Design Beyond Production by z33

For the fourth time, Z33 will present itself at the Design Week in Milan, from 9 to 12 April 2013. In Milan, Z33 will be showing the research project Design Beyond Production. The exhibition focuses on the position of the maker in existing and near-future production processes.

New production systems (3D printing, home production, collaborative processes) have become a hot topic in the design world these past few years. With Design Beyond Production, Z33 aims to add certain crucial critical reflections to this discourse. Notwithstanding the positive side to the story, every design of a production system inherently pronounces a value judgment on the people in the production process. And the consequences for the people in the system are not always promising...

“Design is politics. The products and systems we design have an influence on how we live, how we organise our society, even on how we think. In the design of our production systems, the values and norms of our society become visible.” argues Jan Boelen, artistic director of Z33. “The design world cannot ignore this and carries a tremendous responsibility.”

In the past years, the design debate was strongly influenced by the possibilities of new production systems. This trend was highlighted in two recent Z33 exhibitions – Thomas Lommée’s “OpenStructures” and last year’s “The Machine”- as well as in the influential “Adhocracy” exhibition by Joseph Grima at the Istanbul Design Biennial. These exhibitions show the numerous new possibilities that such production systems would create: a 3D printer would turn every consumer into a designer, a collective and open-source design would make us less dependent on the given choices of industry, and the rediscovery of our proper creativity would turn us into better, active citizens.

“But we should look at all this with a critical eye,” says Jan Boelen: “That is why Z33, with Design Beyond Production, aims to add certain crucial critical reflections to this discourse. Notwithstanding the positive side to the story, every design of a production system also includes less positive consequences for those who need to operate within. And these consequences, often on a social, cultural, political rather than economic level, are not always that promising...”

With Design Beyond Production, Z33 presents three scenarios that query the position of the maker in a production process. Curator of the exhibition is Karen Verschooren (Z33).
Z33 develops projects on the intersection between design and contemporary art, developments in society and scientific phenomena. From this backcloth, Z33 has been one of the authoritative voices in the contemporary design debate in Europe for several years.

photo: Cohen Van Balen

What if the motions at the conveyor belt are no longer dictated by the form and function of a product, but vice versa: if the choreography of the worker dictates the form and function of an object? What (or who?) is the finished product then?

In 75 Watt, a product is specially designed to be mass-manufactured in China. The object’s only function is to choreograph a dance performed by the labourers manufacturing it.

The work seeks to explore the nature of mass-manufacturing products on various scales; from the geopolitical context of hyper-fragmented labour to the bio-political condition of the human body on the assembly line. Engineering logic has reduced the factory labourer to a man-machine, through scientific management of every single movement. By shifting the purpose of the labourer’s actions from the efficient production of objects to the performance of choreographed acts, mechanical movement is reinterpreted into the most human form of motion: dance. What is the value of an artefact that only exists to support the performance of its own creation? And as the product dictates the movement, does it become the subject, rendering the worker the object?

Production credits: Choreography: Alexander Whitley - Film production: Siya Chen

Supported by: Arts Council England, Flemish Authorities, Ask4Me Group, Zhongshan City White Horse Electric Co. Ltd, FACT, V2_Institute for the Unstable Media, workspacebrussels

Revital Cohen and Tuur Van Balen run a London based experimental practice that operates on the border between art and design. They produce fictional objects, photographs and videos exploring the juxtaposition of the natural with the artificial. Inspired by designer species, composed wilderness and mechanical organs, they set out to create posthuman bodies, bespoke metabolisms, unnatural animals and poetic machines.

photo: photo Ford T by Tall Erez

What if every home has its own 3D printer? Will the consumer increasingly become a designer and maker himself? Or will it be the designer who increasingly steers production processes, as professional producers have become obsolete? And what are the consequences for whoever leases the ‘machine time’? What connection with the manufactured product will he still have? Who is responsible for what?

In Bande à part, Israeli designer Tal Erez investigates the implications of a networked, decentralised production system of home factories. Challenging the optimistic view of the third industrial revolution – which turns every consumer into a possible designer and manufacturer – his Bande à part reorganizes these roles in a new way. In this reconstructed future, the designer sits at the top of the pyramid as the creator, entrepreneur and factory manager in a series of decentralized manufacturing units. The consumer, from his side, faces the ethical and social implications of being both a factory worker and a user.

Erez's work indicates that production structures, intended primarily to function in the context of a profit-driven economy, always hold social, political and legal implications as well as a subversive potential.

This project was made possible by '3D Hubs', an online platform for local 3D printing, Yair Gellis Ohad Meyuhas and Oded Lahav

Tal Erez is an Israeli designer and design researcher.

Through texts, objects, products, systems and settings, Erez has positioned himself at the meeting point of design, economics, politics and society, zooming in on the opportunities and consequences of new production systems, labour markets and emerging consumer products, and the changing roles of the designer in face of these transformations.

photo: Tobias Revell

What if ‘time is money’ and ‘life is work is life’ are taken to extremes? What if your time management system in a networked production system not only meticulously tracks the time on the work floor, but also determines every single second of your life? What if one becomes no more than a shadow citizen of an employer far away?

In Mercenary Cubiclists, Tobias Revell sketches out the life of a new class of specialised ‘taskumers’ in a digitally networked production system in the British town of Galtham. Advances in and the proliferation of communication technology has led to a rise of a new middle class of highly specialised 'taskumers' for hire in the slipstream of vast digital agencies like the Mechanical Turk and TaskRabbit. But there is a darker side: beneath the glow of technological progress lurk powerful opportunities for capitalistic exploitation. Mercenary Cubiclists examines the potential for a dark underbelly of new capital, the unseen and unclean hidden from view on the other side of the world, deniable, placeless and exploited by a system that promotes anonymity, brevity and insecurity as the new values of work.

Production credits: Motion Graphics: Ferry Gouw

Tobias Revell is a UK-based designer and practicing artist. His work looks at the crossover points of technology, economics and politics and how these intersections might manifest themselves, for better or worse. By drawing an audience into alternative worlds he hopes to inspire thought and debate about the unpublicized externalities and extremes of progress as well as seeking a new way to talk about our human systems. His previous work has looked at applied libertarianism, synthetic biology out of context and chronographies of power.