Grotesque by Design

DESIGNPRINCIPLES& PRACTICES

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Grotesque by Design: Borderline Aesthetic inDesign Discourse

David Goss

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Grotesque by Design: Borderline Aesthetic in DesignDiscourseDavid Goss, Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, Israel

Abstract: Grotesque aesthetics is a phenomenon, very powerful in its visual presence yet evasive andambiguous in definition. Characteristics of the grotesque are frequently visible in many fields of con-temporary culture. The grotesque is surfacing and influencing many visual aspects through the useand promotion of alternative and borderline aesthetics that incorporate; exaggerated modes of popularculture, extremity, absurdity, obesity, disproportions and undefined physical borders. These havechanged contemporary objects’ design, visuality and symbolic function. Much of contemporary designs’activities and the designer’s emphasis today are concerned with the symbolic function of objects. Inthe symbolic function of objects, the aesthetic and critical aspects of a design have become more sig-nificant, continuously adding to a reflexive discourse of design activity. With this, an internally orient-ated and an externally orientated design critique have flourished that has furthered and enriched thedevelopment of a heterogenic design discourse. The question raised; are there visible aspects of grot-esque aesthetic in contemporary design practice?

Keywords: Reflexive Design Discourse, Grotesque Design, Borderline Aesthetic

“Design is the conscious and intuitive effort to impose meaningful order.”1 – VictorPapanek, 1970.

THOUGH PAPANEKS’ DEFINITION of Design is very broad in scope, it un-doubtedly does justice to the design process. Design as a process has been with ussince the days of primordial humanity. One could even say that it is one of our humansignifiers, and as a cognitive process, it existed well before the industrial era, as well

as beyond the physical boundaries of developed countries and their markets. Since its con-ception forty years ago this definition may still encompass all the changes in design practiceand discourse. Meaningful order, or rather, planned disorder in design aesthetics, is thesubject discussed in this paper.

Design is considered a human activity that represents order. It is a rationale that we tryto impress on the world and our surrounding objects. However, the grotesque is a phenomenonof human creativity that seems to represent the polar opposite. The visual presence of grot-esque aesthetics is very powerful yet contradictive, evasive and ambiguous in definition.However, like all intended human creation, grotesque is also conceived through a planneddesign process this is a fact that people generally tend to disregard. But, much like stealthtechnology, the grotesque is designed to be ambiguous and evade our aesthetic categorizingtendencies.

1 Papanek. Victor. Design for the real World: Human Ecology and Social Change, Second Ed. Thames andHudson, London, 1995. p. 4.

Design Principles and Practices: An International JournalVolume 4, 2010, http://www.Design-Journal.com, ISSN 1833-1874© Common Ground, David Goss, All Rights Reserved, Permissions:[email protected]

Manifestations of the grotesque are becoming frequently visible in many fields of contem-porary culture; visible in various aspects of designed objects. This presence of the grotesqueas a visual mode should definitely be considered when discussing the aesthetics of contem-porary design. Thus, in this paper I shall attempt to chart, examine and identify the ontolo-gical traits of grotesque aesthetics or its various signifiers in contemporary design discourse.Furthermore, I shall discuss and question the modes of its usage and contribution to a reflexivedesign discourse.

Sign Follows Function

“In creating or manufacturing objects, man makes himself, through the imposition ofa form (i.e. through culture), into the transubtantiator of nature.” – Jean Baudrillard,1968.2

In his book The Politics of the Artificial, Victor Margolin (Margolin, 2002) differentiatesbetween two models of design activity in human development: the expansionist model andthe sustainable model. Though most contemporary practitioners and pedagogues of designwould wholeheartedly adopt a sustainable model of design, the large majority of humanactivity and production is still in the realm of expansionism. The expansionist “…worldconsists of markets in which products function first and foremost as tokens of economicexchange.”3 A metaphorical collision between these two models of production was describedby Papanek (Papanek, 1972), who presented the slides of his communication device – a tincan transistor radio, which used no batteries or electrical current but depended on a candleas its energy source -at the Hochschule für Gestaltung at Ulm, Germany. However, thissustainable transistor designed for use in developing countries was negatively criticized inthis “Good taste”, rational-functionalist context due to “...its lack of ‘formal’ design.”4 Al-though sustainability clearly represents the optimistic, positive and only perceivable futurefor design and production in the long run, I would rather focus on the existing problematicexpansionistic model in this article.

