Productive People

Mischer'Traxler's W Hotels Designers of the Future Presentation at Design Miami/ Basel 2011

Simone Farresin and Andrea Trimarchi, the design duo known as Formafantasma, guest blog for The Design Miami/ Blog. In this piece, they discover why Mischer’Traxler was honored with the W Hotels Designers of the Future award.

After making our way through some fantastic examples of historical design pieces (our favorite being the Prouvé house in Patrick Seguin’s booth), we took the grand staircase up to the mezzanine level at Design Miami/ Basel. Upstairs, we quickly discovered the W Hotels Designers of the Future projects. Each designer of the future responded to a brief asking them to create Conversation Pieces for the fair. They were asked to create work that would facilitate discussion and interaction amongst the visitors at the show.

Mischer’Traxler, is one of this year’s winners, and we see why when they show us their work. The duo responded to the specific brief by using production processes in unconventional ways. They do this often in their work.

Mischer'Traxler show Formafantasma how to be productive.

Mischer’Traxler explained their work: “Called ‘collective works’ a machine reacts via sensors to the audience. As soon as one approaches the machine, it starts pulling slowly wood veneer through glue and winds it up to form a basket. If more people join, color is added to the object via markers. The more people, the more markers are activated – leaving more color on the basket. From a shade of light blue to black, the color is actually determined by how many people were looking at the machine and involved in the process.”

The viewer needs to engage with the piece in order to make the physical design objects.

Traditionally, machines are used to improve efficiency in the production process. The idea of industrial design is based on the possibility of producing mass quantities of work – all of equal caliber. These functional tools are used to minimize human involvement in the production process.

Mischer'Traxler's W Hotels Designers of the Future Presentation at Design Miami/ Basel 2011

With this project, Mischer and Traxler throw that idea out the window and act as post-industrial designers. Their work questions the relationship between humans and machines and mandates that the human play an active role in making the machine “productive.” The human interaction is an essential part of the process.

Looking at Mischer’Traxler’s booth from across the mezzanine, it is beautiful to see how strangers are all around the machine interacting and playing with it. They are participating the magical creation of a unique piece of design.

A second piece on display by the duo is a mirror that only functions when two people stand in front of it. It demands a shared experience.