Can we still design the future?
Between Worlds with Mike Walsh — Tamer Nakisci on undesign, emotion and the strange future of objects
Tamer Nakisci designed the portable and flexible (yet a prototype) Nokia 888 (remember Nokia?) back in 2004. He is that kind of very forward-looking designer: he doesn’t think about tomorrow, but at how the future will look like in 10, 15 years.
Here he talks with Mike Walsh about the fact that we live now in the future we thought about 10 years ago and that today you can’t predict it anymore: you just make it.
He says that object don’t need to have a function anymore. Right now he’s obsessed with a small cube, for instance. It’s how the users see in it that matters, he says.
It’s the experience, not the function. We got used to beautiful objects that become meaningless after few days because they look always the same. That’s why he designed Futureisblank Tableware, a set of tableware that, once piled, looks always different because the shape of each dish is different. Variations are the key: they excite our imagination.
Simple shapes, no more clear functions, variations: is this the future?