Over the last century, the majority of design discourse, creation and pedagogy has de-veloped within this expansionist mode. This design practice has defined the aesthetic ideo-logical concept of the modern era. These aesthetic concepts have been articulated in designedobjects bearing the two intrinsic and basic functions of any object, which have been producedby humans: utility and sign.5 According to Ralph Nicholson Wornums’ essay (Wornum,1851) on the objects exhibited at the Crystal Palace, the basic debate in design regards theopposing values of “decoration” versus “uses”. At the 1851 Crystal Palace exhibition, mostof the artifacts showed a gross and sometimes very unbalanced search for equilibrium betweendecoration and utility. This vulgar over-decoration is sometimes seen as a typical trait ofVictorian taste. Without negating decoration as such, Wornum expressed how ornamentation

2 Baudrillard, Jean. Structures of Interior Design. In The System of Objects, Verso , 2002. p. 28.3 Margolin, Victor. The Politics of the Artificial: Essays on Design and Design Studies, The University of ChicagoPress, 2002. p. 82.4 Papanek. Victor. Design for the real World: Human Ecology and Social Change, Second Ed. Thames and Hudson,London, 1995. p. 227.5 Deforge, Yves. Avatars of Design: Design before Design. In The Idea of Design; A Design Issues Reader, Margolin,Victor and Buchanan, Richard (eds'). The MIT Press, Second Printing, 1996. pp. 21-28.

DESIGN PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICES: AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL

had lost its balance in many of the designs of his time. Wornum illustrated this claim inlength with numerous examples from the exhibition, which display this obtrusive taste.“…Just as there are mechanical laws which regulate all our efforts in pure uses, so there arelaws of the mind which must regulate those aesthetical efforts expressed in the attempt atdecoration or ornamental design.”6

In Ornament and Crime (1908) Adolf Loos expressed another extreme reaction of deeprepulsion to the decorative arts of his time: “As ornament is no longer organically related toour culture, it is also no longer the expression of our culture. The ornament that is producedtoday bears no relation to us, or to any other human or the world at large. It has no potentialfor development.”7

Thus, from the earliest stage of its development in the modern industrial era, andthroughout the 20th century, design has acknowledged and discussed its dual purpose: utilityand symbolic function. On the one hand, the balance and necessity of each one of thesefunctions was hotly debated. On the other hand, we cannot forget that even the most basicutilities- objects that we consider as purely functional- can also be laden with symbolicmeaning. A slight change in historic or geographic context can turn even the most utilitarianof designs into socially and symbolically charged items. Considering the possession offlushing toilets in the 19th century “…it is extremely difficult to disentangle the use-relatedfunction from the symbolic meanings in even the most practical objects. Even purely func-tional things serve to socialize a person to a certain habit or way of life and are representativesigns of that way of life.” 8

Baudrillard (Baudrillard, 1981) argued that the beginning of an objects’ existence per semight be seen only in their liberation as a sign function. “It is the Bauhaus that institutesthis universal semantization of the environment, in which everything becomes the object ofa calculus of function and of signification.”9 This liberation occurred historically, in hisopinion, through the aesthetic ideology of the Bauhaus movement. This dichotomy of utilityand function is an artificial construct in which: “Every possible valence of an object, all itsambivalence, which cannot be reduced to any model, are reduced by design to two rationalcomponents, two general models – utility and the aesthetic- which design isolates and artifi-cially opposes to one another.”10 Obviously, there are many cases where these dual functionsare fluid and ambiguous in definition and merge conceptually. As such, it might be impossibleto distinguish or separate these functions. In this context it is interesting to examine the R omantic or African chair designed by Marcel Breuer and Gunta Stozl of the Bauhaus in 1921.This chair was manufactured prior to Theo van Doesburgs’ industrial influence on theirschool in 1921-1922. This chair exemplifies a synthesis of African tribal decorative aspectswith modern joinery and shapes. It is a unique representation of early Bauhaus aesthetic of

