John James Marshall thesis.pdf - OpenAIR @ RGU - Robert Gordon ...

Figure 23: ‘Pushed Washtub’, 1996. Hella Jongerius
However, rather than a loss of cultural ‘depth’ as has been suggested (Gablik,
1985) it has been argued (Azuma, 2001) that in Postmodernism we are replacing
the ‘Grand Narrative’ with the ‘Grand Database’. Postmodern works are created
not by a sense of authorship or an ideology, but by deconstructing and
reconstructing the content of this database by rereading it in a different way.
Jean Baudrillard, argues the Modernist distinction between the original and the
copy, the real and the image is a redundant notion and that everything becomes
a simulacrum in the postmodern era (Baudrillard, 1994). The ability to do this
is enhanced with the proliferation of digital technologies.
2.9.4 New forms of design practice
The transformations underway in contemporary design practice are too vast a
subject to be dealt with adequately within the scope of this research. There
follows a discussion of some of the more significant developments which may
help to frame some of the implications for hybrid art and design practice.
The design of everyday objects is increasingly concerned with culture and the
communication of the meaning of a product or its use (Norman, 2004). In this
way, ‘form follows function’ might be seen to have been eclipsed by consumer
desires for attractiveness and the emotional qualities of objects (Norman,
2004). Krippendorff (1995) argues that artifacts by themselves have no stable
meanings and called on the profession of design to concern itself with the
meanings artifacts can acquire by their users. He stated that design has become
language-like and its objects are ‘texts’ and that people act not on physical
qualities but on what they come to mean to them (Krippendorff, 1995).
Krippendorff also specified a need for a new kind of designer. She or he has
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