Self Unself Newspaper, Salone del Mobile 2014 by Design Academy Eindhoven

Design Academy Eindhoven

Where Objects and Issues Meet

Editorial Where objects and issues meet

The two contrasting structures come together on a public square. If you go into the Duomo the light exterior crosses into a dark interior so abruptly that it feels like a transition of one world into another. The Gallery is the opposite. It’s a passage. You don’t go in, you go through. You enter without realizing that you have entered. You just feel a gradually growing sense of richness – in architecture, in windowdressing, in commodities – that you unknowingly have become part of. Where the Duomo excites wonder, the Galleria excites desire. In 1988 the Design Academy Eindhoven changed it’s perspective, shifting from industrial design to man-centered design. A humanist stance that fitted the time. Post-modernism and punk were fading away, together with the youth unemployment of the eighties. A brighter future called for brighter design: post-postmodernism, super modernism or happy modernism – whatever we call it. Design was playful, ironic and low tech. In 1993 a first generation of the academy’s new-style graduates were presented in Milan by Gijs Bakker and Renny Ramakers under the name Droog. Conceptual design with an ironic twist brought life to the Salone del Mobile. Although I wasn’t part of it myself – I graduated in that same year at the Rietveld Academy as a graphic designer – I have always felt that it was my generation that was presented there. Soon after, all of us came together in an exhibition in Germany. The exhibition was called Mentalitäten, because it was not so much a visual style that connected us, but a way of thinking, a mentality.

‘Self’ and ‘Unself’ are two words that popped into my mind when trying to identify and analyze what is new. Our students present self initiated projects with an unselfish inclination. Many projects raise social issues and are geared towards the collective good. This seems fitting in a time of growing youth unemployment. Career recipes have gone, the world is no longer straightforward, the beaten tracks have become overgrown. The new generation is exploring new economic models. ‘Self’ and ‘Unself’ are opposites. In my mind they form an axis, a dialectics. As a decentration: as if we stepped out of a self-centered position to start thinking in terms of relationships. Since coining the term ‘Self Unself’ last year at graduation, I have been using it to research present positions in design. Part of this research was done in a practical sense by curating shows at the academy, at the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven, in Shenzhen and in New York. And now in Milan. Milan is a bazaar of things. Thinking about Self Unself in Milan means thinking about objects, things, commodities. But many of our students stray away from objects or excel in other forms of expression like performances, films or debates. We want to show the one and the other. In Milan two worlds meet. In the exhibition this means that next to objects we offer a program. Next to ‘presenting’ we offer ‘happening’. The objects on show sit on pedestals of varying height in order to make room for interventions. Self Unself presents a sort of public square where objects and issues meet. Thomas Widdershoven

Self Unself Salone del Mobile Milano 2014 Editor Thomas Widdershoven, Creative Director Design Academy Eindhoven Contributing Editor Edo Dijksterhuis Design Haller Brun Project Manager Hilde van der Heijden, Coordinator Communications Design Academy Eindhoven Translation Wendy Lubberding Cover Image Martijn van Strien, Dystopian Brutalist Back Cover Image Dave Hakkens, PhoneBloks Photographers Lisa Klappe (LK), Zahra Nabrhouh (ZN), Lonneke van der Palen (LP), Femke Rijerman (FR), Astrid Zuidema (AZ) Printing RODI rotatiedruk

Exhibition Curators Thomas Widdershoven, Jan Konings Coordination Photography and Logistics Bas van Raay Exhibition Building Team Mark van der Gronden Project Manager Liesbeth Otten, Facility Manager Design Academy Eindhoven

When Tonny Holtrust and I were appointed last year to direct the academy, we started questioning the man-centered design per spective. As a first impulse we interpreted man-centered to mean student-centered. We are an institute for student-centered design education. Each year we bring a group of young talents together from all over the world. We handpick them, selecting for talent, motivation and personality. And then we try to help them develop their talents. This was the same when I entered the Rietveld Academy 25 years ago. And it is still essential to our academy now. So what is new? Debby Yu An Invitation from Home

Self Unself – Design Academy Eindhoven

Photo: Lisa Klappe

In Milan two worlds meet. In the city center the opulent Duomo catches the evening light. Next to it stands a huge palace of commerce, the 19th century shopping gallery Galleria Vittorio Emanuelle II. The material meets the spiritual.

Salone del Mobile Milano 2014

You are here Positioning design in today’s world

Pablo Calderón It Is What It Is

Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget was quite adamant about it: seven is the age at which a child stops thinking exclusively in terms of I and starts to become aware of the world around him as a separate reality. This might or might not be true for cognitive develop ment in child psychology, but when con sidering intellectual maturation it’s a whole different ballgame. As a center for higher education the Design Academy Eindhoven proves the point. DAE tolerates, better yet, even cultivates, a sense of egocentricity in its students. They have to find and define themselves. The safe environment of the institute and the presence of a staff functioning as exhaust valves allows for an existential crisis or two and solipsist notions of genius. But at the end of the educational trajectory students are expected to ‘turn seven’, to present themselves professionally. They have face up to the world at large and relate to it. The graduation show is their rite of passage at which they put part of themselves out there.

