BACK TO THE FUTURE : Royal College of Art Interim Show 09

A few weeks back, in early February to be precise, your editor-in-chief was privileged to accompany Central St. Martin’s product design course director Nick Rhodes to the opening night of the Royal College of Art’s “Interim Show 09”, London.

Now the reason my cohort is of importance is because Nick Rhodes is the man responsible for preparing some of the young minds whose work was on display - whilst at St. Martins as a precursor to their post-graduate courses at RCA - and as such, Nick was the most perfect tour guide, if not translator, for the evening’s deluge of design ideas – after all, there is a little of his mind in some of them.

A most popular and revered man Mr. Rhodes turns out to be as we are stopped every few paces by former students and colleagues for a natter. Genuine as ever, Nick declares, “I will have to come back on Saturday to actually look at the work!”

Of course the snow didn’t stop the show, and an eye-popping array of outlandishly appropriate outfits ranging from the most severe neo-punk darkness to “Beyond the Thunderdome” layers of beige and leather battled for attention in the hallowed halls of the Darwin Building, a stones throw from the Royal Albert Hall – very Neo-New Romantic. Fairly grungy, cheerful and slightly beery, it was easy to believe that this is the same institution that has produced legends such as David Hockney, Ridley Scott and more recently, David Adjaye.

Indeed there was a sense of elation, and to be honest, these students spanning architecture, product design, fine art, fashion and animation did not look as if they had spent the previous night fine-tuning their models, or cutting and pasting. No, this was a very slick show with nary a bag under eye to be seen - more like a pre-party for something altogether less academic.

What amuses me about London design and architecture, is how it has almost always had a penchant for the “futuristic” and by that I mean futurism in the most romantic, almost camp way. Think Archigram, or the Beatles’ “Yellow Submarine” –it’s a day-glo futurism of fluffy clouds, puffy outlined fonts, and very little nihilism actually – “Future-pop” more like. This is a wonderfully optimistic zeitgeist tackling real environmental concerns with wit and panache compared with the self-censorsed scenarios often put forward as so-called problem solving at most tertiary institutions. A breath of fresh air, albeit tinged with typical London pop sensibility.

This positive post-apocalyptic theme was very much the flavour of the architecture studios, and even some of the graphic design and art was overtly collaged, fluorescent, and sci-fi looking. More often than not a sound social or intellectual argument supported the outlandish, but pure whimsy too had its turn. Such is art, and after all, this was an interim show. One would hardly expect too much seriousness.

Standout concepts included an animation created by filming a vinyl record that had figurines attached to it, that “moved” in a storytelling fashion as captured through stroboscopic illumination. Lo-tech - but totally captivating it featured “films” of joggers running along bleak motorways, and such.

Another highlight by James Winter entitled “Play Time” reconstructed a constructivistic virtual world, half pin-ball machine half city-scape, in plexiglass and fluorescent ink. It is hard to say how original such an assemblage is, but in terms of pure visual drama, it stood out and could take its place alongside Chernikov or El Lissitzky any day.

The IDE (Innovation Design Engineering) strands, “Experimental Design” (EXP), “Design for Manufacture” (DFM) and “Design Enterprise” (DE) comprised possibly the most slick and industry ready looking work of the show, produced by very media savvy students who are already well one their way to being design superstars, coming as they usually do, from top undergrad schools around the globe and usually with some industry experience under their belt.

The more conceptual of the groups included the REBORDER group’s experimental installation examining personal space boundaries in public space, and how people react to seemingly invisible stimulus. See attached video.



Another standout was the 1234lab’s three products, “8hertz” – a set of jewelry created from recorded phrases of intimate communication that had been digitally translated into 3-D form, and then reproduced in silver. Words suddenly become less than fleeting. Pure art. Again 1234lab presented “4four” – a pen device that becomes the medium for performing, notating and replaying a musical piece. Collaboration sessions with Shigeru Ishihara (DJ Scotch Egg) and Mark Clifford produced a series of recordings entitled “My name is I don’t know”. Less inventive but ultimately rather beautiful was 1234lab’s third piece 1000faces, which is a rather literal translation of the acoustic properties of a specific space into machine generated panels, a triangulated mesh of vaguely harmonic order.

The SQUEASE project was perhaps the most touching. Designed for teenagers with Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD), a garment was created to apply deep pressure to the users body in order to create a calming effect. It has integrated headphones that reduce the sound level of discomforting noises, a common problem associated with ASD. With its generous hood and sleeves, noise control and pressure pads, the device is supposed to protect and calm the wearer.

Lastly, the REPLENISH continuous cleaning concept was proposed to radically reduce the waste created by the packing of cleaning products, by creating a refill system for all household cleaning products. Not a particularly glamorous topic then, but the design solution that resulted was in itself clean, easy to use and arguably one of the more practical solutions to the environmental crisis on show.

After an hour or two Nick and I retired for a Thai curry and discussed the intellectual climate as displayed by the RCA show, and concurred that while there is obviously a culture of forward looking design at the RCA and of course one of its feeder schools Central St. Martins’, it would seem that the students themselves are genuinely looking to save the planet and create a future of fulfilled promises.

This is exactly the optimism the world needs right now.