Design in Crisis
At first sight, all branches of design seem to be prospering. “The obsession with designer brands continues to expand, embracing home products, clothing accessories, and fashions for adults and young people. This became a sort of religion for the consumer society of the nineties, and was deeply embedded in all socio-economic group levels”. This new culture writes about design and fills the sky with bright new stars. Design activities all over the world are increasing exponentially. Design reacts to technology faster than art, and this is very conspicuous as regards the digital developments that have been taking place ever since the mid-seventies.
Designers and important design groups have been involved in this revolution from its very beginning and actively influenced its development. This was not a fringe culture, but an integral part of the revolution. They created the mouse, the window, the button and the web’s visual experience. The influence on metaphors and symbols created by designers at that time cannot be compared in its scope to art, architecture or even to the design of other products. Whereas art is still trying to comprehend the video innovation, design determined the way in which people work and act in the cybernetic world. But at the same time design is going through a difficult crisis. Grey clouds gather beneath its wings - ethical issues related to consumerism, pollution, and the exhaustion of raw materials as opposed to temptation, the creation of endless collections, and the sterility of renovation. Design finds itself coveted by new disciplines that boast of dealing with ‘aesthetics’. The weak flutter which began with plastic surgery to correct damages after accidents or war, gradually becomes ‘redesigning the human body’ for capricious aesthetic reasons. Standard operations, such as nose-jobs or skin grafts are replaced by new interventions that include ‘overhauling’ the body and cosmetic surgery. The physician no longer heals. (S)he ‘creates’. The intention is more to design than to cure. ‘Body designer’ or ‘Appearance designer’ are more correct terms to define these professionals, and they are closer in their intention to fashion designers and hair stylists than they care to believe.
Prof. Ezri Tarazi (This is an abstract from the catalogue for the group show “installation - Situation” at the Haifa Museum of Art 2005)
“But at the same time design is going through a difficult crisis”
Design was a dog.
Design was born the runt of the litter puppy from the bitch of advertising. Design obeyed the orders of its master. It had teeth but never bit. It got kicked and abused, but always returned to its master, tail between its legs. Design thought fetching a stick made it useful. Design chased its own tail and called it debate. Obsessed with utility, efficiency and rationality design ate its own shit and licked its own arse. Design became infested with notions of the romantic individual. Design wanted to be the Wolf that was Art. Design became the sheep in sheeps clothing. Design was slaughtered.
Design is dead.
But fear not, the time of the maggots is upon us.
Feeding. Reading. Digesting. The maggots converse. They develop. They discuss. They collect. They grow. They develop. Together. Sharing. Forming a mass. They develop. Transform. Emerge. Senses alert. Fast to react. Keen to spread dis-ease. Driven to disrupt the dreams of the comfortable.
They swarm.
/The Swarm 17/05/2006