There are tears at the heart of things.

Moritz Barral Jähde

Januar / January - 2018

Staatliche Hochschule für Gestaltung Karlsruhe

Description

Four chair-alike objects are placed in an empty space. In this space, they are moving autonomously and uncontrollable - as long as there are no humans in their direct surrounding.

What is the Topic?

What makes a thing a thing.

Why does it look like this?

What is shown is not four chairs in a room but the idea of four chairs in a room. Therefore, they look more like an imagination than real usable chairs. The objects becomes the idea of an object itself.

What is special?

The more (design-) work is put into an object, the more it becomes the weakest link in the chain, loosing every control about its typology. Even of smart or artificial intelligent objects do not seem to brake out of this unequal subject-object-ratio, since we don´t perceive objects as intelligent but the technology behind. The project is on the one hand highlighting the shattered relationship between humans and things and on the other hand it tries to give it a new start within an experimental arrangement.

What is new?

“Besides its physical appearance - what makes a thing a thing” - this question, which marks the starting point of the project is not new at all. Nevertheless, the contemporary design discurse focusses mainly on the relationship between object (“thing”) and subject (human/society) and somehow misses to perceive the thing out of itself, just like the project tries to do.