I have earlier in this blog written about sextoys and how far the design industry has come. I asked the question “do we have any taboos left to break or is everything allowed in design today?”
I ask myself this question again seeing the new jewellery collection from ELSWARES. Since I like art and design that’s provocative; my first reaction to this was “cool”. But having a handgranade or a razorblade around your neck is not just a fashion statement; it’s also a strong reflection on our society. People are blowing them selves up daily, or taking their own lives in other ways, but have we really gotten so far that we don’t really care anymore, and therefore are untouched by symbols like a razorblade or a handgranade? This summer and autumn kids all over the world wore "palestina scarfs" because it was trendy, not knowing the history and symbolism behind it. Where does the line go? Is it ok for us as designers to kill the symbolism of these types of objects and make them into a trend and a mass-product? Or is it still something left for us to consider sacred?
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5 kommentarer:
Good question! I think that many designers rather "forget" about these issues, instead of confonting them. Because it sells more if you don't, but also because is much easier than taking a stand (and that it's difficult to do it a 100%).
But this is a genereal problem these days in many ways; not only in the design world. You see that in the environmental, poverty debates ecc., people say "what can I do? I can't change anything. The problem is to big!" This is about changing attitude and see all the great possibilities that you actually have, without having to everything a 100% ALL THE TIME or calling yourself an eco-designer, but you can be a designer that takes smart choices!
On request:
Like mount Fuji.
Hard to understand during a lifetime.
Impossible to describe with words.
Happy now Julia :-)
deep vinnithesang...
i think that we as human beeings always are rolemodels for some other. Kids look up to teenagers, if i see a hat that someone wear i might want to bye the same, if a woman wear a fuhr another might want one...
im not saying that ther are many people looking up to me, but i still think and hope that i might influence on someone and in someones life. and what better way to do that than beeing a positve role model.
and as a designer i think this is even more important. ofcourse i dont think i will change the world, but i can participate by saying that i do not supprot this or that, or i dont want to produce those kind of things.
a good example could be:
if a weapon-producer wants you to design a new weapon, even more harmfull than others, would you do it?
I AM a deep thinker you know :-)
My last comment was based on the following famous quote by the great Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai:
"From around the age of six, I had the habit of sketching from life. I became an artist, and from fifty on began producing works that won some reputation, but nothing I did before the age of seventy was worthy of attention. At seventy-three, I began to grasp the structures of birds and beasts, insects and fish, and of the way plants grow. If I go on trying, I will surely understand them still better by the time I am eighty-six, so that by ninety I will have penetrated to their essential nature."
So what was my point? Well, I was trying to establish a parallel between mount Fuji and the complex and intricate nature of the question raised by our dear bloggmaster. The great Hokusai needed nearly 70 years in order to depict mount Fuji in a proper manner. It would probably also take a great amount of time and careful thinking to answer our bloggmaster`s question in a proper and reasonable manner.
Realizing this was a task way over my head, I simply decided to throw in the towel in an elegant and deep way by posting my last comment.
Hmmmmm.......could one say that efficient and harmful weapons might bring peace to the world in certain situations? Remember the Cold war and the terror-balance-doctrine? Both the Sovjet Union and the USA had access to nuclear weapons, and both parties were afraid of using it due to the oposite party`s second strike abilities.
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