Anthony Dunne Editorial

On January 23rd, Anthony Dunne, head of the Interaction Design Department at the Royal College of Arts (London) and former member of the Dunne & Raby design office, gave a lecture at the White Lady’s 5th floor open to all Design Academy students. After that he joined the master student’s group in a more informal discussion.
In both moments he tried to explain and gave very clear examples on his approach to design – the “design for debate”. He says that the design that is practiced “is out of synchrony with today’s world”, and that in this transition phase we must “redesign design”, experimenting and pushing concepts to their limits, as well as linking them to technology.
Instead of focusing on applications, Dunne’s “design for debate” focus on the implications of technology, on the effects it has or might have on us. He says that as designers we must notice the impacts of technology and point the directions we want it to go.
In his lecture he showed us some of his student’s works – as “Dressing the Meat of Tomorrow” by James King and “Sensual Interfaces” by Chris Wolbken – and works produced by his office, for instance the “Evidence Dolls” (Paris – Pompidou Centre, 2004-5), “Is this your Future?” (London, Science Museum, 2004), and the “Placebo” project (exhibited at MOMA), among others.
One main question that lies over Dunne’s work and that students asked him is why he doesn’t sell or introduce the products he conceives in the market, in order to give people the possibility to experience these interesting “museum-pieces” in a strongest way. “Placebo” was his only experiment where people could have the object in their houses, but even in this case it was a very limited group and for a limited time.
Anthony Dunne answered that industries are not interested in producing his objects. He tried it with some of them, for instance the “Compass table” (part of the “Placebo” project), but studies showed they would become very expensive and not commercially interesting. On the other hand, he also says that if his designs were produced, they wouldn’t be “for debate” anymore.
Anthony Dunne thinks that there’s potential for designers in other roles rather than just making products for the market. If there are museums specialized in design, these places should look for new scenarios and experiments, not present us things that are already in the shops. So, his position in design is to think of it in different ways, with new contents and ideas, relating it much more to science with a visionary but still realistic approach.
In this point comes another interesting question about Art “versus” Design: if the design exists only in museums and is made only to have a controlled experience of the user, then isn’t it an art piece with function, instead of a normal product? Isn’t design for debate just a design for designers?
Dunne goes back to his point and says that there are designers that work for mass-production, others make one-off series or work inside companies, and the world needs all these kinds of designers. But especially in the world of technology and electronics, designers are always asked to make skins, and not to elaborate ideas on the intentions of the objects. In his view there’s space for all this diversity to coexist, and designers should be more present in creating the concepts of the products, not only their look.
We agree and think that maybe actually there’s a lack of designers that produce debate, conceiving visions of our future life and inspiring designers that deal with different problems. A more critical approach is not only interesting, but also necessary in times when design seems to have its role and responsibility broadened.