Dunne & Raby

Dunne & Raby use design as a medium to stimulate discussion and debate amongst designers, industry and the public about the social, cultural and ethical implications of existing and emerging technologies.

Designs for Fragile Personalities in Anxious Times, 2004/05

In the field of design, users and consumers are usually characterised in narrow and stereotypical ways resulting in a world of manufactured objects that reflects an impoverished view of what it means to be human. This project set out to explore and develop a design approach that would lead to products that embodied an understanding of the consumer/user as a complex existential being.

To achieve this the project focused on irrational but real anxieties such as the fear of alien abduction or nuclear annihilation. Rather than ignoring them, as most design does, or amplifying them to create paranoia, we treated the phobias as though they were perfectly reasonable and designed objects to humour their owners.

The resulting objects are concrete examples of a very different way of designing for how people really are rather than how they are supposed to be. They explore how psychological realism can be applied to designed objects.

1. Hideaway Furniture is for people who are afraid of being abducted. Each opens in a surprising way without disturbing objects displayed on its surface. The poses encourage the occupant to feel in control, proud and comfortable, the opposite of a foetal position. There are three versions.

2. The Huggable Atomic Mushrooms are for people afraid of nuclear annihilation. Like treatments for phobias they allow for gradual exposure through different sizes.

Noam Toran

link to website

Object for Lonely Men
2001
Video shot on DVCAM

Object for Lonely Men tells the story of a man so obsessed with Godard’s Breathless that he designs and builds a tray which reflects the physical language of the film. The tray is made from a single sheet of vacuum formed plastic and has recesses which house the objects that the man interacts with. The objects include a mannequin head which resembles Jean Seberg (the female lead), a gun, hat, telephone, Herald Tribune newspaper, sunglasses, ashtray, steering wheel, rear view mirror and a pack of Gitanes non-filtered cigarettes. The tray serves as an outlet for the man’s desires; it allows him to directly channel the influence of the movie on his fantasies into physical action.