Gerard Jasperse On Sea & Land

Self Unself – Design Academy Eindhoven

Photo: Lisa Klappe

The way graduate students nowadays relate to the world beyond themselves, however, exceeds functional presentation in the form of a product. Increasingly, young designers actively position themselves in the world.

The academy is fully focused on the talents, preferences and fascinations of its students – those are central to the institute. For their graduation the students have to initiate pro jects themselves, in which these come to the fore. But when you look at those projects – about healthcare, open source production,

new economic systems – they come across as pretty altruistic. Contemporary design is very much oriented toward the ‘unself’. A new attitude towards design Hence the title for this exhibition, Self Unself, was born. Originally conceived as a gradu ation show it was soon expanded to include the work of both graduates and alumni of the Design Academy Eindhoven. The social slant in design surely is not a temporary fluke, but is embedded in the Zeitgeist. Self Unself presents a kind of inventory of positions born from this new attitude towards design. Instead of making shiny gizmos, emerging designers often come up with unflashy, practical solutions answering to the needs of consumers who are not often heard and even less catered to: the poor, the sick, the elderly. They position themselves as socially responsible and engaged. This goes as much for Inge Kuipers, who designed a tea set enabling people with arthritis to pour tea easily, using both hands, as for Franciska Meijers whose experiments with terra cotta bricks and glazing are very useful for the cheap construction of naturally cool houses in the tropics. A strikingly successful example of this new trend in design is PhoneBloks by Dave Hakkens. Newspapers around the world have already picked up the story about this flexible cellular phone, which since its launch has been adopted by Motorola for further development. Every component of this modularly produced smartphone can be replaced individually, thus making it a much more durable product.

Hakkens starts off with the consumers, he remains really close to their actual needs. He also actively involves them in the reali zation of the phone. Through his website he has gathered the support of almost a million potential users and he multiplied that number by a thousand through the new social media site Thunderclap. This constitutes a real empowerment of the consumer as a citizen. PhoneBloks is worldly design, fully functioning within the world. The focus on the realm of the unself may, however, also have a reflexive slant, making a u-turn to the self. This is particularly the case with Bora Hong’s research project about plastic surgery in her native country South-Korea. One in four girls there goes under the knife in order to obtain rounder eyes, straighter noses or longer legs. This is about the denial of self, wanting to change the self. After the presentation of her research Hong took the project one step further. She translated the issue to the world of design by ‘operating’ on an Eames-chair unhappy with its self-image. Within a single session of fourteen hours – the duration of some of the most complex real-life operations – she has transformed the ‘patient’ into a rugged Maarten Baas-product. The world of shiny gadgets By referring to icons – both classic and more recent – Hong has placed herself solidly within the arena of design. Despite its strong psychological and social background her Cosmetic Surgery does not look out of place in the world’s commercial capital of design,

Milan. This is the realm of things, where the material present rules. Even while living in the era of virtual reality and ‘access over ownership’ in Milan ‘product’ still means: physical object, radiating a certain degree of desirability, more or less subtly pricetagged. To put it bluntly: Milan is largely about shiny gadgets and consumerism. Also at DAE quite a large number of students still work towards the production of things. And some of these fit in nicely with the Milanese setting. Matthias Borowski’s range of furniture resembling oversized confectionary was made from lowly materials such as wood, resin and plastics. Still, the giant sweets which were conceived using the ‘Ten Commandments of Nouvelle Cuisine’, radiate a sense of luxury. Gerard Jasperse operates in a very different context. He analyses the luxurious traditional costumes worn by farmers from the Dutch province of Zeeland. Jasperse translates the historical story of wealth accumulation and its tokens into contemporary textiles and accessories. Some products are close to the personality and identity of the designer, such as Food for Thought. For this project Ma’ayan Pesach fused common household items, wigs and cloth into highly idiosyncratic totems. They hint at a functional past but have transcended it through a specific handwriting. No less personal is Joram Raaijmakers’ Architecture of Controle. Fueled by his childhood fasci nation with military systems the designer abstracted watchtowers into archetypes for civilian architecture. He subsequently transformed them into souvenir coffee spoons,

Salone del Mobile Milano 2014

Matthias Borowski The Importance of the Obvious

Jan Pieter Kaptein The Second Self Laboratory

Joram Raaijmakers The Architecture of Control

Raaijmakers’ aim may be to push people into the world and look at it differently, a lot of other products aim to serve in a more generic world-enriching way. Gintare Cerniauskaite’s 3D-printed brace Exo is a lot lighter and more flexible than the traditional cast, thus shortening the healing process of a broken arm or leg. Sotiris de Wit’s Shopping Bike is an environmentally friendly alternative to a van coughing up diesel fumes. Maud van Deursen aims to seduce people into drinking tap water instead of more expensive and unhealthier bottled water by serving it in attractive carafes. And Benediktas Burdulis has literally been spreading the light with Click, a flat light which can be distributed as a postcard and is extremely easy to assemble. No icons but issues Burdulis has not stopped at merely pro ducing his low-tech light. Comparable to Dave Hakkens he has engaged social media to build a community around his product. By doing so Click is promoted from simple product to the level of vehicle for interaction. But there is an increasing number of designers skipping the stage of physical product altogether. The era of expensive, limited edition collectables is over; the economic crisis has made them obsolete. Design is not about icons anymore, it’s about issues. And the most radical way to underline this is to do away with the material incarnation altogether. Design has thus become process or idea.

