Priscila Lena Farias / Anna Calvera Marcos da Costa ... - Blucher

Italian Radicals and Dutch Conceptuals: the Sensation of Affect in Two Movements.
cepts, so fire can be said to be both potent and alluringly nonspecific.
According to Deleuzian theorist Brian Massumi, affects
can create deep and prolonged sensations from the vibration of
feedback mechanisms within the senses, which are otherwise
broken or interrupted by the construction of language, and hence
concepts (Massumi, 2002: 23-25). Deleuze’s own explanation
of the vibratory nature of sensation, consisting of amplitudes
and thresholds defining that point in which a sense is felt or no
longer felt correlates well to this feedback mechanism (Deleuze,
2003: 45). So in the image of Mendini’s burning chair there is an
intensity, but signification is constructed subsequently. Affect
does not connect in a straightforward way to conceptual content.
It should also be considered that Mendini burnt his chair
simply because of this, because of affect - he had a magazine
cover to produce - and that its conceptual significance was constructed
by Mendini and others later with historical perspective
relative to the end of the Radical Movement.
5. Obscurity to Plurality
Of course, the end of the Italian Radicals has been marked by
other events, such as the subsequent departure of Mendini and
his editorial team from Casabella, or the dissolution of Global
Tools. Global Tools (1973 - 1975) included many of the luminaries
of the Radical scene coming together on the basis of their shared
ideology and opposition to Modernism. However, its failure to coordinate
a shared methodology has been seen as an indication
of the failure of the movement as a whole (Moline 2012). The lack
of a shared design language was previously recognised by Enzo
Mari and used as an excuse for not contributing a project to the
seminal exhibition Italy the New Domestic Landscape at MOMA.
The essay he wrote instead decries the obscurity and value of
the “personal” voice (Mari, in Ambasz 1972: 263-265).
Mari’s position is interesting because it is personal voice, represented
via a plurality of concepts, themes, and what could best
be called micro-movements, which define the period of Dutch
conceptual design starting from the creation of Droog in 1993.
Co-founder Renny Ramakers describes Droog as experimental
and flexible in content and style, but with one fundamental; the
clarity of the concept (Ramakers 1998: 9). This does not exclude
aesthetic consistences, and many of the early products were
dry and austere, but Paola Antonelli argues that Droog presented
a new force of morality where ethics become as important
as aesthetics (Antonelli in Ramakers 1998: 13). However, the
movement is also compromised by lack of consistency. Droog
designers, and Dutch conceptual designers in general, work
from personally defined interests and agenda which can be, and
often are, ethically driven, but as a group in potential opposition.
Interestingly, this form of individualism and plurality was predicted
to occur in the post-Radical period by the Italian theorist
Andrea Branzi (Buchanan 1995).
Droog, however, has been noted to be absent of theory (de Rijk
2010). This can be assumed this generally also true for Dutch
conceptual design of the same period. Their aesthetic experi-
mentations of the can be compared to that of the Italian Radicals,
but in absence of theory do not conceptualise into a common
ethical ideology. As such, their work is adaptable to various interests.
Droog, an organisation engaged in marketing Dutch design,
is one such interest. And a particular criticism of Droog is
that the organisation is engaged in the production of concepts
reducible to a sales pitch, as noted by Catherine Geel. Geel also
proclaims this is a hijacking of the concept by marketing forces,
pre-emptively identified and lamented by the Deleuze and Guattari
(Deleuze & Guattari 1994: 10) at about the same time Droog
was founded (Geel, 2010).
Figure 5. Maarten Baas: left, Smoke (2002) and right, Where’s There Smoke (2004)
6. Smoking Wood
Maarten Baas’ Smoke series (2002) is a good example of how
experimental and affective practise can be co-opted in this manner.
Baas, while still a student at the Design Academy Eindhoven,
was interested in wear and tear as a signifier of value in products.
He experimented with “crushing, melting and soaking”, and
even throwing chairs of a building (Fairs). When he had the idea
of controlled burning he finally achieved the dramatic affect he
was looking for, but at this point he had left his original concept
of the value of wear and tear far behind. It was replaced by a process
far more intense and ambiguous in meaning. The Smoke series
was thus retrospectively conceptualised. Predictably iconoclastic
interpretations persist; a protest against historical design
perhaps, be it Baroque (fig. 4, left) or Modernist (fig. 4, right).
Baas and others claim it is re-branding, though Baas is honest
about his general lack of strategy. He claims, ‘I just think: “Hey.
This or that should be nice to make.” Then I find a way to make
it...’ (Rawsthorn 2006)
His gallerist Murray Moss’ interpretation of Smoke is interesting,
for it touches upon the very nature of affect. Explaining how
Baas manipulates the surface of the furniture with his blowtorch,
Moss says:
“You take something and you actually caress it with your hands,
with flame. You actually alter it chemically, like eating it, ingesting
it”. (Moss 2007)
This chemical and thus molecular based transformation he describes
its not unlike the action of affect in mediating sensation.
Design Frontiers: Territiories, Concepts, Technologies 559