Useless? — The Wandering Pain
Exhibition design together with António Pedro Louro and Gonçalo Prudêncio for EXD'11
Lisboa, 2011
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As a result of decades of highly specialized production to meet the needs of an increasingly complex daily life, we live surrounded by thousands of objects whose usefulness is now more than ever in question. The global market crisis, the looming energy crisis, the new ethos of economic social and environmental sustainability, are pushing contemporary society towards a thorough inquiry of what is ultimately useful, i.e., necessary, relevant, fit to fulfill a function. Almost automatically, this condition or state of usefulness is converted into ethical judgments or a “design morality” – useful is good, positive, it represents added value and is therefore desirable. On the other hand, the opposite reasoning condemns the “useless” with the same ease with which it praises the “useful”; the word “useless” itself is charged with a connotation that is as negative as it is irredeemable.
But if, abstractedly, this logic appears linear and easily accepted, this is not the case when we apply it to the field of objects, to their underlying processes of choice and decision and that, ultimately, shape the gestures, instruments and habits of our everyday existence. Is there a universal system, a measure of usefulness? If so, who came up with it and how is it applied?
The exhibition “Useless?” presents two parallel curatorial narratives that explore these issues in an attempt to outline a sort of anatomy of use. Autonomous but potentially complementary, both set out from a penetrating analysis of objects as the main subjects in the judgment of usefulness, reflecting polarized perspectives.
“Useless? An Exploded View”, curated by Jonathan Olivares (US), focuses on the effects and impact of objects, their inception and operativeness with different individuals and contexts. “Useless? The Wandering Pain” curated by Hans Maier-Aichen (DE) and Max Bruinsma (NL) exposes and critiques the tyrannical imperatives of market economy and how they dictate, instead of following, the intrinsic functionality – and ensuing usefulness – of objects. Situated at the object’s inception, “The Wandering Pain” denounces the constraints placed upon the design process by revenue calculations and expected market success, of which usefulness becomes a derivation. “An Exploded View” centers on the previous stage of the objects’ existence, surveying their performance and extended repercussion as a functional and material units within a given time-space context. “Useless?” questions usefulness and its relation with functionality and relevance – real or fabricated – of the objects that surround us.
from EXD'11 website
An Exploded View
Curator
Jonathan Olivares
Graphic and Exhibition Design
Jonathan Olivares
Design Research and Assistant Curator
Jerôme Nelet
The Wandering Pain
Curator
Max Bruinsma
Hans Maier-Aichen
Assistant Curator
Matthias Leipholz
Exhibition Design
Hans Maier-Aichen
Max Bruisma
with
António Pedro Louro
Gonçalo Prudêncio
Pedro Ferreira
Rita João
Graphic Design
Vivóeusébio
Represented designers
Alessandro Mendini
Atelier Van Lieshout
Barbara Visser
Daniel Eatock
Hans Maier-Aichen
Hella Jongerius
Jaime Hayon
Julia Lohmann
Jurgen BeyKaren Ryan
Katharina Wahl
Marc Newson
Marcel Wanders
Marijn Van Der Poll
Marti Guixé
Michele de Lucci
Philippe Starck
Ron Arad
Stephane Barbier Bouvet
Stefano Giovannoni
Tejo Remy
Tord Boontje