Somerset House
We went to the Somerset House London Design Biennale 2018 which showcased exhibits from 40 countries that were designed to represent emotional states. It showed designs and installations that explored a range of topics such as, sustainability, migration and social equality. The theme was chosen in order to provoke a wide variety of perceptions across many different mediums, which was done through engaging installations and designs.
The thing that stuck out from this exhibition was that each installation brought out different responses from every person that looked at it. Some people took every detail in and fully immersed themselves in the exhibit, such as the massive clear case full of cashmere, whilst others stood back and read about the installation, hesitant about what might happen. I think it shows how design can provoke so many different responses and can put across a point as large as social equality through their designs and can get a response to an issue in the world through the things they have created.
Staying on the topic of perception, one of the things that I really liked about a lot of the installations was that you could see it as it is, or you could look further into it by going into the installation/looking at it from underneath..etc and see things from another view which would change your whole experience of the installation. This is also representative of the fact that the designers are using these exhibits as a way of channeling social change.
One of the exhibits which I really liked was a tunnel that played conflicting sounds as you walked through, with captions such as “Is 0% battery life ruining your day”. As you come out of this tunnel thats bombarding you with stressful captions and sounds, you come to a room thats open and shows a calm painting across the room. The main thing about this exhibit that I liked was it showed the contrast between everyday life which involves chaos and organisation all at once, compared to the serene feeling of just standing in an empty room with a calm painting in front. It shows how easily emotions can change. Also at the end visitors were encouraged to take a postcard and write back from wherever we had managed to escape from.
Outside the gallery was a narrow tunnel which with each step opened out and became quite disorientating. As you stepped on it, the floor fell slightly with you, making each person who walked across take caution with each foot. When the floor dropped, the walls around you would stretch outwards and pull away from you which was incredible yet very strange at the same time.
Another exhibit which was outside of the gallery which at first didn’t catch my interest was a black box which people could walk inside of and people could kiss in-front of famous landmarks in Budapest, Hungary. At first this exhibit really didn’t appeal to me and I was going to walk past and not even pay attention to it, but then I read about it on a plaque nearby. The artist had intended it to be awkward for the people inside, as they can only see a green screen, while the rest of the public can see on a screen outside the kiss in-front of a landmark. I really liked this because it shows the “Instagram age” as the artist put it, and how when we choose to share information anyone can see it no matter how intimate and private. I also liked the thought that the people inside are sharing this “private moment” and theres hundred of people outside viewing it, which again relates to now a days when people share photos online and virtually anyone with internet can access it.
Another thought behind that is the fact that people can fake their emotions online and how easy it is. The whole exhibition was based around emotion and how it’s expressed, however this piece expressed it in a different way to what I saw inside the exhibition. The fact that people were going inside and getting their friends/family members outside to photograph the kiss infront of a famous Budapest landmark, such as the parliament building, and then most likely post it to facebook or instagram which carries it even further was really interesting and I liked how the artists took this whole conversation about the internet and safety/privacy online and simplified it to something that people would either relate with and understand or for people to just use without a care.
🙂
georgia colson :) 