Science fiction, (Plato’s dream) – 1998, (diptych), 80 x 100 cm
SOCIAL DESIGN
Since 1996, I have been interested in the area of visual arts that could be characterized as the infiltrating activities of a nomadic development designer. The sophisticated language used in design and its global comprehensibility fascinates me. That said, however, I am not interested in the practicalities of its use, but rather the possibility to smuggle design themes and information normally ignored (i.e. thanks to unpopularity) into traditional use. Very often it happens that the content of exact and perfect forms is a thing that is difficult to describe rationally, which usually doesn’t belong to the world of design or is in direct contradiction to it. I am always on the lookout for means of communicating about important, and, in my opinion, complicated, sometimes even difficult to describe, themes (industrial schizophrenia, historical versus modern identity, and the unacceptability of emotion), via an ordinary, global and impersonal language. My strategy for succeeding in these endeavors is to penetrate – like a computer virus – into the environment of large supranational companies by offering them my services as a nomadic development designer. The full process of communication with the employees of these companies is as important to me as the final product. My concepts and designs become the background work for the development of unique products that I will subsequently use as social design, in performance, for example. Also important to me is the subtly anarchic element inherent in collaboration with a powerful partner when my ultimate motives are so sly. In connection with this, I am interested in the historical, political and social contexts of relations between the company and society.