?’ (Kelly McCallum) have transformed these animals, taking their dead carsus’ and giving them new life as products. The gold plated maggots represting new life created from death. These products question our attitudes surrounding death, but also around the use of animals, the ongoing debate surrounding fur.
Revital Cohen is an interesting angle to look at this debate surrounding life death and the use of animals as products. His project ‘Life Support’ 
looks at the transformation of animals into medical devices. He looks at the use of guide dogs as medical aids and the ‘natural symbiosis with the patients who rely on them’ compared to the use of a computerised machine and questions whether this can be applied elsewhere. For example in the case of a retired greyhound, where its respiritory function could be used to help ventilation in humans.
It questions the way we see animals in relation to ourselves.
In some attempt at a conclusion, the telling tales exhibition was a thought provoking experience. Searching for meaning in the exhibits, made me think so hard my brain hurt at the end, especially ending the experience in heaven and hell, where all the products were viewed by peering through small awkward windows, almost like view holes in a psychiatric hospital. The whole exhibition has quite a sinister feel to it, even within the childlike blissfull ignorance of the forest glade, everything is not as it seems (Bass’ ‘Sculpt wardrobe’) and even the most beautifully formed pieces have a dark undertone (Boontje’s ‘Petit Jardin’ chair) where the chair made of lazor cut steel threatens to impale anyone who attempts to sit in it. As a product designer these pieces seem to bypass functionality when creating these elaborate ‘creative manifestos’. I think while it is important to attach meaning to a product, and create some kind of emotive attechment with its user to ensure longevity, it should not do this to the detriment of its function as a product, or we move away from the rhelm of product design and into the rhelm of art.
I can’t quite believe I havent blogged about this live project yet, probably because of the sheer workload that came with it, not that I’m complaining (well a little maybe 
only due to sleep deprivation)
Joseph Joseph; a company founded by twin brothers Richard and Antony Joseph; design contemporary kitchenware, by combining an impoertance of style with innovative technology they have created a range of extremely desirable products.
The design is adaptable as more molecules can be added to the structure as the project grows. The links can show where the direct links to the project apply, and how everyone is linked together; the bigger the link on the graphic, the more direct the link to the project. A colour code helps to represent the different people involved. Each colour is defined by a specific RGB so is only attributed to that one group or project. It helps people to recognise which designs fall under each category, (e.g. Design = Blue, Marketing =Grey) when browsing through existing designs and contributions to the project.
The project that forms the main activity of ‘madegood.net’, initially, is a collaboration among Middlesex University (![IMG_0039[1]](http://rebeccaboard.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/img_00391.jpg?w=300&h=168 "IMG_0039[1]")
