corropted

Our Precious Icelandic Design

Tue, 15 Jan 2013 01:23:00 +0000

Throughout the ages, man has been exchanging all sorts of ideas, knowledge, and things, from seeds to recipes to techniques and so on. It didn’t used to be an issue of any sort, just a natural thing to do (well most of the time). But today it so often feels like people are keeping their ideas or techniques as a secret, mostly because people are so preoccupied with making commercial products to get rich and/or famous. Nowadays, people seem to be whispering into each others’ ears and hiding their tools and techniques. The other day, I made a really good lasagna, but I’m not going to tell you the secret ingredient, because then I won’t be the only one who can make this delicious lasagna. It’s “my precious,” like Gollum would say and, “We wants it. We needs it. Must have the precious!”. But in reality, I’m no Gollum, and this just sounds all too silly and individualistic to me, so I’m just going to tell you the recipe:

In a pot, boil fresh lasagna plates. It’s more expensive, but tastes so much better. On a frying pan mix:

1-2 garlic cloves

Lot of fresh coriander

One onion, of any kind you like

Salt and pepper.

Secret ingredient: (kryddi›)

Then zucchini

Raisins

Cashew nuts or any other nuts like peanuts or

pecan, or all of them together,

and maybe little bit of sweet potato or other

root vegetable.

Then arrange the lasagna plates, cream cheese and the cooked mix in a baking form and throw on some grated cheese. Lastly, put it in a oven and cook for 30 to 40 minutes, and add some parmesan on the side, alright!

This idea of free exchange has been the basis of maintaining biodiversity as well as food security over the past 10,000 years. This and more is laid out in the Manifesto on The Future of Seeds, produced by The International Commission on the Future of Food and Agriculture, where Vandana Shiva is a joint initiative of. Vandana is an indian philosopher, environmental activist, author and eco feminist, just to name few. In 2003, Time Magazine identified her as an environmental “hero” and Asia Week has called her one of the five most powerful communicators of Asia. That same year, The International Commission on the Future of Food published and disseminated The Manifesto, wherein they stated that “diversity is our highest form of security… It increases the choice of options and the chances of adapting successfully to changing environmental conditions and human needs.” But what can a statement about food have to do with design and design in Iceland?

Well, for one, one might ask whether there is diversity in the design market of Iceland. When I think about it, thinking about Icelandic design companies across a wide spectrum, there is not a lot that I can think of, which is a little funny, having studied art in high school and now graphic design for two and a half years, and living all of my life in Iceland. What are the biggest design companies, for instance? I thought of 66°North, CCP, Össur, Marel, Advania — all very different companies with a lot of money on their hands, but as William Morris said in his book, Art Under Plutocracy (1883), “Do not be deceived by the outside appearance of order in our plutocratic society” — and I am not.

What are the biggest design companies in Iceland doing about increasing choices and options? What are they doing to educate people about their knowledge of techniques and products to the people that have interests in those ideas and fields? These companies need to be “open source,” and there needs to be more freedom to exchange and trade so that we can build a more diverse design market, and so that we can maintain and use the knowledge that we now possess. As stated earlier, design companies in ICeland may be different, but they are maybe not so diverse.

I am not saying that there isn’t anything happening, because surely there is, but we need to do more together and be more open about design here. We need more design companies and more design collaborations, for instance. If we consider Iceland as an open society, and also specifically a Democratic society, then those companies would and should do more to engage that. It’s not always about inventing things, it’s also about cumulative collective discovery, a common effort upon which future discoveries may be based on, and that can benefit designers in their creations.

Variety, multiformity, and diversity are words that we should be considering in regards to design. It is not necessarily about making lot of the same product in different colours and patterns. Rather, we should be trying to find the best solutions regarding health and safety, usability, and so on for everything and every idea together. Design should be more about connections with the whole network and creating a space for open innovation with users. We should be standing on the shoulders of giants and not letting big companies tell us what we nee. We should be making things that we really need together. If I can, I would like to quote myself: “Why invent something, if not for others to play with?”