In the Milanese version of Self Unself this nothingness has been granted its own space. The exhibition has been conceived as an agora, a space inspiring discussion and interaction as was usual in the early democratic communities of ancient Greece. Visitors are not only invited to scrutinize the objects on display but are also treated to performances and other temporary forms of design. With It Is What It Is Pablo Calderón presents an alternative to the monetized capitalist system of economy. Products and services are exchanged using dialogue as currency. Also Nick Meehan’s focusses on interaction. It’s an online platform to bring people and money together around issues that are worth organizing a political lobby for.

positioning matrix would be logical to round things out. It would lend extra relief and nuance to the x-axis running between self and unself and the y-axis determining the level of physical presence between thing and nothing. Because design can be logical, rational and sane but useless, ugly or silly just as well, sometimes seeming to say ‘we’re here to save the world, but only when we feel like it’, this z-axis would run between the poles sense and nonsense. The introduction of this third axis transforms the design positioning matrix into a threedimensional affair.

In a contemporary praxis in which designers are not automatically geared towards function and use, adding yet another axis to the

Self Unself – Design Academy Eindhoven

The practical application of Aurelie Hoegy’s McGuffin lamp, which consists of merely one bulb and one thousand meters of black electrical cord, is much less obvious. The same is true for Jaap van der Schaaf’s line of bags made out of flotsam and jetsam. Even the title, The Crude Get Going, seems to underline an inherent attitude leaning towards absurdity and anti-aesthetics. It’s pretty safe to categorize these project as being in the nonsense-camp. Or so it would seem. Because when taking in Van der Schaaf’s accessories of hobo chic once again, a very serious message does arise from them. The Crude Get Going makes us think about the durability of our consumption society, the way we deal with homeless people and the nature of beauty. Hoegy’s insane lamp makes one rethink the sculptural quality of design and that of electrical devices in general.

Facilitating processes in the world and questioning the status quo of that world are the driving forces behind these projects. On the other end of the self-unself spectrum stands Jan Pieter Kaptein. His costume performance enlightens us about the roles, ideals and projected images we engage when talking and thinking about ourselves, and the way we use these consciously or subconsciously constructed selves to shape the world around us. In a playful and exaggerated manner Kaptein illustrates the dialectic between the self we use in the world and the reactions of our environment. Room for the ugly, useless and silly

a water boiler, a bedside lamp – everything is possible. The set is easy to produce and use, and encourages environmentally friendly behavior.

As very functional and thus representative of sense would qualify Open E-Components by Wei Lun Tseng. Tseng has created a series of generic building blocks which can be used as ‘Lego for adults’ to construct all kinds of household appliances. A hair dryer,

And thus these objects slide across the z-axis towards sense and on the x-axis towards unself. Similarly, the sensible Open E-Components can easily be tweaked into idiotic applications. The positioning of design is fluid, depending on perspective and mindset. John Cage would have approved. When being asked to sum up his philosophy in one sentence, the composer passionately responded: ‘Get yourself out of whatever cage you find yourself in.’

Bora Hong Cosmetic Surgery

Photo: Femke Rijerman

imprinted with GPS coordinates to entice users to go on a search mission.

Salone del Mobile Milano 2014

Self Unself – Design Academy Eindhoven

Inge Kuipers Tea Set Touch

Photo: Femke Rijerman

Photo: Lisa Klappe

Ma’ayan Pesach Food for Thought

Salone del Mobile Milano 2014

The stages of Self Unself Self Unself is a theme. It’s a vehicle for thought and a tool for analysis. And Thomas Widdershoven and Jan Konings have made it concrete and brought it to life in the form of the exhibition Self Unself. As such it is not a monolithic event. It’s a shape-shifting presentation which has taken root at very diverse venues. It’s an evolving and transforming series of shows, each building on the previous, snowballing into bigger insights, but also constantly sidestepping into new perspectives. Starting point for Self Unself was the Design Academy Eindhoven graduation show of 2013. Being a composite of dozens of individual projects the final presentation of bachelor and master students lacked a broader context and formal consistency. A certain dominant flavor was recognizable in it, though, which was captured in the title Self Unself. Here a very socially engaged generation took to the stage, in a self-conscious and unselfish way.

