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Trends and anti-trends in industrial design
possibilities of a concrete contribution are limited. I appeal to the original meaning
of the word “crisis”, in the sense of an inevitable change, decisive to overcome the
turbulence of the current time. These crisis would not be perceived and would even
be denied by a consciousness that imagines it is living in the digital belle époque.
Obviously, there are many ways of reacting before a crisis. I exclude the
projectual cynicism and projectual nihilism as an option for an answer – or better
– a not-answer to the crisis.
Maybe it is too daring to affirm that the design may exert an important role in
the current crises, because it is also a victim of them. However, we cannot ignore
the inter-relations and the fine capillary bifurcations of the projectual activities
throughout social structure, since it participates in the configuration of the material
and immaterial scenario.
A crisis allows us to review the reference frame that used to serve as a
support, up to the moment, for the actuation in the different areas of production
and consume. A crisis obliges us to verify the validity or loss of validity of this
reference frame. If we look to the economical history of the past three decades,
we will see a gradual erosion of the public space. We verify an emptying of the
concept of democracy, with an increment of the private interests, provoking a
growing atrophy of the social interests. This process has motivated the appearance
of voices that claim for a re-invention of the public domain, as a democratic space,
aiming the effective recovery of democracy. This goes beyond programs of social
“inclusion”, such as the concession of scholarships to the needy ones and of quotas
in the universities, only to avoid the uncomfortable and even conflictual issue of
redistribution (MOUFFE, 2008, 2010).
It is true that the tendency of possession has strong roots in the occidental
society, but it seems to be surpassing its limits. In the design field, it manifests
itself in a agitated carnival of innovation, in which the innovation is celebrated
as a value in itself and for itself, without questioning the social relevance of the
innovation. Besides that, a self-referential attitude, unknown in previous times, is
being fomented. The personal figure of the designer seems to have more relevance
than the design itself. Modifying the words of Andy Warhol, we may say: “A lot
of people think, today, that design is represented by the name of the designer”.
Cadernos de Estudos Avançados em Design - design e humanismo - 2013 - p. 131-139
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