6 Wornum, Ralph Nicholson. (1851), The Exhibition as a Lesson in Taste. In The Crystal Palace Illustrated catalogue,London, 1851. republication of the Art Journal Special Issue, Dover Publications, 1970. p. XXI.7 Loos, Adolf. Ornament and Crime (1908). In Crime and Ornament, The Arts and Popular Culture in the Shadowof Adolf Loos, edited by Bernie Miller and Melony Ward, XYZ Books, 2002. p. 33.8 Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly. And Rochberg-Halton. The meaning of things; Domestic symbols and the self,(1981),Cambridge University Press, 2002, p. 219 Baudrillard, Jean. Design and Enviroment or how Political Economy Escalates into Cyberblitz, (1981). In DesignStudies; A Reader . pp. 154 – 159. (Eds. Clark, Hazel and Brody, David), Berg Publishers, 2009. p. 154.10 Ibid. p. 156.

DAVID GOSS

the crafts and the syntheses of its functions: utility and symbolic, that seem to merge in thisearly-modern “throne”.

Due to the enormous technological leaps in the recent decades, the utility function of manyof the objects and products that surround us is now often taken for granted. Consequently,it seems that the sign- the symbolic aesthetic function of many objects- has increased. Muchof contemporary design’s activity and emphasis revolve around the sphere of symbolicfunction. In this realm, the aesthetic and critical aspects of design have continuously andsignificantly added to the reflexive discourse of design activity. As a result, both internallyand externally orientated design critiques have flourished and entailed a considerable ad-vancement toward the development of a richer, more heterogenic design discourse. Thisdevelopment of a reflexive process in design enables those possessing ‘cultural capital’ and‘real’ capital in society, who distinguish between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ taste, to consider the ar-tifacts of design aesthetically. According to Pierre Bourdieu (Bourdieu, 1984), this aestheticstanding or symbolic value is achieved through detachment from the functional aspects ofthe artifact. “The aesthetic disposition, a generalized capacity to neutralize ordinary urgenciesand to bracket off practical ends… can only be constituted within an experience of the worldfreed from urgency and through the practice of activities which are an end in themselves,such as scholastic exercises or the contemplation of works of art.”11 Julier (Julier, 2000)observed that design history and criticism are taught mainly as supplementary courses in artand design schools that promote this meaning. This inclination may enable the developmentof alternative ideologies that may pose a challenge to the dominant design discourse. But“more often, however, it acts to reinforce very specific and indeed restrictive understandingsof what design is and how it should be carried out…a specific formal canon, thereby givingit a refined language to legitimate itself and a self perpetuating logic which identifies ‘gooddesign’ as against ‘bad design’ or ‘kitsch’.”12

The issue of “Good Taste” is intrinsically related to any discussion of the grotesque. “GoodTaste” represents the social boundary, the aesthetic canon that is to be violated, or guarded.According to Terry Eagleton (Eagleton, 1990) since its beginnings aesthetics has played acentral role in establishing dominant ideologies of the European bourgeoisie. So, everyaesthetic point of view, or standing actually incorporates a social ideology13. This designevolution has also served as the backdrop to a different revival- the reification of the grotesqueaesthetic as a broad cultural phenomenon, which surfaces and influences all aspects ofvisual culture.

The Grotesque: A Borderline Aesthetic

“Grotesques have no consistent properties other than their own grotesqueness, and theydo not manifest predictable behavior.” - Geoffrey Galt Harpham, 1982.14

11 Bourdieu, Pierre.Distinctions; A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, Harvard University Press, Cambridge,Mass., 1984. p. 54.12 Julier, Guy. The Culture of Design, (2000) Sage publications, Reprint ,2002. p.31.13 Eagleton, Terry. The Ideology of the Aesthetic, Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1990.14 Harpham, Geoffrey Galt. (1982) On the Grotesque: Strategies of Contradiction in Art and Literature (CriticalStudies in the Humanities), Princeton University Press, 2006. p.3.


