Memphis and the Post-Contemporary Object
Memphis and the Post-Contemporary Object is a project commissioned by the Italian Cultural Institute – Hong Kong, in which the students at the Hong Kong Design Institute (HKDI), with support from in Novalis Art Design and Hong Kong Furniture and Decoration Association, collaborate to produce new furniture that shows a contemporary interpretation of the Memphis Group. The Memphis Group was an Italian design movement founded by Ettore Sottsass in 1981 alongside Michele de Lucchi, Aldo Cibic, Matteo Thun, Marco Zanini, Martine Bedin, Nathalie Du Pasquier, and George Sowden. Active between 1981 and 1988, the Memphis Group defined ‘80s aesthetic and greatly revolutionised the design world. Ever since its establishment, Memphis has sought to rebel against the ‘uniform panorama of good taste’ of the time, where the principle ‘form follows function’ reigned supreme. In the world of Memphis, design has been liberated from rationality and entered the realm of poetry, in which form no longer had to follow function, whereas design could be loud, colourful, whimsical, with clashing patterns. Objects were liberated from function and instead became visual objects rather than just tools or pieces of furniture. The pieces demonstrated by the Memphis Group and their international collaborators were shocking: mixing elegance and kitsch, playing with absurd and irrational shapes, using plastic laminates with patterns that simulate precious materials, etc. Most of all, however, it introduced the pleasure of play into the rational language of industrial production. Love it or hate it, it rapidly amassed public and press attention worldwide, and came to define the aesthetics of the ‘80s. More importantly, it expanded the boundaries of design and emphasized the expressive possibilities of design as a vehicle of communication rather than just one of utilitarian function. The artistic approach to furniture design introduced by Memphis in the ‘80s, which was then adopted by a large part of the world, has seen in the following years a progressive weakening of the more explosive and charged aesthetics of its product language, in favour of an ever softer chromatic mainstream. Even as the scenario evolved in this way, Memphis always remained true to itself, keeping its vocation for the artistic hybridization of everyday functionality intact. Today, the most effervescent soul of emotional furniture returns to appear once again in the contemporary visual scenario, awakened by native digital aesthetic languages characterized by bright colors and deconstructed geometries, according to an “insta-friendly” approach designed to look good on one's small screen smartphone (and encourages e-commerce). The great opportunity that presents itself in Memphis today is the combination of the firepower of the visual languages typical of social networks (Instagram in the first place) with the cultural density of a brand that has made the history of post-modern design. With this in mind, each student designed a furniture that declines the aesthetic identity of Memphis in a way consistent with the brand and, in line with the new aesthetic sensibilities native to digital networks at the same time, thereby bringing the freshness of the new contemporary visual scenarios into the real product, defining a new contemporality in which the physical product speaks the language of the digital image, and turning it into a 'solid', physically present element.