This observation warranted follow-up, which came soon after at the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven. Under its present director Charles Esche the museum focuses on issues such as civil society, the relationship between the museum and the world outside the museum, and the role of art in contemporary society. Although it has no design collection nor even an exhibition policy concerning design, Self Unself fit in nicely with its identity and mission, which is very much about changing the traditional role of the museum. For the designers participating in Self Unself it was exactly the museum context which added to the exhibiting experience. The interconnected chain of ten halls acted as a platform for communicating ideas – formalized in a white cube kind of way but of a human scale still. The works were forced to interact with visitors and with each other. It was a form of objectification removed from the world

of function and use where design normally is at home. Design assumes a different aura when transplanted to the realm of art. And in the case of Self Unself it even adopted the role of art: the role of guiding light, critic, irritant and inspirational source. Although even in the art domain, there turned out to be limits. Cody Wilson’s Liberator, the world’s first open source weapon which can be reproduced using a 3D-printer, was legally banned from the exhibition. Instead of the pistol an article from design magazine Domus was put on display. It spoke of Wilson’s library, the origins of his ideas, about what kind of person he is. This reflected the ‘self’-part of the exhibition. The Liberator, however, is about the unself in an all-encompassing way. It forces us to rethink our political system which is based on controlled repression and a social contract we all implicitly underwrite. That same system, the backbone of our democracy,

Master programme Design Curating and Writing forbade the exhibition of a weapon anyone can download off the internet for free. The third place Self Unself put down roots was at the Oct-Loft Creative Festival in the Chinese harbor city of Shenzhen. Slightly overlapping with the show at Van Abbemuseum, a selection of twelve designers presented their work. Some objects were shown, but the focus here was strongly on video, presented on flatscreens laid out on the floor of the exhibition hall. Over the last decade or so, with the dominance of the internet, video has become an important medium of expression for students. Through it they explain how an object has been made, where it ends up, and how it functions within the network of social relations. Time-based media fits perfectly well with the brand of social design they commonly practice. It provides ample space for questioning, reflecting and doubting.

This point was best illustrated by Alicia Ongay Perez’ contribution to the exhibition. In this video the recent Design Academy graduate goes back to her old London district and asks family members and former neighbors what they think about the results of her two years of education. She encounters a well-meant mixture of sympathy and incomprehension. Ongay Perez holds up a mirror to the design community which is often totally wrapped-up in its own conceptual little world. This balancing act between irony and critical soul searching is so strong that one could easily mistake the film to be the actual work on display, instead of the vases she discusses in the video. Thus, in the process of presenting oneself and one’s graduation project to the world, in that mysterious space between self and unself, the perception of design itself changed.

The fourth stage of Self Unself takes place at the Lambretto Art Project during the Salone del Mobile in Milan. Here everything comes together. The objects and films from Eindhoven and Shenzhen are combined with performances, highlighting the trend away from product design and towards process and platform. The exhibition hall here is organized as an agora, the heart of early democratic communities in ancient Greece. The agora was a place for gathering, where free citizens would meet and discuss all things social, the ultimate arena of the unself one could say. In Milan Self Unself has evolved into a living platform for interaction. By including both the traditional solid object and the volatile expression of the immaterial concept the exhibition once again stretches the domain of design. And places it in a world much larger and flexible than the traditional realm of functional tools.

In September 2014 Design Academy Eindhoven will start a new Master programme: Design Curating and Writing. This programme offers students the possibility to critically research various modes of reflecting and representing current developments in design. As design has gained considerable importance in the last decades, it is in need of curators and theorists who are familiar with cultural theory as well as design practice. For this reason the Master Design Curating and Writing is closely linked to the three Master design programmes: Information Design, Contextual Design, and Social Design. The much heard rhetorical question ‘does the world need another chair’ can simply be answered with a ‘yes.’ Every era deserves its own chair designs as witnesses of their times. Chairs, as well as many other functional objects, are perfect ‘canvases’ for meanings that reach beyond their bare functionality. But the world needs more. Due to rapid cultural, social, political, economic and technological changes, designers feel the need to redefine their roles in a great variety of new domains. The traditional approaches no longer suffice. As a consequence the traditional formats for reflecting and (re)presenting design no longer suffice either. The design world is in need of critical reflection, of heated debate, well-informed discourse. And it is in need of new formats for presenting the efforts of designers, ranging from the everyday items to the tools, from research-based long-term projects to activist ad hoc strategies. Where designers experiment with new approaches and create new roles for themselves, future curators, design theorists and critics should get close to their brooding and experimenting. Only then interesting collaborations and crossbreeding can develop. In the Master Design Curating and Writing the students will work side by side with design students, as they will be partly embedded in the Master design programmes of Information Design, Contextual Design, and Social Design, creating long term alliances. Louise Schouwenberg, head of Contextual Design: “Fifteen years ago a designer would create an object and wait if a producer would show interest, or perhaps even a gallery,” says Schouwenberg. The design field has reached entirely new frontiers nowadays in fields like social design. “Magazines still treat design as part of the ‘lifestyle’ department, but it’s much more these days. We need a body of theory to describe this. We need to think about the way design is presented and written about. It’s time to reinvent our own discipline. Designers need to redesign their own future.” Students The programme aims at professionals working within the domains of design, curatorial practices, design theory, critical studies, or related domains. Designers with an analytical writing talent gain more skills and knowledge, to be able to relate their design process to reflecting, curating and writing. Theorists with an academic background gain more insight into the practical, creative and hands-on aspects of the design process, to either deepen their analytical skills and/or to develop an expertise in designing curatorial plans.

