Utterubbish- Useless Conference

Utterubbish presented the useless conference on 29th & 30th Nov 2007. I attended the second day conference. Very innovative and humorous sessions on each designer/ artist's works.

2x4,presenter: Albert Lee (US)





2x4 is a design studio formed in 1994. They engage in difference disciplinary in design such as print, film/ video, web and environmental design. I will highlight on one of works they presented for Prada New York Epicenter store.

They did the graphic design, wall paper and film. They have become Prada's unofficial design team doing installation for the NY store. Albert showed us images of the skirt exhibitions that they did for Prada in New York and Tokyo. Prada is well known internationally as a luxury label. They have also create many interesting and fun skirts. I remember there was this lipstick print pleated skirt that probably captured my attention the most. Its all about fun, flared circular mainly. Around 2000, circular skirts was very much in trend and Prada hit the right spot of producing many feminine printed skirts. Tie Dyed techniques is one of the trademarks back then till today.




Since design is also about fun, instead of just boringly dressing the skirts on mannequins, they were laid flat in circular forms like a flower (similar to 2x4's graphic print work that they did for Vitra's store interior's walls and adverts). They also exhibited the skirts on a formed hang mid air and placed skirt hem shaped mirrors under these skirts to showcase the lining, the inside touch each of these pieces. You can also see a full print skirt against the same print background. Giant paper cut models gave u a larger than life against these models in print.
http://www.waistdown.prada.com/



chinese theme (with chinese lady mural and all the cheap mannequins were purchased cheaply in China for the store installation)



Presently they are presenting a new campaign in Prada NY store, " Guilt, Incorporated".

"The installation creates a sterile, bureaucratic identity for that most human of emotions, and creates a striking backdrop for Prada's lush products. In-store video screens play short broadcast spots advertising Guilt's diverse products and services and various Guilt-branded items appear throughout. Guilt's mission statement takes center stage:
From ____ to ____ , ____ to ____ , and ____ to ____ and ____, GUILT people worldwide are dedicated to turning ____ into ____ products and services that take on some of ____'s toughest problems."
(www.2x4.org)

I specially like this slogan, "Guilt is Everywhere".


Trash, presenter: Pascal Mouron and Loic Malle (France)

Trash takes in depth in these celebrities' lives on their daily basis through their weekly trash. Probably this is a much more interesting side to find out on these famous besides being the paparazzi chasing after them. The two french photographers secretly went to pick up these celebrities' trash bins and pick out the items and laid them nicely against the black background. Items included were not involved with sex and medication items in order not to reveal too much of these people's personal licves on public as items collected were done without permission.




They held an exhibition in 2004 in NY and many people attended the event. Some of these featured celebrities even bought their own trash print home. Madonna and Liz Hurley's trash were photographed as well. We were told that one celebrity (cannot remember his name) even has a habit of wearing diapers. 98 television stations all over Americia attended the Trash exhibition. The power of media and gossip.


Jonathan Harris (US)

Jonathan Harris approaches art in a different way. He collects short and long stories that speaks of people globally about their thoughts, emotions, behaviours, etc... ... and creating these statistics by using his smart and unique programming skills presenting these phrases on his website. www.number27.org

He gets a lot of contacts and questions from MNCs such as question like, "Do they like coke?" But Jonathan mentioned that he is more involved artistically in this project, not commercially.


Food Design, presenter: Marti Guixe (Spain)

This is one of my favourite sessions. Marti presents food in a way more of an edible object instead of food with good taste. Its more of the visual and function of approaching these objects that are put into our mouths.


Hands- free Lollipo, 2002
The trio plastic tubes serves as a tripod stand for the lolly instead of holding on with your fingers.


7-step cookie, 2001
Cookie that indicates how to bite it.


Tapas- pasta, 1997
I very much like this Tapas- pasta. I thought its a very different approach of serving pasta on a plate with a fork by making it as a finger food for dipping. Basically Marti just boil a small pot of water, he stringed the penne with a spaghetti and left to cook and soften while the top is uncooked and still as hard as a satay stick.


Sponsored Food, 1997
An exchanged u get from advertisements u paid through as a consumer for this brand's products. Having free food from the amount of money that these labels put through as advertising tools. Making it parallel for both humanity and capitalism. I do want some free pizzas!

I particularly like the "fast food" idea, alot of humour in it. He created this thought of making food in small particles as light as dust, floating in the air. He designed an idea of a funnel-liked utensil, so if u liked to have "fast food" breathe in harder though your food at the trumpet shaped funnel.

"PHARMA-FOOD ...is a system of nourishment through breathing.
Pharma food is composed of a type of particle that is ingested by breathing and that has nutritional effects on the organism. These particles include vitamins, amino acids, minerals and micronutrients in general. The particles constitute a volatile muesli that is released to be inhaled and then reach their destination by the mouth."
(www.food-designing.com)



SSK Snack Bar Wall, 1998
Wallpaper food??? Imagine you can eat right off the wall at a party, that's out of the ordinary. I wonder was he inspired by the candy house from the fairytales. Anyway he created wallpaper that is edible, a new form of serving food instead on a table. He did a similar idea on using squid ink for typography that is edible as well.

