The Royal College of Art are KithKin’s neighbours in Designers Block, with their exhibition “Disruptive Thinking”. Working with professionals in other non design fields, the work is well informed, endlessly interesting, presenting fantastical possibilities of everyday experience.
Daily events include a biodiversity work shop run by Will Carey and Nicholas Myes, demonstrating Myer’s interactive game “Transgenic Bestiary”; where digital barcodes representing animal DNA can be scanned to created hybrid creatures on a digital screen. Myer’s explains; “The information is accurate, what you create is fantasy”. ‘Secret Agent Man’ Tommaso Lanza’s has a collection of “Toys” offering a glimpse into an inner corporate world including a pair of stilettos updated with a retractable electronic key hidden in a removable heel.
Thomas Thwaites’ “The Toaster Project” is an installation documenting his nine month attempt to replicate a £5 Argos toaster by hand. Beginning with the raw materials buried in the ground Thwaites consulted a 15th Century history book on refining iron in order to create the inner mechanism of the toaster. Among the remnants on display is ceramic pot combined with three hairdryers from the “first attempt at smelting”. The more successful second attempt happened in his mum’s back garden and involved two microwaves. The final toaster in its full glory is also on display.
Nelly Ben Hayoun’s “The Soyuz Chair” is a domestic armchair with built in technology to simulate the feeling of the Soyuz rocket launching. Working in collaboration with the astronaut Jean-Pierre Haignere, the chair erupts with vibration and noise as the participant is blasted out of their living room, the work is easy to find, you can not miss the sound it makes. Yesterday afternoon a meeting of two chairs took place; dressed in her white astronaut suit Nelly Ben Hayoun visited KithKin and took her turn on Tomomi Sayunda’s “i-bum” chair (a fully upholstered arm chair which photocopies your bottom) producing the brightest glowing bum photo of the show.
Text: Lorna Robertson
The Soyuz Chair by Nelly Ben Hayoun
i-Bum by Tomomi Sayuda
http://www.disruptivethinking.org/
http://www.kith-kin.co.uk/presents/