Self Unself exhibition, Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, October 2013. Wall: Erik Kessels celebrates the work of others. When Ria van Dijk was a 16-year old girl she first picked up a gun and hit the target in a fun fair shooting gallery. It triggered a camera and produced a portrait. Mrs. van Dijk shot such a picture every day of each fun fair until the age of 93. Erik Kessels likes to uncover little miracles like this one, and show them to the public. The photographs have been acquired by the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. ‘Schiettent 2008 – 2011, Erik Kessels and Ria van Dijk’. Floor: Christien Meindertsma explores the life of products made by ordinary people. The 550 sweaters knitted by Loes Veenstra, which were stored in boxes in her house, were discovered by the Museum Rotterdam on a search for contemporary heritage, stories and crafts in the Charlois neighbourhood. The museum commissioned Christein Meindertsma to design the book Het Verzameld Breiwerk van Loes Veenstra uit de 2e Carnissestraat. ‘The Collected Knitting of Loes Veenstra, 2nd Carnisse Street, Rotterdam’, Christien Meindertsma, Wandschappen.

Exhibition view Oct-Loft Creative Festival, Shenzhen, China, 2013 An exhibition largely consisting of film, shown on flat screens on the floor, and some objects. The installation in the left corner was made by Aurelie Hoegy, who graduated in 2013. Her work calls out: we need more craziness! In front of it are models of the much-discussed ‘Mine Kafon’ by Massoud Hasani who graduated in 2012.

Self Unself – Design Academy Eindhoven

Staff Joost Grootens (designer, editor), Louise Schouwenberg (theorist, writer and critic), and Jan Boelen (curator, creative director Z33) are heads of the department. Apart from the regular lecturers, a group of leading curators, theorists and designers will participate as visiting critics and guest lecturers: Paola Antonelli (curator), Guus Beumer (curator), Frans Bevers (designer), Ilse Crawford (designer and curator), Anthony Dunne (designer), Justin McGuirk (writer, critic and curator), Joseph Grima (theorist and curator), Jane Pavitt (designer and dean), Rick Poynor (writer, critic and lecturer), Alice Rawsthorn (critic), Erik Rietveld (philosopher), Vera Sacchetti (design writer and critic), Tamar Shafrir (design theorist), Jana Scholze (curator), Catherine de Smet (critic), Alice Twemlow (chair of the Design Criticism Department at the School of Visual Arts in New York), John L. Walters (editor-in-chief of Eye Magazine). In due time other experts will be added to the list of visiting critics and guest lecturers. In order to apply or more information: www.designacademy.nl/study/master/applymastercourse Judith Konz, Programme Manager Masters: judith.konz@designacademy.nl

Salone del Mobile Milano 2014

Standing in the exhibition

Sotiris de Wit

Warriors of Downpour City – What fashion would look like in a world with endless rainfall.

Bas Kamp

Cario – The one bike that’s been missing from the Dutch streets.

www.annevangalen.com ajcvgalen@gmail.com

Humane Traps – There are nicer ways to get rid of unwanted guests.

Anne van Galen

Tea Set Touch – Use both hands for straightforward pouring.

Cool Shelter – Tradition meets invention: terra-cotta corridors to keep you cool.

Dystopian Brutalist Outerwear – The ultimate back-to-basics collection for harsh conditions.

www.franciskameijers.com franciskameijers@gmail.com

www.martijnvanstrien.com contact@martijnvanstrien.com

www.tristangirard.com tristangirard@outlook.com

Gintare Cerniauskate

Somewhere in Between – Taming natural materials to resolve the conflict between desire and reality.

Aurelie Hoegy

EXO The Perfect Cast – Faster healing through better casts.

Tristan Girard Erwin van der Krogt

Benjamin Landau

With the Wind – The landmark that visualises the wind and its many dimensions.

Design in Krisis – Towards a socially responsible role for designers.

www.erwinvanderkrogt.nl mail@erwinvanderkrogt.nl

www.benlandau.com info@benlandau.com

Ma’ayan Pesach

Wei Lun Tseng

Food for Thought – A dinner set that highlights the origins of our food.

Open E-Components – An open-source and modular way of producing electronic devices.

www.maayanpesach.com mayap10@gmail.com

cargocollective.com/tsengweilun tsengweilundesign@gmail.com

www.davehakkens.nl mail@davehakkens.nl

Martijn van Strien

www.ingekuipers.nl info@ingekuipers.nl

Precious Plastic – A small-scale plastics recycling workshop.

www.kollektivpluszwei.com plus.zwei@gmail.com

Franciska Meijers

www.marie-elsabatteux.fr marieelsabatteux@gmail.com

Dave Hakkens

Inge Kuipers

Debby Yu Dining Stories – Inspirational models to revive dinnertime with loved ones.

