“One and Three Chairs” is an installation from 1965 by artist Joseph Kosuth. It consists of three parts, a physical chair, a photograph of that physical chair, and a text with a dictionary definition of a chair. It’s a very “Art in the age of mechanical reproduction” appropriate questioning of what a chair is, should or could be. The importance of this piece is a philosophical one. But one never mistakes the photograph of a chair, for one they can physically sit on. This question always relates to the ontological nature of the chair.
As we spend more and more time online and in virtual spaces, I’m compelled by the same question, of what a chair is?
During the 2020s, especially with most of the world in covid-lockdown, there was a boom in virtual furniture design. Photorealistic renderings of otherworldly designs, that would be nearly impossible to produce in real life. A lot of designers that come from this methodology of creating design that live primarily within the realm of virtuality, are we still able to call them designers or should they be placed in a new category altogether?
Social media gives us access to an array of design, both old and new that we would never be able to approach without it. If owning an actual LC sofa is different from owning a photograph of one, does designing for production differ from designing for online consumption? Does the task of design change, if the final product in terms of material and process changes?
One artist, Muddy Cap, a South Korean designer, creates hyper-realistic renderings of chairs. Some may get produced but for the most part, they are only images in his amazing portfolio of chairs. His instagram profiles says that “he makes chairs” but does he? Comments vary but opinions are always abundant.
Another artist, Joyce Lin, creates these conceptual pieces, that often feel like renderings, but her concern for material and process is very apparent. She makes tangible objects for the purpose of sitting, or are they created to cause discussion? And if that is the case, is Joyce Lin and Muddy Cap creating the same thing?
A designer that we had the pleasure of presenting at GUVS Contemporary Furniture Design Competition Season 2, Hyokjin Lee, said in an interview that he would like to design chairs for avatars. If designing chairs for the purpose of virtual-only consumption is made, does that change the approach in design? It certainly changes the educational emphasis on what tools we learn. Learning how to use a jig-saw might have been a pre-requisite 15 years ago, but knowing Rhino is foundational in 2020s.
The discussion of what a chair is becomes important as “chair” can be replaced with any physical object, art and even events. With concerns of copyright, ownership, and fake-news, we should be able to discern reality, with real-life consequences and the mirroring of it virtually.
Its important not to gate-keep industrial design, but these questions are important in making sense of where we are and where we are going.
