So, it was London Design Festival 2011 last week. Seven days of innovative design, outstanding manufacturing techniques, beautiful architecture and pretentious bollocks. Take, for example, the above. It’s an exhaust pipe, that much I know, but what exactly is it that we’re supposed to admire about this particular piece? Is it the welding? Is it the fact that the fat end looks a bit like a shark? Or does it not require any deep thought, and is just there to open our minds as to what humanity can achieve with the humble exhaust? Who cares. Next.
Now this I like. Featured as part of an exhibition of Slovenian designers, the Sitty by Gigodesign is a fold down wooden seat that can be placed in parks, on pavements or public squares and takes up minimal space. This nifty piece of urban furniture sticks two fingers up to the now oh-so-boring park bench as its stands shiny and proud…until it’s pissed on by a dog or pulled out of the ground by a violent yob fuelled by cider and Nobby’s Nuts. Too good for the UK.
Again from Slovenia, Franc Kuzma produces these über-cool turntables that excel in their minimalist design as well as its acoustic impact (oh yes). Read the first line of the description above if you don’t believe me.
Soon after absorbing the brilliance of the best designers Slovenia has to offer, I came across this ‘inflatable lecture theatre’. Amazingly, the theatre works on a closed system, whereby the white rubber walls and ceiling are inflated by the hot air being expelled by each of the wanky speakers. As soon as somebody stops talking it immediately starts to deflate and everybody has to either leave or start saying more poncey things before everyone is crushed to death.
Alarmingly, the chair section of the Superbrands London exhibit appeared to have been infiltrated by an underground neo-Nazi sect posing as weedy little furniture designers in tweed jackets, thick-rimmed glasses and colourful trainers. Fortunately, I found this stack of chairs tucked away in a dark corner that blew their cover.
Chairs, in the colours of the German flag ‘randomly’ stacked together. They were clever enough to get the red and the black the wrong way round, but that wasn’t enough to throw yours truly off the scent. I can smell a Nazi a mile off. And if you’re thinking that I’m wrong to link anything remotely German to the Nazis, consider if you will the location of the white chair – at the top of the pile, lording it up over all other colours. Coincidence? I think not.
Still on chairs, the Ear Chair by Studio Makkink & Bey is specifically designed for ugly people so they can sit in comfort whilst the rest of us go about our businesses not looking at them. Dutch designer, Roeland van Nistelrooy, said that he designed the chair with Joseph Merrick in mind. The over-extended side head-rests provide excellent cover for the less attractive sitter, and even has an arm rest for those proper ugly people with over-sized limbs.
The escape key, or ‘Esc’ key (top left on the keyboard if you’re a computer mong) posing as a stool for sitting. Quite cool and quirky furniture design from somebody who I forgot to write down the name of **face meet palm repeatedly**. Other stools included the nozzle on a can of spray and what I was told was a ‘vibrating massage chair‘ for naughty people.
Inspired by 90s cult classic Terminator 2 this chair represents the aftermath of a T100 prolapse.
These cool iPod speaker boxes are from a pair of Chilean designers who appeared to have cornered to cardboard-lunch-box-style-iPod-speaker-market. GrupoVibra are, to be fair, a very talented design agency creating some sweet audio products striving to live “in harmony with environment and with great sound quality in order to join again the universal act of listening music with art and feeling of the original sound piece.”
Here’s a look inside one. More than enough room for a couple of ham sandwiches, a Baby Bell, a packet of Salt-n-Shake and a Wagon Wheel.
This is an exact replica of Stalin’s personal Space Hopper, part of the short-lived communist toy range rolled out during the 1940s and 50s as a means of distracting Soviet children as their parents were massacred for slagging of the Regime.
I was stood admiring this large mural of a man’s face chiselled and chipped into a wall just off Brick Lane, when I noticed the pair of CCTV cameras disguised as a cute little cartoon face. Proof, if we even needed it, that Tower Hamlets Council is pure evil.
My favourite exhibition of the London Design Festival 2011. I was wandering around pretending not to be lost, admiring this haunting approach to representing the hollow nature of human existence in the 21st century, deliberating some of life’s many existential questions when I was informed that this in fact wasn’t part of the festival and was simply an empty room.
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- An exhaust from some Slovenian designer, we can assume that the car it was attached to was stolen by an east London hipster cunt
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- A minimalist turntable from Slovenian, Franc Kuzma. All features related to sound production are governed by function…apparently.
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- All that hot air put to good use…
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- Secret Nazi furniture at London Design Festival?
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- Chairs, chairs everywhere but not a place to sit. No, seriously, you weren’t allowed I tried several times.
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- The Fügly. Ideal for women over 40 and burn victims.
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- “Where’s the ‘escape’ button, where’s the ‘escape’ button?!?” You’re sat on it.
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- T1000 vowed never to go near a chicken Naga ever again…
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- Gaaaaawww, looks like one of the little fellas from Batteries Not Included!
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- These iPod speaks have had their innards ripped out so you can put your lunch in it…
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- Three bounces each, it is to be shared between the entire village. Disobey = dead.
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- Sneaky fucking Tower Hamlets council wankers!
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OC
BotanicallyBrewed 