The grotesque is a concept without a specific form or category. The origins of the terms Lagrottesca, grottesco refer to the grotta (a cave). At the end of the 15th century, when certainornamental paintings were discovered decorating the walls of Neros’ Domus Aurea cavernsin Rome. Since then, the grotesque styling became popular as a decorative manner ofpainting. Since the grotesque’s reappearance as a functional aesthetic of decoration, itsmeaning as a concept has undergone numerous transformations, performances and variations.However, is the grotesque surfacing and influencing visual aspects in contemporary designthrough the use and promotion of alternative and borderline aesthetics? Does this aestheticincorporate exaggerated modes of popular culture like: extremity, absurdity, obesity, dispro-portion and undefined physical borders? Have such modes transformed contemporary objectsvisuality and symbolic functions?

Defining the grotesque may probably lead to a contradiction. In itself, such an attemptcould result in descriptions that usually leave the object of contemplation out of the scopeof debate. Wolfgang Kayser (Kayser, 1957) has characterized the grotesque as a hostile,alien and inhuman concept. In his view, the grotesque is part of a threatening and estrangedworld. Such a concept is ripe with ominous psychological overtones. In this interpretationthe grotesque certainly has a psychological borderline character, which might induce afrightening aesthetic state. Even when the beholder laughs, this is usually the result of aes-thetic and psychological discomfort. In Kayser’s opinion, these manifestations are apparentand applicable in the Modern art movement of Surrealism. “The new art wants to destroythe rationalistic concatenation of our worldview, as well as the treacherous connectionsperceived by our senses”15.

However, the grotesque seems less frightening in Mikhail Bakhtins’ (Bakhtin, 1965) carna valesqueworld. Regarding the era of medieval carnivals -the socially structural constructionand expression of the grotesque- he claims “there is a temporary suspension of all hierarchicdistinctions and barriers among men and of certain norms and prohibitions of usual life”16.The carnival-grotesque as a social construction, allows for freedom of thought and actionenabling liberation from the standard outlook of the world, beyond the patterns of normativeconventions and practices. This position of outside looking inwards defines the grotesqueas a reflexive view of the world.

This temporal state represents a constant transformation, an unfinished metamorphosisand a time out of time. Separate yet part of, both sides and ends of the transformation, thebeginning and the end, the old and the new, the newborn and the dying. “In contrast tomodern canons, the grotesque body is not separate from the world. It is not a closed, completeunit: it is unfinished, outgrows itself, and transgresses its own limits.”17 The grotesque bodyis inseparable from the world; its borders and tangency are unclear. We are not always surewhat it constitutes and whether we comprehend its visuality completely. It does not functionas a defined, separate unit.

“The concept of the body in grotesque realism…is of course in flagrant contradiction withthe literary and artistic canon of antiquity, which formed the basis of Renaissance aestheticsand was connected to the further development of art”18. Bakhtin professes that according to

15 Kayser, Wolfgang (1957) The grotesque in Art and Literature, Indiana University Press, McGraw-Hill BookCompany, 1966. p. 168.16 Bakhtin, Mikhail. (1965). Rabelais and His World, Indiana University Press, 1984. p. 15.17 Ibid. p. 2618 Ibid. pp. 28-29

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these classic canons, the grotesque was considered hideous and formless. It certainly did notfit the “aesthetic of the beautiful”19, which was based on the art of the Renaissance. Further-more, it may be stated that the grotesque is devoid of consistent properties, criteria or pre-dictability other than its “grotesqueness”20, according to which it may be defined or categor-ized. Harpham (Harpham, 1982) engages in a very visual and formalistic comparison of thecircle- a paradigm of perfect, ideal and harmonious form- versus the formlessness of thegrotesque. “The grotesque is the opposite, the least ideal form”.21

According to Madeleine Schechter ( Schechter, 2007) 22 The use of the title ‘grotesque’may assist us when facing this categorization ambiguity: “The term ‘grotesque’ provides arule for organizing the experience of those works of art that cannot be classified in accordancewith canonical or traditionally accepted Western poetic and/or aesthetic categories, whichare basically the classical ones.”23 Schechter summarizes the common denominators forcritical uses of this term as a representation (naturalistic or symbolic) of a physical- psycho-logical natural deformity, a verbal or visual form of ambiguity, an embodiment of an onto-logical principle such as a clash of opposites and finally a logical incompatibility like acontradiction in terms24. As such, the term aids us in defining and organizing the unclassifiedand distinguishing sense from non-sense. “In other words, those artworks that defy any attemptat classification may be described as grotesque or liminal...”25 If the grotesque is liminal- ametaphorical mix up of form and content, or “a boundary violation” 26 as Michel Chaouli(Chaouli, 1999) phrased it, we may ask whether such a boundary exists. In addition, if itexists, then where does the boundary lie? How is it defined in relation to designed objects?

