Frapped & Fraud

The Basic of Us Through Design

Saya sangat setuju pada kalimat pembuka untuk rubrik desain pada majalah Monocle bulan Mei. Pada paragraf singkat tersebut, sang penulis sedikit beropini tentang keraguannya pada desain yang kini semakin berubah menjadi fesyen. Desainer yang tampil di muka umum bak selebriti. Masyarakat yang menikmati sinar dari brand yang telah mapan. Saya pun turut bertanya, sejak kapankah desainer menjadi selebriti dan wajah mereka menjadi sama penting dengan hasil pekerjaannya?

Lalu saya kembali mengingat masa-masa terakhir saya menjalani kuliah desain produk. Keinginan saya melanjutkan jenjang berikutnya di Belanda sekedar karena dosen saya pernah berkuliah juga disana. Namun seiring riset tentang sekolah di Belanda, dan kesadaran saya akan dunia desain yang semakin dalam sekarang,  Belanda memiliki sesuatu yang berbeda dari negara-negara lain. Sekolah desain di Belanda selalu mencoba menelusuri sisi-sisi dasar manusia. Perasaan, dorongan emosi, hidup, mati dan seterusnya. Menelusuri hal-hal tersebut bermanfaat untuk memberi solusi dan inovasi desain. Pada tahun 2009, Design Academy Eindhoven mengangkat tema kematian sebagai bahan kuliahnya yang berjudul “Remember Me”. Kematian sebagai dasar siklus manusia justru sedikit di sentuh dunia desain. Ide-ide yang bangkit dari tema kematian menjadi beragam contohnya seperti sebuah instalasi yang menyerupai detak jam, kain penutup jasad yang menyesuaikan karakter dan seterusnya. Mungkin hasil-hasil karya tersebut bukanlah hasil yang mempunyai kemungkinan besar untuk dibeli. Tapi jika dibawa pada persoalan yang lebih besar dari sekedar tugas kuliah, ide-ide tersebut dapat menjadi angin segar.

Desain-desain Belanda yang menyentuh sisi dasar manusia juga sering digabungkan dengan aspek alam. Aplikasi fisik penggabungan aspek manusia dan alam terlihat pada sebuah objek karya desainer-desainer Belanda, contohnya sentuhan tidak selesai atau unfinished, gabungan antara sentuhan glossy dan raw, bentuk-bentuk organik dan asimetrikal, craftmanship dan seterusnya. Ciri-ciri tersebut dapat dilihat pada karya-karya desainer seperti Tord Boontje, Hella Jongerius, Lucas Maassen dan seterusnya.

Profesi saya sendiri yang berhubungan dengan media desain membuat saya tersadar bahwa begitu menyenangkan melihat pendekatan-pendekatan berbeda dari desain tiap negara. Begitu menyenangkan pula melihat pendekatan desain Belanda yang membuat saya merasa desain itu dekat dengan manusia dan bukan sesuatu yang gemerlap dan berpura-pura. Selain itu tidakkah menjadi menyenangkan, bahwa karya-karya di dunia ini bukan sekedar estetika yang memuaskan keinginan pasar? Melihat karya-karya tersebut, seperti ada sekelompok orang yang menyumbangkan tenaga sukarela pada sebuah tragedi dan kembali pada sisi positif manusia yang mempunyai kedekatan antara sesama. Desain dan manusia mungkin seharusnya memiliki pola hubungan yang sama seperti manusia dan manusia, dekat dan bertetangga.

Collides in Harmony

In our daily journey, we often go looking for a single form of identity of who we are. To reach a holistic form of entity, it turns out that we should not have filtered thousands influences and take out only one. Why bother filtering such massive amount of influences while we can just reach those thousands of differently beautiful influences and sewn them well together?

That opinion of mine was surfacing because I got few chances to observe things that contain dualism. Dualism in ideas, things, character and many more. A few days ago I wrote some review about a hotel in Amsterdam that open up its door as a hotel that preserving a historical building in Amsterdam. The name is Conservatorium Hotel Amsterdam and obviously occupying the former abandoned building of renowned Sweelinck Conservatory. Not just plainly occupying, with a help of great designer and architect, Pierro Lissoni, the old building has been knitted greatly and infiltrated with the touch of today’s lifestyle. The brick walls and wood flooring records a lot of stories of Sweelinck Conservatory and now living side by side with full glass building, steel structure and renown modern era furniture such as Cassina, Living Davina and others. Old and new, both are collided and melted harmoniously. Reaching such a contemporary atmosphere and as well as giving a new breath of life to the area within and surrounding Conservatorium Hotel. One of the main heart-throbbing parts of this hotel is the Brasserie which took place in the glass building which they called the Atrium. By sitting in the Brasserie area, one would be able to see parts of the city many faces; the old brick wall, the modern glass building, and the view of Amsterdam’s buzzing life. Those three will surely rushing the blood to the head and living up our spirit. In my point of view, Conservatorium Hotel is one of those perfect examples where dualism stands in harmony.

Netherland is famous for its advance thinking in many fields and Amsterdam itself is an international city which had already grabbed thousands influences that I mentioned before. The thousands which include lifestyle of the Dutch and lifestyle of other nationality and also Dutch history mixed with its own new culture. Thousands of living, contradicting and moving factors that wrapped into one identity of lively Amsterdam.

That kind of identity, where many supporting factors behind it keeps moving, changing and open, is needed to be preserved in ourselves. As a person who works in a design field, I personally think that I should grab much more things outside of design topics and combine it all inside myself. That is also my opinion of what other designers should have done too. The meeting and colliding of ideas should always be inside of every designer so we keep on questioning and never gets tired of looking for new solution and make some dynamic duo inside ourselves because in most of this world cases’ solution, two are better than one.

Senyum Dari Selatan

Terbilanglah, wanita yang kuharapkan mengbiasi hidupku.
Kuharapkan dia lah pelipur pilu di hatiku selalu.
Dan ku tak mungkin menepis kenyataan kau telah terikat janji.

Kau lah, pelita bulan di atas sana
Dan tak mungkin pernah menurun

Kisah, ku melanturkan dan menghamburkan harapan yang tak ada, dan akan terus, meluas, mengupas hidupku.

Jika, kau mengizinkan ku akan terus menaklukkan ku tau dan akan terus mengupas, menguras hidupku.

——-Sore

Disturbance in Comfort

             

Disturbance in Comfort

2010

The illustration above were created to respond a theme that my friend once throw to the air “Comfort in Disturbance”.

The first idea was derived from ‘sushi girl’. Figure of a woman whom did not wear any clothes lays on the table were an engaging visual, but while it is engaging, it is also disturbing. Disturbing concentration and the comfort of eating. At that time I was planning for drawing that kind of ‘sushi girl’ in a surface of dining table but it still haven’t realized yet.

Because making something big has not happened so I made this little drawing with the same theme of a woman whom (pardon) show parts of her body.