The Border Between Normality and Abnormality – An invitation to explore the crazy side of ourselves.

www.gintarecer.eu gintarecer@yahoo.co.uk

An Invitation from Home – Textiles as middlemen between rooms and people. www.debbyyu.com yu.debby@gmail.com

www.aureliehoegy.com info@aureliehoegy.com

Rudi Boiten

Gerard Jasperse

One Yarn of Paint – Unique and tactile patterns for floors in public spaces.

On Sea & Land – Linking local history with local aesthetics.

Denise Gons

www.plott.nl info@plott.nl

Outfit Housefit – If our room becomes the body and our furniture its clothing, what is the outcome?

Maud van Deursen

www.denisegons.nl denisegons@gmail.com

Scetches for E.on – Explaining the changing energy market in an understandable way.

Stacking the Shelves – A clickable cabinet that keeps surprising you.

www.gerardjasperse.nl gerardjasperse@live.nl

Matthijs Holland Normall – Defying age-old restrictive and unrealistic gender definitions.

Jaap van der Schaaf

Anke Verstappen

The Crude Get Going – Low-cost, sustainable bags for the modern man on the move.

Aai-en – Short on sight but long on senses.

www.jaapvanderschaaf.nl info@jaapvanderschaaf.nl

www.matthijsholland.nl matthijsholland@gmail.com

www.ankeverstappen.com info@ankeverstappen.com

Chateau d’eau – Good-quality tap water is not something you take for granted.

On the Edge – Are we on the edge of disaster? Dress up to save your skin.

The Importance of the Obvious – Keep it Sweet: Investigating the dormant potential of materials.

www.sotirisdewit.com soti_dw@hotmail.com

www.baskamp.nl info@baskamp.nl

Matthias Borowski LK

Marie-Elsa Batteux Flahault

Objects

Simas Zabulionis

www.maud-design.nl info@maud-design.nl

Extremities: Limbs with Abilities – Imaginative prostheses that offer a world of possibilities.

Philipp Weber

www.alissanienke.nl nienkebongers@gmail.com

Willem van Doorn Illumination by Digestion – My home ground as a testing ground for new ideas and designs. www.willemvandoorn.com willemvandoorn@gmail.com

Self Unself – Design Academy Eindhoven

www.tsuyoshihayashi.com vavadudu@yahoo.co.jp

Bora Hong

Esther Jongsma

www.philippweber.org mail@philippweber.org

Cosmetic Surgery Kingdom – ‘I want to look like an Eames.’ Plastic surgery for unhappy chairs.

Heat Capacity – Can’t you see? An overview of heat production and consumption throughout the city.

Arnout Meijer

www.bora-hong.com borahong@hotmail.com

Passages – A changing pattern to mark an entrance.

Thanks for the Sun – There is nothing like the natural cycle of the sun to light your living room.

www.studioestherjongsma.com studioestherjongsma@gmail.com

www.arnoutmeijer.nl mail@arnoutmeijer.nl

Mirabilia Wallpaper – Please do touch these walls.

Strange Symphony – Adding jazz to glass.

Nienke Bongers

Kawara Bench – Turning discarded rooftop tiles into objects for everyday use.

Tsuyoshi Hayashi

www.con-pasion.org sizaba@gmail.com

Tijmen Smeulders Versatile Volumes – Questioning the volume and shape of our daily objects.

For Pablo Calderón, François Duquesnoy, Jan Pieter Kaptein, Jules van den Langenberg, Jeannette Petrik, Joram Raaijmakers and Renee Scheepers please see page 14 – 15, Happening in the exhibition.

www.tijmensmeulders.nl info@tijmensmeulders.nl

Salone del Mobile Milano 2014

Happening in the exhibition Films

Interventions

Debates Self Unself unfolded by inspirational graduates, design critics and curators of the show. Come and have your morning coffee or afternoon tea with us!

Monica Alisse

Pablo Calderón

Radio Emma

Mapping Malala – How news becomes a branded idea.

It Is What It Is – The designer on tour to trigger debate and inter action with the public.

From a design point of view – Original, playful, thorough and creative, Student Radio EMMA will be manifesting itself in Milan. Radio EMMA was born during the Dutch Design Week, where it proved to be the ideal medium for generating information in a designerly way. In Milan, EMMA will prove its own unique journalistic qualities with in-depth interviews, creative intermezzos during the Breakfast Talks, surveys, and its own interpretation of the Salone del Mobile.

www.monicaalisse.com monicaalisse@gmail.com

www.pablocalderonsalazar.com calderonp@gmail.com

Jeannette Petrik Loopholes – I am a consumer, I am a designer, I am a social being. A research into my responsibilities.

The Alchemist – My bathroom will be my body care laboratory. www.ninavanbart.nl info@ninavanbart.nl

Ward Goes

Nina van Bart

www.jeannettepetrik.com jeannette@jeannettepetrik.com

Please keep track of the recordings at selfunself.nl and on Facebook: www.facebook.com/EMMAradio

François Duquesnoy

News for Eternity – Overcoming news numbness by putting news on a pedestal.