He also created an idea of a restaurant that serves outside food. Basically the restaurant only serves food from outside, you are given a menu of the food selling outside. The waiters will travel out from their motorbikes and fetch you the food u have ordered. He created a space for dining from different places with different menus and cuisine serving a big group with different preferences.

Visit his main site, www.guixe.com to know more about this designer on his other projects on interior and etc... ...


Flow Market, speaker: Mads Hagstrom (Denmark)

I saw Flow Market on Channel U news recently on how products can be packaged in a way to let people think differently. "Choice Makers" Imagine u have a choice to take a painkiller to ease your headache or just drink more water to soothe instead of the conventional way of getting an aspirin that labels panadol. Breaking away from the daily visual and perceptions of products exists in the market. Its just you and the product, without a fancy label or brand conscious attitude towards your purchase. I adore the idea of just being black and white in a shop, where advertisements, brands and excessive information are lacked that will overwhelm u.

I'm actually more excited how FlowKitchen will be worked out. How food and the menu are presented in a way. I guess it will be a list of food list with indirect description in simply black and white like its FlowMarket products.




Patrick Scallon, communications art director for Maison Martin Margiela (1993 - 2007) and Dries Van Noten (2007 - Present)

Patrick Scallon is one of the important people behind the scenes of Maison Martin Margiela. Margiela started showing his own label in 1998. He enjoys using collective of trash or vintage clothings/ objects forming pieces of unique clothings.

The label was under pressure of critics from consumers in the beginning when vintage wasn't popular and trendy from 80s and 90s. There were questions popping out on how will it reflect and visually displayed side by side brands like Yohji Yamamoto and Comme Des Garcons looking dirty and old. Well initially it still works out!

Patrick showed us a video of a series of pieces that Maison Martin Margiela created. There was this piece made up of vintage costume jewelleries of rings and chains. Also a jacket made up of luggage bags, a hangbag made up of old ballet shoes (I saw this accessory in Selfridges, London with Celine, and Celine was thinking of using her used ballet shoes making a similar bag like this, hee!) , dress and vest made up of cheap oil canvas paintings. This particular dress specially took two years to take form as lots of experimentation in using solutions that will soften the canvas. A vest made up of converse white canvas shoes. A jacket made of two little girl's dresses.



Try visiting the website, its effort of trying to bring the old html website layout is indeed refreshing. Something that most web designers are trying to avoid now. www.maisonmartinmargiela.com


KesselsKramer, speaker: Erik Kessels (Netherlands)

KesselsKramer creates engaging and lots of humor in advertising. It has a communication agency located in Amsterdam. They are involved in campaigns such as Absolut Vodka, Diesel Jeans, 55DSL, the Hans Brinker Budget Hotel, Unilever, Bavaria Beer and J&B. http://www.kesselskramer.nl



The Hans Brinker Budget HOtel was one of the first client that approached the agency for a project. Basically this budget hotel is a shit hole, haha, the conditions are worse than 10 years ago when KesselsKramer took the campaign project. It was a pretty challenging project as the hotel well, has nothing good to offer, so by not beautifying the hotel, they presented the budget hotel in its original state using the idea of "Ironic Communication".


Erik showed us a series of videos and ad campaigns of Hans Brinker. Like imagine on the day you are married and you carrying your bride into a hotel room. In everyone's mind, we will imagine the room to be a nice double bed suite with rose petals over the sheets. But carrying your bride into a Hans Brinker room u will only find old dirty bunk beds. What a disappointment, hurhur! Video clip available on www.hans-brinker.com (history> 1998)

A nice hotel room u will get in a 5 star hotel here in Asia is shown on the ad campaign of Hans Brinker but there were many * signs on each of the items shown in the room, below stating "*not included".


Another ad campaign in 99, a before and after photo was taken during the check in and check out process. You check in as a well groomed person, after checking out from Hans Brinker Hotel, u looked gloomy, hurt, fatigue and messy.


The 2002 and 2003 campaign was very funny as well. A very good example of their Ironic Communication. Refer to their website and hit on to history>2003. Example showing below.


2003


The latest campaign was about ecology.


Use natural wind to dry your hair.


To save electricity, use the stairs.


To save water, use the basin tap for showering.



To cut down washing, use the curtain as towel.


To cut down heating, use your blanket.


To save papers, wipe ur ass off your dirty socks.


To have a full glass of beer, mix with sweat, eeee!

Lots of laughters at the end of the conference, I was actually laughing with tears, it was too funny. Very witty and entertaining ideas.

Utterubbish exhibition is still on till Dec 16th. Visit www.utterubbish.com for more details. Watch out for Kwodrent by Grace Tan.