Papa Pasticcio

"... For Memphis designers the problem of truth and authenticity, and vice versa, the problem of fake, doesn't exist. What matters is the image, the design, the final product, the figurative force, the communication. As with many pupils of Buddha, all Memphis designers seem convinced that 'reality' as an absolute doesn't exist, it is what it is." - Barbara Radice

Reality, Meaning, New Meaning,No Meaning

Broadly speaking, Post-Modernist thought counters the paradigm of meta-narratives (general theories and principles purportedly help to encompass "truth", contain value and provide meaning) with the proposal that truth and meaning are not absolute and that "reality" is a social construction. Reality is perceived subjectively within the context of social experience — therefore cannot have a common universal meaning.

Complex existential ideas arise from this thought of "reality" not being a universally accepted given. Baudrillard posits the theory of "hyperreal" — where simulation of reality creates another "real" that is indistinguishable from reality.

He illustrates this idea through an analogous "pretend" theft in a department store in Strategy of the Real :

"... Simulation is infinitely more dangerous than real violence, however, since it always suggests, over and above its object, that law and order themselves might really be nothing more than a simulation ... Go and simulate a theft in a large department store : how do you convince the security guards that it is a simulated theft? There is no 'objective' difference : the same gestures and the same signs exist as for a real theft; in fact the signs incline neither to one side nor the other..." 2

This idea of simulation can be seen today in branding, where products signify lifestyles and attributes that are unrelated to their inherent meaning — and this new meaning is accepted as reality.

Post-Modernist thought also challenges ideas existing from the time of the Enlightenment Era that science and intellect are ever progressing — the perceived philosophical hegemony that "things are always improving".

From this rejection of the formal, all-encompassing discrimination and ides of unity held within Modernist text came the end of seeing history as a linear progression, and the development of a hybrid visual vocabulary that seeks to blur the distinctions between "high" (elite) and "mass" (popular) culture, by combining the symbolism of both "classes" at will. More simply put, Post-Modernism invites eclecticism and embraces pluralism (multiculturalism).

There is no "stable meaning" could be the central message of the movement. Meaning can be made and remade anew.

Jacques Derrida expanded upon semiotics by putting forward that while language is a series of signs and signifiers that one uses to understand the world and "reality", there can be no guarantee of legitimacy in the "sign" (symbol or token) being able to communicate an immutable, universally understood meaning.

This idea frees designers to "cross-dress" design codes in order to create any meaning — or no meaning — through the conscious manipulation of historic and current visual symbols, and to create objects and images that have no deep message or value beyond their immediate surface aesthetic.

Paradoxically, Post-Modern design is not without feeling or irony, and there are many contradictions within this somewhat protean philosophy.

These contradictions are explored in Post-Modern design via the conscious juxtaposition of disparate historical and cultural graphic signs, through the technique of pastiche.

(The word pastiche is the French derivative of the Italian word pasticcio, which means, quite literally, "hotchpotch".) 3

Counter Design, New Design, Radical Design

"All the members of this school were dedicated to the break-up of a system which from the beginning of the century onwards had offered no possibility of self-expression beyond the limits of the rational ... Hungry for new ideas governing freedom of action and speech, they spent three years, oblivious of all practical realities, designing a mass of ironical and utopian projects."4

The political and social shifts in the 1960s did not pass unnoticed by the young Ettore Sottsass Jr., a Milan based architect and industrial designer. An early protagonist of Post-Modern design, in 1969 Sottsass designed a typewriter for Olivetti, which he called the "Valentine".

Lightweight and portable, the typewriter was encased in bright red plastic. Sottsass described the design as being "... invented for use any place except an office, so as not to remind anyone of monotonous working hours, but rather to keep amateur poets company on quiet Sundays in the country, or to provide a highly coloured object on a table in a studio apartment." 5

This design introduced an element of fun and bohemia to the workplace - office furniture and accessories could be funky, off-beat, enjoyed as visual objects. The design sensibility around this object was in sync with youth culture and signified a lifestyle - flexible, independent, spontaneous, chic, beatnik.

This was no coincidence; Sottsass was concerned with Post-Modern theory and interested in pop and Beat culture. His travels to Asia - where he developed an interest in ceramics, ritual objects and Eastern mysticism - and the United States, sparked his imagination and were referenced in his designs.

In 1975 Sottsass left Olivetti for form Global Tools, a collaboration of "counter design" architects from two design studios (Archizoom and Superstudio) in Florence. In 1979 he formed "Studio Alchymia" (Alchemy), the so-called "Radical Design" Movement - a predecessor of Post-Modern design - in Milan.

The movement reacted against Modernist ideas of "good taste" and experimented with scale and distortion and bright, primary colours.

