Status.Symbol.

Investigating the role and power of designers in nowadays societies and their industries, this long term project tries to (re)design desires of daily life.
To the French philosopher Jean Baudrillard, a symbolic- or sign value, is always part of a commodity (Baudrillard 1980). With other words: One cannot not communicate, as according to the famous quote of Paul Watzlawick (Watzlawick/Bavelas/Jackson 1967).
Industries reproduce these forms of communication at high speed, on a global scale. They re- and overwrite possibilities, habits, gestures and social interactions as well as dreams and desires.
What role do designers play in a world of supply and demand? Is there room for designing alternative status symbols? Is there a need to do so? And what are contemporary status symbols anyway? Can designers design desires?
Desire leads to a supervision of the environment creating an opportunity to reconfigure it to suit “illegitimate” needs, establishing new and unofficial narratives. (Dunne/Raby 2001)
What could illegitimate needs within an industrial production context be? Is there a hidden power within the development of unofficial narratives for industrialized societies?
Does unofficial mean disobedient?
The design philosopher Mara Recklies sees a need for a design of aesthetic disobedience (Recklies 2021). A design that reconfigures present criteria for design. Pointing out new directions for a design that is amongst other things anti-centric, sustainable non reificational.
Within this project we will analyse and catalogue a diverse group of Objects we find fascinating and relevant within the category of (nowadays) status objects. We will study their qualities, functions, communication and interaction levels – and if necessary – design alternatives.We will question current criteria for “good” design and try to formulate a manifesto for the new subject Design, Industries & Technologies.

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Baudrillard, Jean (1980): For a Critique of the Political Economy of the Sign. New edition. St.Louis, MO: Telos Press,U.S.

Watzlawick, Paul/Bavelas, Janet Beavin/Jackson, Don D. (1967): Pragmatics of Human Communication: A Study of Interactional
Patterns, Pathologies, and Paradoxes. New York: Norton.

Dunne, Anthony/Raby, Fiona (2001): Design Noir: The Secret Life of Electronic Objects. 1. Edition. Basel: Birkhäuser Verlag GmbH.

Recklies, Mara (2021): „Kriterien für gutes Design, die den Schaden maximieren. Zur Kriteriologie der Gestaltung“. In: Christoph Rodatz/ Pierre Smolarski (Hrsg.): Wie können wir den Schaden maximieren? Gestaltung trotz Komplexität. Transcript, Bielefeld 2021, S. 99-123.