One Place, One Week, One Interior – From found object to new furniture in a few days.

The Spectacular Times – An investigation into the ways the media shape the news.

www.francoisduquesnoy.nl info@francoisduquesnoy.nl

www.wardgoes.nl wardgoes@gmail.com

Anne Couillaud

Denise Stoopen

Le 5ème Quartier – From by-product to luxury material.

Small Talkers – The world as seen by Denise Stoopen, 50 cms shorter than the average female. FR

www.annecouillaud.com couillaud.anne@gmail.com

Alexandre Humbert

Joram Raaijmakers

www.denisestoopen.com info@denisestoopen.com

The Architecture of Control – Scale models with GPS to inspire a conversation

White Sheep Black Dream – Can a designer make the white sheep break free?

joramraaijmakers.blogspot.com joram.raaijmakers@gmail.com LK

www.maurice-et-paula.com ajm.humbert@gmail.com

Jan Pieter Kaptein

Silvia Dini Modigliani

The Second Self Laboratory – An invitation to physically embrace a new identity.

www.silviadinimodigliani. wordpress.com clorosilla@gmail.com

www.janpieterkaptein.nl jpkaptein@gmail.com

The Lobby – If they are doing it, why can’t we? www.unsalted.nu nick@unsalted.nu

The Feminine Space Between – Always on my way to becoming someone new. cargocollective.com/thefeminine spacein-between muzimartina@gmail.com

Would you give your personal secrets to a stranger? You will be very tempted by this group of cookie makers. The Secret Cookie Factory is an irresistible factory. You can find the Cookie Factory at L.A.P. every day.

Martina Muzi Nick Meehan

Secret Cookie Factory!

Erik van de Wijdeven Space for Otherness – An installation that lets us experience the complexities of the human mind. www.erikvandewijdeven.com evandewijdeven@gmail.com

Parrhesia, On Demonstrations and Other Crowds – The individual in the crowd that questions the medium.

Renee Scheepers

A Series of Mnemonics – Improving the transfer of information to cancer patients.

Dave Hakkens

www.reneescheepers.nl scheepersrenee@gmail.com ZN

PhoneBloks – The phone that features replaceable parts. www.davehakkens.nl mail@davehakkens.nl

Echo Yang Autonomous Machines – Obsolete machines take the stage as creators.

Sanne Ree Barthels Settings of Connection – Bonding with Alzheimer’s patients through shared activities. www.sannereebarthels.com sannereebarthels@gmail.com

Self Unself – Design Academy Eindhoven

EMMA is: Tom Loois info@tomloois.nl Alissa Rees lissierees@hotmail.com Maarten Scherpenisse maartenscherpenisse@me.com Olle Lundin ollelundin88@hotmail.com Alfred Koster akoster@xs4all.nl Hilde van der Heijden Hilde.vanderHeijden@design academy.nl Danielle Arets Danielle.arets@designacademy.nl

www.echoweilunyang.com echo.tw@gmail.com

Jules van den Langenberg Cultivating Culture – Pleasure is the best medicine. www.julesvandenlangenberg.nl info@julesvandenlangenberg.nl

For Marie-Elsa Batteux Flahault, Auerlie Hoegy, Bora Hong and Wei Lun Tseng please see page 12 – 13, Standing in the exhibition.

Maxime Benvenuto maxime.benvenuto@gmail.com Anne Texier annaziliz.tex@gmail.com Juhee Hahm jhnut87@naver.com Floriane Misslin floriane.misslin@hotmail.fr Daeun Lim wendykingdom@gmail.com Bo van Bommel, Coordinator Man & Leisure bo.vanbommel@designacademy.nl

Daily from 10.00 – 11.30 am (Friday, Tea Talk from 3.30 – 5.00 pm) Admission: free Including coffee and croissants

Self Unself Breakfast & Tea-Time Talks Over the past years, Design Academy Eindhoven (DAE) has developed a healthy tradition of starting the busy Milan days with a hearty breakfast talk. From Wednesday 9 until Saturday 12 April, we will be inviting acknowledged design thinkers and makers for a series of discussions that will nourish both the body and the mind. In three morning sessions and one tea-talk, we will discuss how design education can stimulate a healthy ego, what role designers can play for societal issues and the creative economy, and how we can create a flourishing culture for design critique. The talks are also a good moment to introduce our new directors, Thomas Widdershoven (Creative Director) and Tonny Holtrust (Educational Director) as well as our new Master programme Design Curating and Writing that will start from September this year. All talks will be moderated by Tracy Metz, journalist and author on urban and spatial issues. Our own radio channel, Radio Emma, will take care of designed intermezzos. We welcome you to come and nurture your body and the mind! Breakfast Talk 1:

