Experiemental Design

Related yet standalone thought- Experimental design is experimental. It could work. It could not work. If it does work, you try it again and again to see if you come up with the same thing. This becomes a limited production. If it keeps working (and keeps selling) eventually it can become mass produced--like penicilin.

During the many pictures, webpages and videos shown on Monday one of the projects that stood out in my mind was by the Boym partners, the disaster buildings. The idea of making well known buildings or monuments into miniatures is certainly not experimental, I have a pencil sharpener in the shape of the Golden Gate Bridge, and there’s more than enough people out there who own a miniature Eiffel Tower given to them by a friend or relative who went to Paris. However, the theme of buildings that have some disaster-- something negative—attached to them is experimental. Who would’ve thought of making and consequently owning a miniature of the Unabomber hut? Many people have bought miniatures of the WTC with the American flag plastered across them and “Never forget”, but what we are never forgetting is that they were hit by planes and collapsed. So why not have a miniature showing that, offensive to some sure, but why else would we care or even know about the Unabomber hut if not for the actions of one Ted Kaczynski.

Intrigued, I went to their website. At the top of their blog was a quote by Sal LeWitt that read-“Learn to say ‘Fuck You’ to the world once in a while”. And besides totally agreeing with this quote, I feel that this is where experimental design comes from. Experimental design isn’t necessarily making an improvement to something or even making something that we need—it’s just someone dicking around who when they’re done, present it to the world and has enough confidence to say “Yes, I’m doing this, fuck you.” Chairs aren’t experimental—they’re pretty basic, looking back to nature a tree stump or large flat rock would suffice. But how about a chair made from used gum? Disgusting, probably not done before, and strange enough its sure to draw a crowd. And what about a chair made from used gum isn’t saying “Fuck you”? Even more so if anyone can be convinced to sit in it, or even pay money for it.

The world has been discovered. We’ve become civilized. We have electricity and indoor plumbing. So now it’s just the boundaries. We have chairs but again, how about a chair made from used gum? How about a chair made out of air—you can’t see it but it’s there and with enough showmanship, enough press and the all knowing design critic being like “oh yes, this is grand, furniture made of out the thin air is what’s new and exciting” it could probably sell for hundreds or thousands (this is a subtle stab at the Frank Gehry wiggle chair—the most you’ll even spend on cardboard, for now at least)

I would like to end talking about an artist who I feel most exemplifies the idea of saying “fuck you” to the world. And that artist is Dan Flavin. I think Dan Flavin is an asshole, I never met him but through his art alone and I am confident in calling him an asshole. Dan Flavin is famous for hanging fluorescent lights on walls. Fluorescent lights. A few years ago I was at the Dia beacon with my mother, looking at Dan Flavin’s fluorescent lights hanging on a wall and my mother says to me, “I could do that.” And in my mind I was like, “yea, ya could”, but she couldn’t. She could, physically she could go out and buy some fluorescent lights and hang them on the wall and call it art, but it wouldn’t do her any good because Dan Flavin already has and the art community isn’t letting anyone else get away with it. Dan Flavin became famous because he hung fluorescent lights on a wall stepped back and asked “Is it art?”, and because no one was there to tell him differently, he said “yes, I’m doing this, fuck you.”