The Grotesque and Contemporary Design

“It is human design that conjures up disorder together with the vision of order, dirt to-gether with the project of purity. The thought trims the image of the world first, so thatthe world itself can be trimmed right after.” - Zygmunt Bauman, 2004.27

Grotesque aesthetics and the concepts of ‘Good design’ are probably an oxymoron. Withinthe modernist landscape, these two visual worlds should never rationally meet. Nevertheless,we seem to encounter numerous examples of the grotesque in contemporary design. Thus,we must ask how these characteristics of the grotesque are visible, how are they articulatedand what role do they play. Zygmunt Bauman defined our era rather appropriately as “LiquidModernity” (Bauman, 2000). “His metaphor of liquid modernity is directed towards a critique

19 Ibid.20 Harpham, Geoffrey Galt. (1982) On the Grotesque: Strategies of Contradiction in Art and Literature (CriticalStudies in the Humanities), Princeton University Press, 2006. p.3.21 Ibid, p. 11.22 Schechter Madeleine, Defining the Grotesque: Towards an Aesthetics of Liminality, The International Journalof the Humanities, Vol. 5 No. 6, 2007, Common Ground Pub., Melbourne, Australia. Pp. 125 – 132.23 Ibid. p. 125.24 Ibid, p. 127.25 Ibid, p. 128.26 Chaouli, Michel. Van Gogh's Ear; towards a theory of disgust. In Modern Art and the Grotesque, Connelly,Frances S. (ed.), Cambridge University Press, 2003. Pp. 47-62.27 Bauman. Zygmunt. In the Beginning was Design or the Waste of Order-Building, (2004). In Design Studies;A Reader . pp. 166 – 169. (Eds. Clark, Hazel and Brody, David), Berg Publishers, 2009. p. 166.


of the aqueous foundation of modernity. At the same time, the link with postmodernity isnot completely severed because the sense of flexibility and uncertainty implicit in the post-modern is continuous with the notion of liquidity.”28 Bauman’s metaphor may relate to thecontemporaneous status of objects; things and situations are losing their solid state, definedform. As such, they are oozing into the surrounding space and merging with it.

Following are a few sample objects that may demonstrate this theme in various practicalmodes of design29. These objects were designed by two highly acclaimed international designstudios that have made significant achievements in contemporary design. Considering variousseats/chairs is due to certain relevant criteria that: (a) the objective of these products andtheir modes of function are usually apparent to us; (b) the proportion, size and ergonomicsof such objects may be perceived even on a visual level; (c) the general use of seats or chairsdoes not involve any special technological function; and (d) historically speaking, the designof chairs has been a paradigmatic forerunner regarding the incorporation of symbolic functionsby designers.

The multido armchair (2002) created by the Brazilian designer duo Campana brothers(Fernando and Humberto), which was designed from dolls originating in northern Brazilposes a true challenge to the norms of contemporary design aesthetics. In this object, andother designs of the Campana brothers - such as the Banquete series (2002), the Boa sofa(2002) and the Sushi sofa and chairs series (2002-2004) one may detect a definite internaltension between the works’ form and its function, apart from their apparent functionality.These works entail various grotesque characteristics such as an inhumane feeling of physic-ality caused from the pile of bodies (even if only dolls). In order to use this chair we mustsit on these bodies. This morbid composition is a threatening reminiscence of the disastersof wars30 etchings by Goya. It reminds the beholder of military clashes and acts of genocidein a capricious, estranged world. Using typical Surrealist tactics it causes upheaval of ourworldview and even generates political debate. This shocking effect is exacerbated due tothe dolls’ local Brazilian origin and the economical connotations of production in globalcapitalism. On a symbolic level, the actual function of sitting increases the conceptual tensionand virtually negates its own function. The chair may lead us to reflect on the user’s act ofsitting down, on whom he or she sits and due to whose effort and labor are we able to sit.The form of these chairs has an unfinished feeling, as if the act of piling the dolls was sud-denly frozen in the middle of the process. This chair is a virtual three-dimensional ‘snapshot’,which depicts a growing process that may continue in the future. It was caught up and frozenin a moment of time. In this chair, an amorphous, chaotic and soft mass spurts minimalistand strictly functional metal legs. Our impression is ambiguous, and therefore we tend toreflect on the issue of this chair’s functions: utility and symbolic. When describing theirstyle the Campana brothers claimed it is “very organic, very intensive and very emotional...tobring dreams to people, to bring what people have been fed up with daily life, to bring somejoys and ironies to people.”31 Due to similar formalistic and conceptual characteristics, this