Educating the Self Wednesday 9 April 10.00 – 11.30 am A healthy ego is essential for a good designer. After all, it’s the creative spirit of the designer that ultimately has to come up with the best solution. So during their design education students have to master creative skills and develop unique and strong design solutions and strategies, but they are also trained to follow their instincts, trust their gut feelings, and act accordingly. ‘For their graduation they have to initiate projects themselves, which really brings out their creative spirit’, says Thomas Widdershoven, Creative Director of Design Academy Eindhoven. Training this self-awareness is no easy task; what is the role of a good tutor in this process? How can tutors guide a creative process and make sure that a healthy ego doesn’t turn into an overestimating of the self? According to David and Tom Kelly, founders of Stanford D school and authors of the book Creative Confidence, creativity is not exclusively the domain of creative types; using the right principles

and strategies we can unleash the creative potential in everyone. Is this really true? And what does this mean for design schools? Forum Tonny Holtrust, Managing Director Education & Research Design Academy Eindhoven Jurgen Bey, Managing Director Sandberg Institute in Amsterdam and design studio Makkink & Bey Jan Pieter Kaptein, graduate Design Academy Eindhoven with project the Second Self Laboratory Eugenie deLariviere, graduate Design Academy Eindhoven with project My Education Frustration

In September 2014 Design Academy Eindhoven (DAE) will start a new Master programme: Design Curating and Writing. What are the skills one needs to learn to give critique? What is the role of design critique in our current society? Is design criticism a profession for designers or should we leave this field to art historians or journalists?

Design for the Unself

Forum Jan Boelen, Head of the Master Social Design and one of the heads of the new Master on Design Curating & Writing. Justin McGuirk, Design writer, critic, curator, director of Strelka Press Tamar Shafir, design critic, alumnus Design Academy Eindhoven (Masters)

Thursday 10 April 10.00 – 11.30 am

Breakfast Talk 3;

Breakfast Talk 2:

Social issues and an interest in the collective are at the heart of many DAE graduation projects. Designers are increasingly delving into societal issues to see how their design skills can be of value. According to Thomas Widdershoven this ties in with the current times in which the balance of power is shifting. The big institutions have failed us. The welfare state is crumbling. People are taking initiatives where institutions fail. The core of these participative initiatives lies in the fact that there is a strong belief in collaboration, in sharing ideas and working collectively on big issues. How can designers successfully operate in these networks without losing their selves? What skills and expertise can they bring? How can design schools prepare a new generation of designers for this? Forum Thomas Widdershoven, Creative Director Design Academy Eindhoven & Director Studio Thonik Alexandra Midal, freelance curator, Head of Masters programme HEAD (Haute ecole d’art) in Geneva Dave Hakkens, graduate Design Academy Eindhoven, graduation project PhoneBloks Bora Hong, graduate Design Academy Eindhoven, gradation project Cosmetic Surgery Introduction to the exhibition by Jan Konings, curator of Self Unself (with Thomas Widdershoven)

Researching Ourselves Saturday 12 April 10.00 – 11.30 AM Design today is called upon by the economy, society and culture to help build bridges between previously separate disciplines and interest groups, because no expertise alone can solve the complex ‘wicked’ problems we are facing today. The Readership Strategic Creativity at Design Academy Eindhoven investigates how designers can create knowledge that enables creativity to play a more strategic role in service innovation for society and the economy, by placing ‘doing design’ at the heart of doing research. What can design research contribute to existing forms of research? What are the skills that need to be trained for this? How can this strengthen the Creative Economy? Forum Bas Raijmakers, Reader Strategic Creativity at Design Academy Eindhoven & Creative Director of STBY Anne Meroni, researcher at Design and Innovation for Sustainability, of the Department INDACO (Industrial Design, Arts, Communication and Fashion) of Politecnico di Milano For further information, please contact: Danielle Arets, Knowledge Manager: danielle.arets@designacademy.nl Hilde van der Heijden, Communications Manager: Hilde.vander Heijden@designacademy.nl

Tea-Talk

Questioning & Curating the Self & Unself

The breakfast talks are made possible by Creative Industries Fund.

Friday 11 April 3.30 – 5.00 pm Design critics are facing new times; thanks to social media, critique is spread through a range of platforms and in numerous formats. Critique is no longer an activity exclusively practiced by professionals; in our digital society, everyone seems to be a critic. But, according to design critic Justin McGuirk, offering sound, constructive critique is no easy task; thorough training is essential if we are to offer critique in effective ways and using the appropriate formats.

Salone del Mobile Milano 2014

Photo: Lisa Klappe

Whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s next? Do you want to help the poor or dazzle the rich? Do you want to solve problems or enrich life with smart, innovative, experimental design? Consider the Design Academy Eindhoven for a bachelor or master degree. Each year we bring together a group of young talents from around the world to learn, research, question, define and redefine design. The future will be designed by the designers of the future. Have a look at our website and see how you can apply: www.designacademy.nl

Design Academy Eindhoven Emmasingel 14 Postbus 2125 NL â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 5600 CC Eindhoven

T +31(0)40 239 39 39 info@designacademy.nl www.designacademy.nl

Dave Hakkens PhoneBloks