_____________________[PRO] zizek, или Пост-IDEOлогический Toilet Bowl

[congeries]

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© susanne baumgarden/form

</td><td>Let us take the most common object imaginable: the design of a toilet bowl. Frequent travelers are well aware of the obvious differences between the traditional German, French and American toilets: in German ones, the excrement is displayed and is only flushed away when we pull water; in French ones it directly falls into the deep water hole; and in the US, the bowl is filled by water, so that the excrement floats in it before it is flushed away. Are we aware that these differences cannot be accounted for in purely functional terms, that they rely on a hidden set of ideological presuppostitions? And the same goes for all other everyday objects, from kitchen design to furniture.</td>
This, I think, is what a designer in our new century will have to be aware of more than ever, in our era which claims to be 'post-ideological': the designer's work does not merely provide an external form to a preexisting functional object, it is the privileged site of the inscription of ideology.

All products on the market are 'reflective': even the most functionally designed object is not 'just that', but it also signals the value of down-the-earth functional life.

Designers are today's ideologists, and they better be aware of it!

+++ жижек зажигает. хлёстко начав с кросс-культурных какашек, заканчивает Манифестом Пост-IDEOлогического Дизайнера.

насколько больше, чем поэт поэт в эпоху постмодерна?

Comments

[zasu.livejournal.com]

so, what does it mean that newer german toilets are being designed sans viewing shelf?

that the germans are becoming less anal retentive? (i hope so :D).

[centralasian.livejournal.com]

this is simply a german way of reacting to la condition postmoderne...

[zasu.livejournal.com]

oh, you mean the germans are merely hopelessly, helplessly trendy, even if it means giving up their beloved poop viewing habits?

[ipain.livejournal.com]

вроде уже давно идеология через форму сортира и мотыги распространялась.