28 Lee, Raymond L. M. Bauman, Liquid Modernity and Dilemmas of Development. In Thesis Eleven, Number 83,November 2005: 61–77, Sage Publications, p. 62.29 Due to the popular use of the term grotesque, I have to emphasize that in no way is the use of the term meant asa judgment of taste or as an adjective of value, but as an ontological framework to look at characteristics that areapparent in the designs.30 The Disasters of War, series of etchings of Francisco Goya, between 1810 -1820.31 Fernando + Humberto Campana: interview with the Campana brothers, January 19, 2004, www.designboom.com.

DAVID GOSS

mode is also present in the Banquete series. The diversity of the stuffed toys in shape andcolor increases their formal openness to the world. As a result, our sense of ambiguity in-creases. However, this symbolic function and conceptualization does not threaten the balanceor the utility function. This may seem a borderline design but it is not on the verge, liminalor beyond. Although it flirts with the grotesque it could still not be considered as such.

When talking about their series Diamantina, (2008) the Campana brothers stated; “Thisproject grows out of the TransPlastic (2007) series, where we have sought the purity of forminspired by grottos and caves. It is our own journey to the center of earth, like Jules Verne’sbook. Complementing this idea, Diamantina is built in a way that the seats are sculpted alongthe form creating a new mode of comfort and interaction. Proposing a more subtle connection,it is a rather meditative kind of experiment”32. Needless to say that, the cave and the grottorelate to the original historical connotation of the term grotesque. “Textures and weaves innatural fibers invoke a sense of openness and demonstrate an inherent respect for the naturalenvironment...The Diamantina installation will utilize the native Brazilian plant Apuí thatgrows on and ultimately garrotes rain forest trees.” 33 Contrary to usual material consumption,the use of the Apuí actually increases sustainability due to reversing its suffocating influenceon the rain forests. In this work the overgrowth of the Apuí plant is woven; it entangles anddivulges plastic chairs and various refuse objects. Its effect is reversed; instead of the forest– the plastic chairs are overwhelmed. This evokes a strong symbolic clash between naturaland synthetic elements. Though both materials are used in the outdoors and garden furnitureindustry, the combination between other opposites tends to enhance this hybrid of materials:handmade and industrial, precious and refuse. The diverse island of organically shaped pieceshas engulfed the original minimalist and light functionalistic plastic chairs, becoming a large‘blob’ that still may serve as an island for seating. The ambiguous shape, unclear function(yet still functional), hybrid yet complimentary use of materials, sustainable yet using mass-produced industrial plastic chairs – certainly brings these works to the verge.

Another contemporary designer whose works also evoke grotesque associations is theGerman born Maarten Baas, who works in the Netherlands. His graduate collection Smoke(2002-2006) was seen as a unique way to overcome the industrial uniformity of “…thefashionable expressionist design style. In the backlash against the blandness of globalization,designers are striving to create emotionally expressive objects that are rich in meaning. Byartfully burning existing furniture, Baas questions our perceptions of the beauty and valueof objects in mediagenic pieces that also score socio-political points for reflecting the violenceof our time.”34 After being charred, the pieces are coated in resin- resulting in the perpetuationof their temporary stage of decay. Baas’s work plays with our associations of meaning andform. His pieces are brought out of their former historic state into the contemporary sphereof symbolic discourse. Regarding the burning of Rietvelds’ classic chair Baas argued: “Ithink it’s quite a respectful approach. I don’t want to burn down Rietveld. I always try tomake it functional again.”35 It seems obvious that Baas relates to the historic symbolic

