China: design a “national priority.”
- Started
- Last post
- 45 Responses
- ukit0
I do agree with what fresnobob says to an extent...where is the one piece of iconic, original Chinese design you can point to? Notice that even the article doesn't mention anything.
- http://static.truste…detritus
- I know someone. He is in jail.Miesfan
- Even that, is something IBM sold them.ukit
- // ukitdetritus
- bored2death0
I think good design takes independent thought. Something I'm not convinced exists there.
- orpkoobcam20
a designer sat in china won't be taking the job of a designer sat in london working with local clients. don't sweat it.
i see a return to local in the future. we can't sustain a global market economy due to environmental issues.
- little_kev0
@fresnobob, you seem to have it down here. Original/lateral thought is not taught or encouraged in chinese education, in the main. This lack of free-thinking is deep-rooted and as one might look around for inspiration it might seem absent to the extent it seems only fabled. As support I offer this; link's 2yrs old but still pertinent, imho.
This lack of an ability to think out side the blah blah is both common and comfy to the establishment. China traditionally adopts and replicates, it's might is in cheap labour. Yeah they gave us gunpowder but it's been quieter on the inventions front the last few centuries
- detritus0
I think it's unfair to demand an iconic piece of singularly Chinese design, be it product or graphic, given that the economy and culture by which we derive and judge such works is barely a decade old over there.
Besides which, what hubris to put things in such singularly favourable terms and what utter balderdash to state that the US was somehow magically immediately a superpower! What of the 300 years gestation before, finally, surpassing the might of Mother England's imperium? China was an international superpower before the US and much of Europe was even a twinkle in imagination's eye, if you so passively dismiss Grand Time's depth, you're surely dooming your descendants an idiot's perspective.
I'm sure some of the KnownKnown Yankee Pseuds in here are simply trolling, but by golly how keenly your words speak of a form of Empire crumbling, proclaimed by ignorance and fear, shouted loud and proud.
The new world order is multi polar, and the better for it—the last 150 years of uni/bi/poly-polar world view were an aberation, which should be best gotten rid of with all the humility and empathy we can muster.
We have a lot to learn and hopefully, so do they.
- < Cider-fuelled Bullshit™detritus
- you're entertained by the sound of your fingers typing the way girls like the sound of their own voice don't you?registe
- Better than being entertained by sticking my fingers up ass, then smearing my own shit into my eyeballs, registe.detritus
- YOU KNOW WE KNOW.detritus
- WE'RE WATCHING YOU
YOU SCATONANISTdetritus - WTFmydo
- scarabin0
sounds great. hope they create some wonderful stuff.
- registe0
the Chinese LOVE porcelain
- Huh. I honestly thought they were by a British designer 'til just now.
http://www.detterer.…detritus
- Huh. I honestly thought they were by a British designer 'til just now.
- uan0
other great art from there
Fang Lijun, SARS, 2003, Woodcut, 488 x 100 cm each, total size 488 x 700 cm
- nadanada0
"Original / lateral thought is not taught or encouraged in chinese education."
^ this.
there are a few emerging architects/designers from china that really are trying. i worked as an intern in shanghai for an architecture firm that is doing really interesting stuff. the owner (dean of my arch school) was educated at harvard and definitely lead the pack... but you could tell that even though the employees were really bright and well-educated (for local chinese schools) they could not produce a unique thought at all. they kept a copy of the rem koolhaas el croquis issue on its own desk, venerated and blindly copied from.
the owner was frequently frustrated as he kept re-designing everything that looked like it came straight out of rem koolhaas' office, day in and day out. yet - he still subscribed to the blind-copy mentality sometimes. he would look at a sketch or a model and say, "well, in europe this is what they are doing. let's do bold gradient colors." etc.
- it's a culturel thing - they have copied artwork from previous generations for, well, generations.nadanada
- i_monk0
Anyone herping and derping about China just copying and not coming up with anything new or successful obviously has no idea that Japan did the same thing when it industrialized. Now your kids watch more anime than cartoons, can name all 45,732 Pokemon, play Nintendo or Playstation on their Toshibas, and so on.
- BuddhaHat0
On a practically applied level, I haven't seen very much inspired design here, from architecture to fashion, or anything else for that matter, in the 7 months I've been here. That's after visiting Shanghai, Hangzhou, Wenzhou, Ningbo, Xiamen and a couple of other smaller (in relative terms) cities.
