A uniquely innovative design project links up studios from London and Berlin. Tom Jeffreys climbs aboard a see-saw.
In recent years London and Berlin have got closer and closer in terms of the relationship that the two cities share together. Although, to be honest, most of it's one-way traffic, as every vaguely creative Londoner ups sticks to Berlin in search of cheap studio space, freedom and parties. I mean, do you know anyone who hasn't gone to Berlin in the last year or so and come back saying, “like, ohmygod, you really so have to move to Berlin – it's just amazing”?
Well this May, Idea Generation Gallery is hosting the first in a two-part exhibition that explores and consolidates the creative relationship betwen artists and designers in each city. BANK in Berlin and INVENTORY Studio in London curate a show made up of a chain of ideas, batted back and forth between the continents by 20 different designers. Rather reassuringly the whole project shows that that those trendy Berlin folk can learn as much from us Londoners as we can from them. And it all started with a hot air balloon...
Let's explain. The Art of Conversation is a project concerned with communication, discussion, and collaboration (did somebody say coalition government?), but also the nature of a design brief, and even the very process of creativity itself. Through a carefully documented process of close communication, each studio produces something that responds to what they've been sent – the curators kicked things off by sending the first design studio on a hot air balloon flight. These designers used the tradition of drinking champagne aboard hot air balloons to send a bottle of fizz to the next studio, who responded, in their own way, to the bubbles in the glass. And so on.
The resulting works are on show this May at Idea Generation (and later in Program Gallery, Berlin) and the exhibition is really rather cool. For me the most instantly eye-catching device is Multistorey's hand-cranked 'lowTECHNO' machine. Constructed out of wooden spoons, tupperware, and other cooking and camping utensils (inspired by the picture of a tent they were sent) the contraption looks like something that would have impressed even the mighty Fred Dibnah (although perhaps he'd be disappointed by the lack of smoke emitted). By turning the wheel and adjusting various bits and bobs, visitors can create their own primitive drum 'n' bass track – which is pretty cool.
Just nearby is a twin see-saw device on which various Shoreditch hipsters risk humiliation by bouncing up and down. I also really like the red, blue and green toy aeroplanes that whizz around the centre of the gallery (although apparently the new batteries make them something of a hazard, but hey ho). Elsewhere there's a money-forging service, a helmet that lets you see like a fly, an installation made of bits of bread, print-outs of various applications for internships, an aerial map of London and all manner of other intriguing designs.
The whole exhibition has a childlike sense of interactive glee, but there's also something more complex at work, something that pervades the whole process of design itself: the relationship between fun and functionality. Design, by its very nature, implies some kind of utility, and yet many designs are in some ways completely pointless. What's with the felt fried egg, for example? What I like about this exhibition is the tension between these two elements. By being part of a project like this, even the most apparently pointless product gains significance. And that, surprisingly, is all part of the fun.
The Art of Conversation is at Idea Generation Gallery until 23rd May 2010, and at Program Gallery, Berlin, 12th-26th June.
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Image credits (L-R): © Multistorey; © Anthony Burrill
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