There is no question that the world is in climate crisis, with school children on strike and increasing numbers of governments around the world declaring a climate emergency, so the theme of the XXII edition of the Triennale di Milano this year is particularly apt. Broken Nature: Design Takes on Human Survival is an exhibition and series of international installations that explores what designers are doing to tackle the problem.
Totems, Neri Oxman and the Mediated Matter Group at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Triennale Milano. Photo: Gianluca Di Ioia
Broken Nature takes as its starting point the inevitable extinction of humans and explores the myriad ways that designers are attempting to tackle the problem. “Humanity is in peril… the strain we are placing on environmental bonds is significant, the needle measuring the tension is already in the critical zone, and the pressure is mounting,” writes Italian-born NY-based curator Paola Antonelli in the catalogue essay.
Guest contributor and European correspondent Lara Chapman visits ‘GEO-DESIGN – Alibaba. From here to your home’ at the Van Abbe Museum in Eindhoven as part of a collaboration with the Design Academy Eindhoven (DAE) for Dutch Design Week.
Wednesday, 7:39pm: Click. A new tab is opened. Tap tap tap. A few keys are pressed. Enter. Scroll. Select. Click. Tap tap tap. A query is typed. Ping, a reply is received. Click. An Item is added to the basket. Click. Details are autofilled. Click. *Ping*. Confirmation email is received at 7:47pm.
Friday, 10:19am: *Ding Dong.* A Door is opened. A “pen” scratches on glass. A package swaps hands.
This scenario seems unremarkable, possibly even mundane. The cycle of search, browse, purchase, repeat, is constantly taking place online. However, for research designer Martina Muzi, e-commerce is an “incredibly urgent topic”. The ease of our interaction with e-commerce platforms belies a complex and sophisticated infrastructure that is entangled with areas such as political diplomacy, psychology, logistics, algorithms and new forms of labour. E-commerce is shaping our everyday behaviours in subtle but undeniable ways. Furthermore, its forces are invisibly shifting and re-defining contemporary geopolitics.
‘Live Streaming’ by Jing He. Photography by Tommy Köhlbrugge, courtesy of Design Academy Eindhoven
At the exhibition ‘GEO-DESIGN – Alibaba. From here to your home’, nine multidisciplinary design researchers examined China’s largest e-commerce website Alibaba.com from diverse angles. Held as part of an ongoing collaboration between the Van Abbe Museum and the Design Academy Eindhoven (DAE) as part of Dutch Design Week, the investigation-led project was conceived and curated by Martina Muzi and Joseph Grima. The selected designers, who are all alumni of DAE, had just two months from their briefing to the exhibition and undertook an intensive process of research, concept development and realisation. Read more →
Guest contributor and European correspondent Lara Chapman visits ‘Coded Nature’ by Studio Drift at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam.
The audience is sporadically positioned around the gallery, hypnotised by the kinetic sculptures performing their entrancing, electrical dance. The 10 flower-like silk structures drop from the ceiling, opening their textile bodies , then retract suddenly upwards, closing. They pause. Sometimes they move separately, at other times together. They are irregular in their speed and pauses, seemingly autonomous. In an indefinite interval, in which all the structures are motionless, I lean towards my friend and whisper, “Wow! It is so satisfying to watch”. Looking around the room I know that this feeling is unanimous. Each person is silently engrossed. “You’ve said that in every room!” my friend replies.
Shylight Zaalopname, Studio Drift: Coded Nature, 2018, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. Collection Studio Drift, Amsterdam. Photo: Gert Jan van Rooij
Why is all the work of Studio Drift so satisfying? It could be the level of detail and delicateness in every piece. The small surprises. The fine craftsmanship. But overall, I think it is the sense of slowness and calm that strikingly contrasts our high speed world that makes the exhibition so enjoyable. Read more →
