But, let’s not be too dramatic, shall we? When I was still a happy student of design, there came a point in time when I began to doubt the very concept of the design practice, which propels designers to give an account of designing and the designed object. Because now that I am a grown-up in a world without reason, all reasonable things are put behind me. After all, following in the sandy footsteps of Hawking, there should be no reason why there has to be a reason for things. And although it is true that I’m not particularly against this somewhat nihilistic approach to design with its ‘scientific’ disregard for all that cannot be proved, at the very same time, I was horrified by the absolute absence of inner purpose and essence generated through reason-based designing. This in itself presents us with a paradox, since for the most part, function (i.e., a coherent rationale, which consists of some constructive purpose) today dictates form. Why then is our comprehension of basic form concepts so absurd as to ridicule the idea of function? I soon realized that form did not, on its own, follow function – I must, however, agree and add that, sometimes, form led to function. The latter was ardently embraced by those who had already lost their souls, so sometimes the actual functionality was, indeed, secondary. To me, function (as well as reason) is no thing. At the end of the day, form is all that is; though, no doubt, when the world ends, not even form will prevail. Form might be just appearance, but function isn’t the source of everything.
And, let’s be honest: “It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances. The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible” (Wilde, ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’). If I looked back, just far enough, to the genesis of the universe, would I then find a state of “absolute absence” – not unreason, but ‘the absence of reason’ – out of which the greatest, the Grand Design could be drawn; a numinous presence, simultaneously frightful and stirring. It must have been an equally awful strife when, several millennia later during the Age of Enlightenment, soul and form contended; back then, like now, victory remained with form, the presence of soul came to an end; an empty form alone remains, the soul was lost forever! As you can see, I’m just as little enthusiastic about form as I am about function – there is no mystery to either one of them, Wilde forgive. Modern design’s disguise obviously obscures nothing of interest whatsoever, while also displaying itself as if almost anything might be deciphered, revealed. And no, dear readers, this is not an art by itself, this is mere deception and artifice. Twisted into strange shapes and contorted forms of ‘extreme orthodoxy’ that further beget standstill and corroded solidity. It will not rid itself of all the mold which it accumulates, simply because it can’t; – this ‘radical moisture’ (humidum radicale) is like the lamp oil which has already been imbibed into the wick[-ed]. So, I do not believe in formalities, I do not recommend formalities, because formalities (or forms) have no life…
This artifice is as glaring as it is gross. It is like the difference between seeing Vincent van Gogh’s pretty ‘still-lifes’ of sunflowers and seeing late-summer sunflowers in real life, or between his famous “Starry Night” – praised for its “elegant simplicity” (Artforum International, 1994) –, and a star-filled night sky, reflecting the grandeur of and magnificent hope for what might lie beyond. Although van Gogh agreed to a principle that “it is better to attack things with simplicity than to seek after abstractions,” he later, however, professed to having erred with paintings such as ‘Starry Night,’ all of which he thus described as “failures.” – “I allowed myself to be led astray into reaching for stars that are too big,” he wrote. In this regard, I couldn’t agree more: a superficial elegance that failed to hide her blandness, a superficial simplicity. The elegance is false, artificial. Simplicity does not exist, because at the very core there was no simplicity to begin with. Design – like van Gogh’s paintings – is primarily concerned with hierarchical structures, patterns of authority, rules, and social conventions, desperately trying to prove otherwise. Like a robotic toy with a wind-up mechanism, which does what it has to do according to the way it has been programmed. Will any art critic praise it as ‘vivid,’ just because it is able to move for brief periods of time. And it will simply continue to move for ever, perfectly uniform; except it is stopped externally. Until the old programme is erased, and exchanged for a new one, signifying a new day, a fresh hope.
A fresh hope for a tired world. For, as Kierkegaard has put it, “humanly speaking, death is the last thing of all, and, humanly speaking, there is hope only so long as there is life.” Or, only so long as a new soul can be breathed into it. The following lines of one highly elaborate Chinese “summoning song” appear in my mind: “O soul, come back! Why have you left your old abode and sped to the earth’s far corners, Deserting the place of your delight to meet all those things of evil omen? O soul, come back! […]” (The Summons of the Soul). But let’s go back to van Gogh once again, or, to be more specific, to his painting ‘The Yellow House,’ where we can observe a narcissistic-schizoid, and significantly ill, display of a mere husk ‘standing apart’ from the rest of the flock from which it has been estranged. This pale “residuum,” however, serves “as a tool for analysis of the human soul,” Bachelard writes. He then combines realism and the fantastic: “Not only our memories, but the things we have forgotten are ‘housed.’ Our soul is an abode. And by remembering ‘houses’ and ‘rooms,’ we learn to abide within ourselves.” Well, I think the “ghost” image of the haunted house – so sublimely shown in van Gogh’s work – is already the best metaphor in attempting to describe what has become, or rather, what has mostly remained of ‘design’ in the 21st century. – It once was. But now reason-based design is a mere echo of the meaninglessness of life. I soon realized, however, that this is not all there is to the story. There is yet another, deeper…
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