Karim Rashid
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Karim Rashid Oct. 7-Nov. 21, 2001 JohnsonCounty Community College • Galleryof Art • • • • • MutantP ixels,2000, vac uum formed polystyrene, fluorescent paint, 14"x18"x18" (eachuni t), courtesySandra Gering Gal lery,NY. Pleasure steam to come out, like a smokestack. The clientsjust After 10 yearsof practicing, I hated industrial design. stared into spaceas I spoke about the poeticsof the I wanted to leavethe professionbecause I had a greater ultrasonic mechanismas a vibrating interior shadow. I interest in art and fashion, which seemed more liberated. knew I was in the wrong place at the wrong time, but Theseprofessions were intellectual but fun, exciting, and I also knew that I was learning - learning that product full of energy and life. Experimentationwas expected. development was not a creativefield . Sure,you could do Strong personalitywas obvious in the work . As with art, a little styling, but there was little room for real innovative beneath the seeming ficklenessof fashion, the underlying design. What did they know about the rest of the world; agendasof life, time and spacewere being defined, what did they know about others' likes and dislikes? documented, and perpetually tried and tested. They Contrary to their beliefs,I realizeddesign is not calculative. optimized autonomy of expression,of contributing to the It is not a serviceprofession to simply answer clients' or ever-changing,ever-vast cultural shaping of the world and consumers' needs. It is not a professionbased on market popular culture. I knew industrial design could play the studies,stratas, marketed groups and tribes, focus groups, same, if not an even more profound, role. All culture is predictability of sales, solving problems(we have solved now popular, and I wanted to participate in it. I wanted all the problems),meeting certain "market" criteria or to create beauty - objects relevantto our new global, metonyms. Instead,i t is a professionof shaping new nomadic lifestyles.I wanted to engage the new digital cultures, shifting human paradigms,contradicting the global marketplace,I also realizeda few yearsago, after familiar and proposing new object protocols- creating playing it safe for the longest time, working with many an exciting world, an experiential world, a poetic world. conservative,dull clients. Fifteenyears ago, I proposed Design is music, writing a song that can affect millions, a new colored, clear-tint polypropyleneto a kitchen that can inspire millions, that can reachthe deeper appliance manufacturer.The reaction was, Why would spiritual side of our souls. It is a professionthat should anyone want to have a translucentappliance? I remember bring new experiences, greater pleasuresand higher presentinga humidifier that was a simple, translucent, valuesthat will elevateand enrich our material world. organic object with no visible interface. It was tall and Anything I designtoday will reallyhave an effect three vertical in orientation, with just a small orifice for the yearsfrom now. Therefore,I should project into the future; I should not look at the marketplacebut instead examine and change behaviors,change our human conditioning, changing trends, changing attitudes and new paradigms. our evanescentpublic memory,and change the world. I rememberthe school of social responsibility,of Post-industrialdesign is a professionthat will engage the humanization, of creating things for people. The true immaterial, the dematerializationof the object. We will radicalwork in the world, the projects,artifacts and eventually reach a state where, as designers,we will have conceptsthat reallyshaped our world, are mostly personal fewer physicalobjects to design. The argument of post and somewhat stubborn visionsof a few artists that saw industrial design is that objects are becoming more the world unlike the averagebeing . They saw a New technological and complex and, therefore, require other World; they saw a new possibility,an alternative to the expertsto be part of the materializationprocess . So, if I world we created. design a chip to be implanted in an arm or an eye or I Artists are perceptive,inquisitive, hyper-awareof their develop e-money as a fingerprint, at some point there surroundings,so they see messages,ideas, signs, issues, will be alwaysthe same issue,interface, interaction, opportunities that many others don't see. They see details. navigation, and possiblysome physicaldock . If my They see visual nuances. Artists exist in every profession. fingerprint is my credit card, someone has to develop They are the few who are perpetually in searchof, and the interface. What do I put my finger on; what do I highly passionateabout (if not completely obsessed, touch? Is it warm, cool, smooth, slippery; is it attached sometimesto the detriment of others, about) creating to something? Is there some feedback on whether my something original - a doctor finding a new form of finger has that credit limit? Do I receivea receipt; is it medicine, a cure or an alternative to the applied and visual or aural? Do I have to protect that print; is there dogma. I alwaysfelt designersshould learn everything a cool little sheath that becomesa fashion item, a sheath about their profession,know it extremely well, dive into that can differentiate me from everyoneelse the deep end, so to speak, until their knowledge is to support my need for individual expression? saturated. Then they have to forget everything. This Post-industrialdesign means bioengineers,scientists , catharsis,this rubric, is the cleansing process,the road to behaviorists(although I considerthat I am a behaviorist complete autonomy of thought so one can create freely as a designer), doctors, geneticists,etc. But there is only P/easurescape, 2001, fiberglassand automotive lacquer, 24"x48"x72" (each uni t), RiceGallery insta llation, Houston, TX. one person who keepsa pulse on the public, on human life - the designer. The designer is an editor of culture, a conductor of the production of goods, the mediator between the corporation, the company and the audience. The designer has a phenomenologicalrole to understand how our object landscapeis engaged or disengaged,how things change our lives,shape our livesand touch our lives.An averageperson touches 500 objects a day. These objects range from the hyper-banal,such as a toothbrush, to the lessthan 1 percent probability of touching some thing new. Post-industrialdesign will deal with all our senses,as GianfrancoZaccai once said, "Design has primarily focused on the visual and the tactile, but we are now." The kinesthetic,the sensorium,the omniexperiential:the future will be made up of an orgy of experiences.The digital age has created a new hypersensitivity,a more exotic connection with our senses,and a kaleidoscopeof stimuli, of information, of living, loving and well-being. Blob tableand stool , 2000, chrome metal baseand fi berglass, 42"x36"x56", Karim Rashid courtesySa ndra Gering Gallery,N Y (adapted from I Want to Change the World, publi shed by Universe Publishing, 2001) Karim Rashidwas born in Cairo, Egypt, in 1960. He is half English,half Egyptianand was raised mostly in Canada.In 1982, he receiveda bachelor of industrial design from Carleton Universityin Ottawa. He pursued graduate design studies in Naples,Italy, with Ettore Sottsassand others, then moved to Milan for one year at the Rodolfo Bonetto Studio. On his return to Canada, he worked for sevenyears with KAN Industrial Designers. While at KAN, he also cofounded and designed the BabelFashion Collection and North from 1985-1991. Rashidopened his own practice in New York City in 1993. He has worked for numerous clients globally, such as Nambe, Umbra, !dee, lsseyMiyake , Totem, Pure Design,Zeritalia, Fasem, Guzzini, EsteeLauder; Tommy Hilfiger; Giorgio Armani, Sony,Magis , Edra, Leonardo, Zanotta, Prada,Maybe/line, Yahoo,George Kovacs,Citibank , Nienkamper and YSL. Rashidhas more than 70 objects in museum collections,and his design work has been exhibited at the PhiladelphiaMuseum of Art," the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Wexner Center;Columbus, Ohio; Museum of DecorativeArts, Montreal; Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, New York; The British Design Museum, London; the Miami Museum of ContemporaryArt; and The Groningen Museum, Holland, among others. Digitalia,1 999, aluminumal loywit h LEDdis playu nit. courtesySa ndraG eringGa llery, NY. Cover: MutantP ixels(de tail}, 2000,vac uumfo rmed polystyrene, fluorescentpain t, 14"x18"x18" (each unit), courtesyS andra GeringGall ery,NY. Johnson County Community College • Gallery of Art • Carlsen Center • 12345 College Blvd., Overland Park, KS 66210 .