They were highly political and theoretical. The design rationale of the movements was to "... search for a new linguistic 'expressive' quality as a possible solution to the enigma of design ... Recycling all possible idioms now in circulation within the experience of our lives." Andrea Branzi, Modo, 1981 6

Contemporary materials, such as formica or plastic, were quoted in many of the designs because they were perceived as having no previous cultural significance. These materials were combined with expensive wood veneers and crooked lines to create provocative, irrational objects where function appeared to follow form.

The products were intended for the man in the street, but lack of demand meant that they were produced in small quantities and generally purchased by museums and the wealthy. The studio struggled financially, and after several years of intense research and debate, Ettore Sottsass left the group.

"It is no coincidence that the people who work for Memphis don't pursue a metaphysical aesthetic idea or an absolute of any kind, much less eternity. Today everything one does is consumed. It is dedicated to life not to eternity."

Ettore Sottsass 7

Memphis : The New International Style (1981-1988)

In 1981 Sottsass (now in his sixties) formed Memphis with a group of young designers. The name was taken from a Bob Dylan song, Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again. As founder member of the group, Barbara Radice, recalls in her book Memphis : Research, Experiences, Results, Failures and Successes of New Design : "...everybody thought it was a great name : Blues, Tennessee, rock 'n roll, American suburbs, and then Egypt, the Pharaoh's capital, the holy city of the god Ptah." 8

The name itself conjures up delicious opportunities to irreverently pair ancient symbols with American suburban schlock : a fragile hand-blown glass and highly patterned plastic; expensive natural materials, such as marble, and glass fibre.

The fact that many of these designs were purchased by the rich and famous (Karl Lagerfeld furnished his apartment with Memphis piece in the eighties) and displayed in art galleries, elevated the designers to celebrity status.

In 1981 Sottsass designed a sideboard, which he called the "Beverly". He combined faux green reptile-skin effect plastic laminate with natural briar wood and chrome. A shelf juts out from the top of the piece at an angle, and he jauntily placed a red light bulb onto a chrome bar for decoration. There is no function to the light bulb; it serves merely to lend a festive, playful feel to the sideboard.

Much of his furniture designs during these years incorporated "shelves" jutting out at impossible angles. They were neither strictly functional nor practical. The pieces demanded to be centre stage — one simply could not "fit" them neatly into a corner (although it must be said that Sottsass did not specifically intend for them to be read as single pieces).

Another piece, the "Tahiti" lamp, constructed of metal and laminated plastic, leans sharply from its base. The stem of the lamp is bright yellow, with a copper "handle" extending behind it. The light bulb is positioned in what appears to be the beak of a simple, cartoon-like duck's head parody of executive toys seen on City Boy's desks in the eighties.

These designs are very much in keeping with the practice of subverting signs that Sottsass and the Memphis group strived to uphold. As Richard Horn observed in his book Memphis, Objects, Furniture and Patterns : "One could say that by having a zany Memphis sideboard in your living room, you defuse the status and seriousness of that room."

And just as Sottsass had been in tune with the 1960s youth culture, he was once more in step with the disposable consumerism of the 1980s' economic book and its opposing Punk subculture. While costly, his designs were intentionally transient, whimsical, novelty.

In a fast-paced and constantly changing world, Ettore Sottsass, who up until his death in 2007 remained as head of Sottsass Associates, presented us with a visual possibility that mirrors our experience of "realty" : sensual, finite, occasionally amusing, often contradictory, unstable and — like life itself — infused with messy subjectivity.

References

1 Barbara Radice (translated from the Italian by Paul Blanchard) Memphis : Research, Experiences, Results, Failures and Successes of New Design © 1984 Gruppo Editoriale Electa, Milan, 1985 Thames & Hudson, London p67.

2 Edited by Brian Wallis, Art After Modernism : Rethinking Representation © 1984, The New Museum of Contemporary Art, USA. Excerpt from the essay "The Precession of Simulacra", Jean Baudrillard pp 266-267.

3 Edited by John Ellison Kahn, MA, DPhil, Reader's Digest Reverse Dictionary © 1989, Reader's Digest Association Limited, London.

4 Brigitte Fitoussi, Memphis (translated from the French by Harriet Mason) © 1998 Éditions Assoukline, Paris © 1998 Thames & Hudson Ltd., London p9.

5 Katherine B. Hiesinger and George H. Marcus, Landmarks of Twentieth-Century Design : An Illustrated Handbook © 1993 Abeville Press, New York p245.

6 Richard Horn, Memphis Objects, Furniture and Patterns © 1986 Quatro Marketing Ltd, Columbia Books, London p19.

7 Barbara Radice (translated from the Italian by Paul Blanchard)Memphis : Research, Experiences, Results, Failures and Successes of New Design © 1984 Gruppo Editoriale Electa, Milan, 1985 Thames & Hudson, London p186

8 Barbara Radice (translated from the Italian by Paul Blanchard)Memphis : Research, Experiences, Results, Failures and Successes of New Design © 1984 Gruppo Editoriale Electa, Milan, 1985 Thames & Hudson, London p26