THE RELATIONS WE HAVE WITH PRODUCTS: AN ESSAY ON OUR INTER-HUMAN-CONNECTIONS AND THE REFLECTION OF THESE IN THE DESIGNED WORLD.
The world is designed for two people in a relationship. You can see it all around you, food is packed in a multiple of two portions, people find it weird if you go out to dinner alone, and many more examples can be thought of on the spot. When google-ing if singles have to pay more in life. The answer is a heavy yes. You can only afford housing together. Being single is not easy financially. For the younger generation this is common knowledge. What maybe is not so apparent is the paradgims we get bombarded with on the daily.
Society requests us to be ‘strong & independent’. However every family member around you continuously asks if there already is a special someone that joins the upcoming Christmas dinner. What I find so delighting about a relationship in general is that you do not have face the world alone. The world is not a safe space, it can be scary and absurd. With a partner you can handle the struggles of daily life and the absurdities better. The charm is in being dependent on each other and showing each other weakness. These aforementioned concepts result in a stalemate that is hard to navigate. Concepts such as heternormativity go hand in hand. The question arises, do these anthropological concepts that society surrounds us with reflect in the products services and systems all around us?
To deepen my understanding I went to the Van Abbe museum (with the exposostion: The space between us) & Marres house for contemporary culture (with the exposition: Goodbye to love). With the information presented I tried to think about the relationships we have with each other, and the reflections of it in the designed world all around us.
Two days later I visited Marres in Maastricht. Where an exposition about love was shown. Different art installations portrayed the relationships we have as humans: Goodbye to Love. One part of the exhibition sparked my interest. In one of the rooms in the house there was an exposition of Hyesoo Park. It was an interactive exhibit on the creation of an archiving around the broken heart. It collects memories, stories, but most importantly for this essay: Memorabilia (objects and products that remind someone of a memory).These collected objects (labelled with numbers corresponding to cards with stories in another section of the exhibition) informed us about the stories and the memories behind it.
The objects portrayed were everyday objects, from a broken cell phone and a bus ticket to winter socks for women. What caught my eye, was a framed plastic toothbrush. In conversation with friends this also seemed a common theme. The toothbrush of your ex. When did you dispose of it? Do you still have it. The second toothbrush is an interesting concept. When do you buy one? You get confronted with it daily because it is next to yours. Such a simple object that does not really say anything significant. However very confronting on your romantic past. To me this is an excellent example of the projected relationship in design the other way around.
We as humans project the relationships we have with others around us onto the products we use on the daily. For this reason alone memorabilia exists.
The objects portrayed were everyday objects, from a broken cell phone and a bus ticket to winter socks for women. What caught my eye, was a framed plastic toothbrush. In conversation with friends this also seemed a common theme. The toothbrush of your ex. When did you dispose of it? Do you still have it. The second toothbrush is an interesting concept. When do you buy one? You get confronted with it daily because it is next to yours. Such a simple object that does not really say anything significant. However very confronting on your romantic past. To me this is an excellent example of the projected relationship in design the other way around.
We as humans project the relationships we have with others around us onto the products we use on the daily. For this reason alone memorabilia exists.