6 sene önce Eskişehir' de Playstation1' de wipeuot diye bir oyuna sardırmıştık. Daha doğrusu oyunun intro sunda ki motiongraphic lere....Daha sonraları bu intro yu yapanları buldum...The Designers Republic...
İnanılmazlar. Tarzları var. Ian Anderson diye bi adamın önderliğinde diyebilirim. Hatta röportajını veriyim. Malesef çeviremiyorum.
Ian Anderson
Why do self-initiated work? What are these projects for within the larger body of your studio’s work?
In many respects, within a design context, the way we approach our work is probably closer to being artists. There are a lot things that we feel we want to say and do and some of those things can be achieved through client work, to mutual benefit, and some can’t, either due to clients not wanting us to explore that territory, or maybe it’s a question of timing and sometimes it’s more about producing a raw message. Also, a lot of the personal work effectively becomes training for client work. Clients benefit from us being able to flex our creativity untethered, if you like.
The way we perceive working with clients is that what they provide is the puzzle that needs to be solved. We are happier without too much creative input from the client because, for us, it’s a little like someone leaning over your shoulder and doing the crossword for you. We want them to set us the challenge and then, as artists, we want to go back to them and for them to say “That’s fantastic. That’s more than we could ever have imagined.” It’s all about us, but that’s to the benefit of everybody really. Because I never trained as a designer, that whole idea of being there purely to action the ideas of others seems completely alien. We always feel that we can offer more in the commercial sector because we spend so much time in the mind gym, as it were.
Does Designers Republic represent your personal vision or more of a studio vision?
If you think of Designers Republic as a filter, then that filter is our approach to work, our attitude, our aesthetic and cultural sensibilities, our sense of humour and all the things that make Designers Republic. This has been fine-tuned and has evolved, but it’s remained fairly constant through 18 years of work. Anyone who is at Designers Republic has a bearing on Designers Republic, though I get two votes because I started it. As people come in, they are absorbed, but once they are in, I feed off them as well. All the people at Designers Republic create this filter and everybody adds extra little facets to it, but I moulded the filter.
Did your “techno” aesthetic emerge collectively and evolve from this mix of people?
It definitely emerged from the mix. We very rarely sit down and talk about design. The techno label is something that we don’t really get. We understand why people think that, but we’ve never really been into all that. We have always been much more interested in information graphics and instruction manuals and all those things where the communication of information is key. We’ve expanded that into the communication of ideas, but still using that language. This has evolved into something people see as being quite techno, but it’s technical rather than techno.
What effect or meaning are you trying to achieve in this multi-layered work?
At the core of things, I just don’t believe that there’s ever one truth. It’s always, to me, about options. Someone said our work was quite like Cubism in the sense of trying to present something from every perspective at once. Traditionally, design is about trying to find the most important thing about a product or project and then dismissing other ideas. Whereas we have always been interested in the opposite. In any one project there might be ten alternatives, all equally valid. Some people may be able to reduce that down, but I want to leave those options hanging and pull it into a cohesive design that can be experienced by viewers. They are free to filter through the layers that we present, to look deeper if they want. That’s something that works well for personal work, but it also works for client-based work. We are saying that your product can be all of these things. You can present something that is immediate and has impact, but also has layers of meaning.
In the posters and banners in your own exhibitions there is an ambiguous but at times almost satirical commentary on consumer culture. Is that something you intend?
It’s more than just a commentary or an observation. It’s a desire to inspire or provoke people to think for themselves. Our interest in consumerism is not so much about imperialistic capitalism, though that is a fascinating subject, and it’s not about people spending money or being duped into believing that they need things they never knew they wanted. It’s more about control. When we did the “Customised Terror” exhibition, there was a poster with the word “Flesh”. It’s not saying you shouldn’t eat meat. It’s saying there is an issue here. If you eat a burger, you can mince it up and put dill pickle on it, but you are eating flesh. It’s just playing around with issues that are on people’s minds, without trying to go for easy targets. It’s about being aware of the ramifications of your actions.
The whole consumerist thing is pretty evil – the fact that before Christmas there is nothing but toy ads on at the time kids are watching TV. It’s brutal and distasteful and, to some degree, it’s disgusting, but that is the world we live in. I was born in England into a consumer society. I can moan about it or I can go with the flow and enjoy it. If there is a game to be played, then I’ll play it and try to win. In that respect, what our work says is that this is the situation, your life is this, you work, buy, consume, die, so accept the basic scenario, play with it and enjoy playing the game.
http://www.thedesignersrepublic.com/
