Outback Station by Aaron Fletcher

Outback Station by Aaron Fletcher

Moving Objects centres around emotive design, that is, designed objects which demand to be engaged with rather than simply used. These emotionally laden, highly authored works are often produced in limited editions and can be sold like art. Examples given in the book include leather sofas which resemble cows and jewellery boxes made from human hair. Such objects can be shown in exhibitions which ask 'carefully crafted questions', critique contemporary culture or speculate on possible futures. If postmodernism challenged the supremacy of utilitarian functionalism that demanded ironic distance, emotive design does the same and more.

Tracing the phenomenon back to the 'Dutch inflection' that began with Droog designers like Jurgen Bey and Hella Jongerious, Moving Objects follows the 'descent' of such work back through Italian radical design and looks for its origins in the uncanny explorations of surrealism. Through analysis of the rising popularity of designer-makers like Nacho Carbonell and Studio Swine, the book establishes a critical and theoretical framework for understanding the this emotive and sometimes disturbing work. By examining the experiments of Assa Asuach, Matthias Bengtson and others, Moving Furniture asks what happens when the tangible melts into the datascape and design becomes a question of mobilities. The discussion examines contemporary issues of how we live with artefacts and what design can do.