Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Art in a tent...

...but it's not Tracey Emin. The Royal College of Art's 'Great Exhibition' takes place in a giant marquee in Hyde Park (technically Kensington Gardens) next to the Albert Memorial. This is really to be recommended. I was pleasantly surprised by the heady mix of aesthetically pleasing objects and the ingenuity evident in so many of the projects. There is a fair sprinkling of medicine-related design. I do wish I'd gone round the tent in an anti-clockwise direction because by the time I reached the concentration of medical design (in the industrial design engineering and design interactions section), I had gallery fatigue and didn't give them the attention they deserved. A second visit is in order. Sabine Fakete designed an intelligent knee brace and easily changeable stoma bags. Michael Korn's work also focuses on the patient experience and includes a device to reduce needlestick injuries. I particularly liked Chris Hand's ideas about social sensors (pictured on the right). Susana Soares designed bushy fingernails for collecting DNA (pictured left) as part of her project which looked at what extra organs might prove useful in future.

Congratulations to all the RCA students for such innovative and exciting ideas. The Exhibition continues until 28 June.

6 comments:

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Beth Williamson said...

Looks well worth catching this show Giskin! However, the art historian in me worries about phrases like "aesthetically pleasing"!

Unknown said...

I toyed with just using the word 'beautiful' but it seemed inadequate to describe those objects that were strikingly designed but not necessarily eye-candy! Is 'aesthetically pleasing' a cliche or are there more deep-seated objections to it from your point of view. Do tell!

Beth Williamson said...

'Beautiful' would have been just as problematic! But the answer to your questionis yes and yes. 'Aesthetically pleasing' is rather cliched but more than that the problem is that there is no single unified perspective. What sort of aesthetic are we talking about? Is it a 'conventional' idea of what is pleasing to the eye (which I think is what you imply) and if that is so then who's eye are we talking about? It's too subjective I guess is what I'm saying. If we go beyond that sort of convention then we get into all sorts of other perspectives on aesthetics - psychoanalytic, relational, etc. Then its not about 'pleasure' but goes beyond that to something much more unsettling.

Anonymous said...

Wow, that is truly amazing! They look like eyelashes. Thanks for sharing!

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