32 Ozler, Levent. Humberto and Fernando Campana Win Designer of the Year Award, Dexigner Portal,www.dexigner.com, Wednesday, 1 October 2008.33 Palta ,Tanya. At Design Miami: Designer of the Year Award 2008 Fernando and Humberto Campana forTransplastic, , 3rings.designerpages.com, Monday, November 24th, 2008.34 Rawsthorn, Alice. A world in Smoke and Clay - Style & Design - International Herald Tribune. Sunday,November 5, 2006.35 Hales , Linda . Maarten Baas's Claims to Flame, Washington Post, Saturday, May 22, 2004; Page C02.


function of this chair’s design and seeks to update it. These pieces certainly raise the questionof authorship in design. However, they also challenge our precept of ‘good design’ and en-hance a rather positive and reflexive design discourse. Notwithstanding, these pieces do notpush the aesthetic or functional aspect to an ambiguous limit.

Baas’ Clay Furniture series from 2006 intends to address the issue of form giving in in-dustrial design. In this series, modern design’s quest for pure form, machine forms and ra-tional technological geometry- which has been dominant since the beginning of the 20th

century- is thereby reversed. Baas employs advanced technological industrial processes toreveal the designer’s ‘touch’ in his designs. The tactile handicraft of the creator-designerthat has become less significant in modern industrial design reemerges through these pro-cesses. Due to the use of hand sculpted industrial clay on top of metal structures- as if expos-ing reflexively early stage modeling practices of the design process- each piece has a uniquehand-touched finish. These expressive and organic shapes seem to come to life. Reminiscentof animation and cartoons, they look as if they are about to start walking. These lively piecesare certainly hybrid furniture. They are painted rather artificially and vividly, in a contradict-able manner. The series has a definite organic handmade touch to it, with expressive shapesand contours. The pieces seem to question their own shape, as if it is not certain whetherthey can stay functional. Due to this internal contradiction, meek structure and forceful col-oring, though usable the pieces seem ambiguous about their ability to fulfill their task. De-signed to represent this contradiction and planned to be strictly symbolic and virtually alive,one could even think that they are grotesque. In the Sculpt series (2008), pieces of furnitureseem to fulfill the same expressive principle in a slightly different manner: the pieces arephysically more monumental, so despite their ‘wobbly’ contour they seem more stable. Theystill have a cartoon feeling but are not as vividly animated as the clay series. It seems thattheir form might have stemmed from a rather geometric basis. It appears that geometry ison the verge of losing its function but has not lost it yet. Due to this, the overall impressionis of furniture reflexively questioning its shape and mode of production, albeit not becomingambiguous and grotesque.

In 2008 Maarten Baas exhibited in China. In order to produce the wooden pieces he de-signed, he employed local woodcarvers from Shanghai and asked them to use their traditionaltechniques, creating a crossover between western industrial design and the traditional Chinesetechniques. An example of these works is “Plastic Chair in Wood” made out of Elm wood(2008). The form of this piece was defined through a plastic production mold, but it causesa conceptual twist through its material choice and technique of manufacture – carving. Itfunctions as a reverse skeuomorph, drawing attention to the mode of production, turning itinto a reflexive ideological statement on the current global economy and its geography oflabor. Due to the industrially iconic status of the plastic chair, this piece incorporates a hybridin both the formal and material aspects. The Internal conceptual tension between mass-pro-duced and hand carved is not resolved. But this symbolic function does not threaten thechair’s basic utility - sitting (even though mass production and low price were included inthe original plastic chairs’ utility). So even though such pieces contribute to a very reflexivedesign discourse and turn functional items into a conceptual critique of the production reality,this chair does not seem grotesque.

DAVID GOSS

Planned AmbiguityIf design is a human activity seeking to introduce order and rationale to the world aroundus, then the grotesque is a phenomenon of human creativity that seems to represent the op-posite. As characteristics of the grotesque are becoming more visible in various aspects ofdesigned things, its presence should be considered when discussing the aesthetics of contem-porary design. But we must remember that even the juxtaposition of these two worlds’ -design and the grotesque- which have been presented in this paper creates an ontologicalhybrid that could itself be considered grotesque in nature. In order to justify this, one cannotavoid reverting to the original meaning of the term, as an aesthetic function for the decorativecovering of walls, a visually entertaining way of occupying space. Further more, that theambiguous and aqueous evasiveness of grotesque aesthetic is also conceived through aplanned design process.