That's not to say I don't expect it in the future. As it stands, I believe that creativity in terms of expressing one's ideas has been intentionally stifled by the government. When one is allowed complete freedom, the inevitable consequence is that one or many individuals will start questioning the status quo, their lot in life, and a great many other things. This terrifies the government no end.
A lot of people I meet here read or hear the news fed to them through government-run channels, and accept it unquestioningly. A quick scan of other news outlets around the world show some of the provided information to be disingenuous, or scant at best. This will change... gradually.
The culture of replication and imitation is strong here, from basic consumer products to buildings. A prime example of this would be one university I visited in Hangzhou, where the library is housed underground, with light introduced to the space via 3 glass pyramids above it. An exact fucking copy of the layout of the Louvre, sans fountains.
Financially speaking, in certain areas, I will accept that fostering creativity will be a boon to society. The simple fact remains though that they are currently experiencing a boom the likes of which have not been seen before, and the government, which controls everything, is intent on controlling inflation and growth, above and beyond anything else.
To stave off a drop in growth after the GFC in '08-'09 (analysts said that a drop below 8% growth of GDP in China would have severe effects locally and globally), the government spent hundreds of billions of dollars on transport, construction, reduced price consumer products for the less wealthy, and many other projects.
These kinds of goals are intent on delivering work and quantity, devoid of any real quality, or creativity. All you have to do is look out across the skyline in any major city to see building after building, seemingly placed there one after another like yet another product from a factory line. They are identical, ugly, and poorly built, like most products from China.
This is the nature of the boom that China is currently experiencing, and that they will continue to experience for some time to come. Do I believe this environment naturally fosters creativity? No. Do I believe that there are countless wonderfully creative minds in China yearning to find a way to express themselves? Absolutely. I genuinely look forward to seeing what they produce.
- mydo0
Just as I thought QBN was just troll faces and Spam, a good debate.
Unsurprisingly, i'm pretty interested in this.
The japan argument has been made a couple of times, I think this is a great view point to look at, but not entirely useful. Even looking at Honk Kong and Taiwan, whos culture is much more similar to Mainland China, they have not ended up being as creative as Japan.
In the 70's everything had "made in Japan" in the 80's it was Taiwan, but i'm not seeing great things from there. Bear in mind also that Taiwan didn't have to go through the cultural revolution and have identity and cultural heritage stripped away and burnt.
For a population 4 to 5 times that of the US, there will be some amazing designers out there, but opportunity is low for the masses. Growing up with parents where design played no roll in their life, means only the generation being born now have the real chance to make a difference.
I think it's going to be a long long time before we see a collective of creativity like, you see in areas of London, LA, NY etc.
- registe0
Taiwan has their own problems with China and control to this day...
Technically, Tawain isn't even a country.
Taiwan was actually a member of the United Nations (and even the Security Council) until 1971, when mainland China replaced Taiwan in the organization. Taiwan continues to press for full recognition by other countries, to become "part of the club" and fully recognized worldwide but China claims that Taiwan is simply a province of China.
- mydo0
Random point....
I posted this in chick of the day, i wasn't sure where else to put it.
it's a beijing photographer that does nudes.
not safe for work really. but not too bad
http://matewodebeijing.tumblr.co…I think this is very interesting. a Chinese friend of mine sent me this, he was totally shocked by it. It's made waves across thousands of blogs and forums in China. For a nation that is still struggling to come to grips with photography, the creative field on the whole is still has it's eyes closed.
- registe0
SHOK-1′S HEART-SHAPED NOOSE MURAL “CENSORED” IN CHINA
London-based graffiti artist SHOK-1 says that he was invited to paint a giant mural in China, but after surveying his work, the government wants it “completely censored out” and presumably, buffed. The artist says the mural has a personal meaning to him, but is leaving his heart-noose-on-red theme up to interpretation. “As far as what they think it means or what the problem actually is – they won’t tell me,” he writes. “I think unless you’ve worked with the Chinese, it will probably be difficult to understand but things are... indirect.”
his flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sho…
- inteliboy0
There's always an exception to the rule... there's a lot to love with china's history, art and culture--- but visiting beijing, on the surface I found a lot of the "design" this weird fake wanna-be-european nonsense that was just vile.
- utopian0
China is a bunch of hacks and will always be hacks. Just check out their latest faux Apple & IKEA stores. Or one of their millions of other knock-off products and or American ideas.
- Dodecahedron0
I agree with i_monk ^ . I think its more about economics and context of China's design and production industry rather than "cultural".
- to compare/associate industrial prowess to individual expression seems triteregiste
- not really commenting on 'prowess' so much as the nature of the industry itselfDodecahedron
