China: design a “national priority.”
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- lowimpakt0
@freshnob - good point but just consider how fast China leapfrogged the West in other areas in technology (and most importantly the cultural adoption of tech), infrastructure, general economic growth etc.
e.g. they developed their economies in decades to the level that took us centuries
I'm also not seeing this from a US/Europe perspective. The new economies are leaving us behind.
- DrBombay0
FoxxConn is replacing suicidal workers with robots.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/bu…Bootleg Ikea stores
http://www.reuters.com/article/2…
- utopian0
More fake Apple Stores found in China...
http://mynorthwest.com/?nid=75&a…
- popfodders0
yeah and also MADE like shit
- ur faceDrBombay
- what are you some communist lover now fucktard?popfodders
- YEAH!DrBombay
- i_monk0
Are we under the impression that the China of the 1960s is the China of the 2010s, or will be the China of 2030? The Chinese government of 1960 would have every party member of 2010 executed for counter-revolutionary activity. Things change; a few decades of communist authoritarianism is hardly representative of the thousands of years of creativity Chinese culture is imbued with, and it won't last much longer.
- 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.
- fresnobob0
@lowimpakt - Yeah, they did develop industry rather quickly, but thats because it was already invented by the rest of the world, they just had to pick up on it! Compare the risse of China to the rise of the US. The US was formed and almost immediately became an economic and cultural power. China, on the other hand has had plenty of time to develop, but instead chose to wallow in things like totalitarian political systems which totally fucked them and now they are struggling to catch up.
Like, for example, I noticed on the Beijing Design Week website there is a lecture series about how intellectual property rights and copyrights need to be strictly enforced and its not good to share ideas. Uh, woah dude! That is like totally opposite the rest of the creative thinking in the world today. China has so much infringement of that sort going on that they seemingly have to hate sharing ideas before they can again begin to love sharing ideas. Thats a big barrier, to flip ideologies that many times.
Anyways, I think China needs to first have a society that permits and encourages the free exchange of ideas before they will be able to become the cultural powerhouse being implied. They may have the money, but their ideas are not going to be spread unless they are freely permitted to spread.
- dobre0
Didn't everything we got now originate from China if not Rome, Greek, Gulf & India? Design has always been major in Chinese life & existence. And with this whole 'national priority' being implemented sure China will be the leader again. If that means we will be getting top quality 20$ replacement for Macbook & Hermes birkin then we should all be speaking Mandarin :)
- lowimpakt0
yea, IP is a big issue.
In design we are seeing the growth of open source and open design http://opendesignnow.org/ but in other areas of tech (inc. pharma etc) IP is still a massive issue and driver of competition.
The free flow of ideas is the biggest challenge. As detritus says, they are excelling in contemporary art but some of their artists are getting jailed for political dialogue.
This is an emerging issue but it makes me think about how European / US design can remain special.
- GeorgesII0
GOOD
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FOR
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THEM
- 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.