This paper purported to raise the question of grotesque, to focus the attention on grotesqueaesthetics in design and to identify the grotesque’s basic characteristics and modes of per-formance in contemporary design discourse. The question whether this small selection ofworks presented here are truly grotesque will be left unanswered, but these pieces certainlyemploy and raise many typical grotesque characteristics, or tactics, in their reflexive designjourney.

What is apparent, even from the small scope of designs examined herein, is that the exist-ence of some of the grotesque’s characteristics (one or even more) in a design does not es-sentially render it grotesque. Rather, a unique blend of characteristics tends to cause an aes-thetic and functional ambiguity, defying classification. This evokes the viewer/user to proclaima definition of grotesque regarding a certain piece.

In addition, it is evident that these sometimes contradictive and ambiguous characteristicsexist necessarily within the so-called symbolic function of a design in the expansionistmodel. In these cases, the utility function, which aims to be a rational and formal language,is usually being objectified or negated. This utility may also become the focus of a reflexivedesign discourse. But the moment we encounter a threat to this utility function of a design,the surfacing of the grotesque is more strongly felt.

According to this preliminary examination, the same characteristics of grotesque aestheticsare actually part of a designing approach that tends to create and enhance reflexivity incontemporary design. This design approach uses negation while checking and stretching theborders of ‘good taste’ through new uses of form, materials and meaning. The play on theformalism and logic of ‘good rational design’ automatically propels any design piece into areflexive mode. This self-questioning critique is automatically associated as a challenge tothe social boundaries and aesthetic canons; it is considered an antithesis to bourgeois ‘goodtaste’. This reflection grants participants in the design discourse the aesthetic dispositionneeded to distinguish between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ taste and to consider the design artifactaesthetically in the social strata. However, the question that should be considered in furtherrelevant debate is: Has the use of grotesque aesthetic elements become a mode of contem-porary design critique?


About the AuthorDavid GossArtist and adjunct lecturer, The Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning, Technion, IsraelInstitute of Technology, Haifa, Israel. The Department of Industrial Design and Departmentof Cultural Studies, The Shenkar College of Engineering and Design, Ramat Gan, Israel.His works have been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions in Israel and abroad.

DAVID GOSS

EDITORS

Bill Cope, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA. Mary Kalantzis, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA. EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD

Genevieve Bell – Intel Corporation, Santa Clara, USA. Michael Biggs – University of Hertfordshire, Hertfordshire, UK. Thomas Binder – Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Copenhagen, Denmark. Jeanette Blomberg – IBM Almaden Research Center, San Jose, USA. Eva Brandt – Danmark Designskole, Copenhagen, Denmark. Peter Burrows – RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia. Monika Büscher – Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK. Bill Cope – University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA Patrick Dillon – Exeter University, Exeter, UK. Kees Dorst – TUe, The Netherlands; UTS, Australia. Michael Gibson, University of North Texas, Denton, USA. Judith Gregory – IIT Institute of Design, Chicago, USA; University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway. Clive Holtham – City of London University, London, UK. Hiroshi Ishii – MIT Media Lab, Cambridge, USA. Gianni Jacucci – University of Trento, Trento, Italy. Mary Kalantzis – University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA. Klaus Krippendorff – University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA. Terence Love – Curtin University, Perth, Australia. Bill Lucas, MAYA Fellow, MAYA Design, Inc., Pittsburgh, USA. Ezio Manzini – Politecnico of Milano, Milan, Italy. Mario Minichiello, Birmingham Institute of Art and Design, Birmingham, UK. Julian Orr – Work Practice & Technology Associates, Pescadero, USA. Mahendra Patel – Leaf Design, Mumbai, India. Toni Robertson – University of Technology Sydney, Sydney, Australia. Terry Rosenberg – Goldsmiths, University of London, London, UK. Keith Russell – University of Newcastle, Callaghan, Australia. Liz Sanders – Make Tools, USA. Maria Cecilia Loschiavo dos Santos – University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil. Lucy Suchman – Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK. Ina Wagner – Technical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria.

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Grotesque by Design

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