Will Self discusses Roald Dahl, my favourite author whom i used to meet in the shoe shop at my home village of Great Missenden, and the release of the Fantastic Mr Fox. The stop frame animation film by Wes Anderson with the voices of Geroge Clooney, Bill Murry and Meryl Streep.
I recently saw the UK screening of Objectified at Curzon Chelsea cinema and really, really enjoyed it. Objectified is a documentary film by Gary Hustwit about product designers and their obsessions with the conception of the objects we interact with on a daily basis. Hustwit’s previous work was the succesful Helvetica film that explored the world of the typeface and their creators.
The Objectified film does not necessarily offer a critical in-depth comparison between different perspectives of how to apply design thinking in industry but what I did enjoy was its sensitive approach to unraveling some aspects of the various design practitioners personalities (I particular loved the juxtaposition between Dieter Rams and his Bonsai pruning and Karim Rashid and his white nail varnish)
Yet it does explore and discuss the detrimental impact the designers contributing role has on the eventual impact of littering the earth with stuff, from over production and the constant built in obsolescence mentality of striving to design and develop new and “better” products. Rob Walker an amazingly critical journalist from New York Times for the “Consumed” column gives a very insightful perspective on consumption and it’s impacts on the world. He is a great wordsmith and examines “those who buy things”‘s behaviour from a hybrid business-and-anthropology standpoint. Its definitely worth checking out his greatly titled blog Murketing.com
If you want to go see this film ( i highly recommend it) then there will be some screenings at the Barbican towards the end of May.
