Objectified – Designed to Bore

Objectified is that masturbatory mess left behind by 13 year-old boy on the fine patchwork quilt his Nana made for Christmas. A stain on the function of design. What a letdown of movie. I went along to see Objectified at the IFI tonight. Where to begin?

There was no central narrative to the film. The documentary was a loose, lazy whirlwind trip through shiny names in design. I get the feeling Hustwat bought tickets to zip-zip through countries. Japan – ping / Paris ping – ping / Rotterdam – ping. As the talking head pieces continued on, the smell of shallow, self-indulgent smarm got stronger. Jonny Ive was the single voice from the melee that spoke about the engineering process. He described how form is informed by material and process. Something that at least one voice in the post QnA prickled at.

The audience was fanboy heaven. Sandals and designer tees. Who am I to talk? But moving past this, the movie did little to uncover the mystique of iconic design. Instead, it offered up prechewed rhetoric – iconography of different sort – to design heads. We smelled its second-hand sweat. The audience, rapt with colours of Helvetica in their mind’s eye, was open (even given to relate overly) but instead it was a handed a bum ride.

Objectified would have worked better as a warts and all journey through a product line, documenting how design in a company changed over time and relating it to a company’s designers that design changed over that same period. Design doesn’t change how we use things but it changes us. Great design manifests our unspoken rituals and challenges preconceptions, all executed to look simple.

The QnA dragged on way too long. Yawn. I haven’t seen Helvetica and to tell the truth I couldn’t be arsed after to seeing this self-indulgent, transparent exercise in design elitism. Roll on those that disrupt. They design because they question and pull apart our DNA to built new things. Exciting things.

June 2nd, 2009 at 11:51 pm • Filed in Culture, Geekery



Comments

5 Comments to “Objectified – Designed to Bore”

  1. roosta Says:
    June 2nd, 2009 at 11:55 pm

    what a shame.

    I still heartily recommend Helvetica, it really is good.



  2. Bohoe Says:
    June 2nd, 2009 at 11:58 pm

    Very well fucking said.
    Nevertheless, Helvetica is another story altogether.
    Or at least a story, and much better told, for that matter.



  3. Jennifer Farley Says:
    June 3rd, 2009 at 9:14 am

    That’s a pity. I was looking forward to seeing this one.

    I agree with the roosta and Bohoe, I really like Helvetica too.



  4. Phil Says:
    June 3rd, 2009 at 12:17 pm

    Some interesting points, and I agree, mostly.
    I found Helvetica to be a much better film than this (to the surprise of some of the small group who went to see the film at the weekend).

    There isn’t much of a story, and a lot of ‘look at us, we’re awesome’ – though I still walked away feeling pretty inspired by the whole thing.



  5. Oisin Says:
    June 6th, 2009 at 10:26 pm

    Very nicely written… I want to see it even more now though!: )



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