With all that said, I am going to end this writing with a quote from the famous English textile designer, artist, writer, and libertarian socialist, who was associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the English Arts and Crafts Movement, as this is an attempt to evoke how we think about design in Iceland. He said, “One man with an idea in his head is in danger of being considered a madman: two men with the same idea in common may be foolish, but can hardly be mad; ten men sharing an idea begin to act, a hundred draw attention as fanatics, a thousand and society begins to tremble, a hundred thousand and there is war abroad, and the cause has victories tangible and real; and why only a hundred thousand? Why not a hundred million and peace upon the earth? You and I who agree together, it is we who have to answer that question.”-William Morris

My flickr

Tue, 19 Jun 2012 21:16:00 +0100

I have a flickr account that i use for all kinds of photographic stuff that i am doing. At first i mostly used it for baby picture of my daughter, so… most of it is old, some of it is allright, some of it is silly, but thats just life, right. In the future i will be using it for all kinds of projects and images of my pretty little bastard, that will allways be a huge inspiration and a source in the work i do.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/25893975@N00/

Here is the most resent image of Sigrún Lukka.

sensory perception sensitivity fool.

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 01:34:50 +0100

What our life is about besides basic needs like eating and sleeping, is people, communicating with people, fólk. To be around and communicate with people, is the most problematic and confusing challenge that we face in life. But some people seem to be good at it and others not, and why is that? I am terrible at it in some circumstances, i´m probably what is called a introvert, even though i don’t like labeling myself, cause often i feel i´m one thing and sometimes i am the opposite. They say that introvert individuals are more sensitive, what is called sensory perception sensitivity (SPS) that can manifest itself as the tendency to be inhibited, or even neuroticism. These individuals show greater brain activations in visual attention areas of the brain, when making judgements of subtle changes in seances. They take longer to make decisions, are more conscientious, need more time to themselves in order to reflect, and are more easily bored with small talk, research suggests. In regarding to myself i can completely agree on these words, even in the supermarket i often have troubles choosing, should i buy apples or oranges? when i am asked a question i need time to reflect the question, especially when i am communicating in a group i often don’t say anything, cause the moment has past when i have something to say about what is being talked about. And i really don’t like small talk, if i have to i can take part in it feeling silly, some times uncomfortable. But i do rather avoid it. Now when i am getting older i am more aware of what is happening when i am in these circumstances, but still i have the same troubles. This affects me and stops me most when i have to perform a lecture and talk to group of peoples, that´s when i feel like an complete fool. Imperfect beauty fool.

Fólk, the Icelandic word for people, it does´nt sound very good,...

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 01:25:38 +0100

Fólk, the Icelandic word for people, it does´nt sound very good, i mean it´s not particularly a beautiful word and it reminds me of the word flón meaning a fool. But maybe that’s just it, we are nothing but a bunch of fools. Imperfect beauty fools.

Images are like that too, they’re imperfect. Sometimes there is to much or to little light, maybe something is in the image that ruins the composition, its not in focus and it should have been, it should had been little bit more like this and less like this and so on. But every one of them has beauty within them, it is for me to make others see it as well.

The word Takk means Thanks in Icelandic. Made out of my personal...

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 16:38:00 +0100

The word Takk means Thanks in Icelandic. Made out of my personal receipt, from last few months. The money i have spent, the things i have bought, the places that i went to, wasted paper, this often seams a nonsensical thing, at lest for me it does. We often say Takk or Takk fyrir to the sales people when we go shopping, but are we really thankful? most of it is just garbage and sometimes we are just buying for no reason at all. The word Fyrir meaning for, spelled out from garbage of all sorts, my trash. Some of us have the dream of a free non consumer society and or lifestyle, living freely by the laws of nature. This may sound utopian, because do we really know how to achieve that lifestyle at this point and is it really achievable? Free or not we are not thinking enough about waist, what we as individuals are wasting and we should. For all kinds of reasons, natures, psychological and the fact that we don’t really know the definition of saving which is postponement of consumption to avoid waist. The word and the understanding has become remote to us. Think about it¡

“Citizins of the world’s rich countries are the inheritors of a 500-year legacy of treating nature as a resource-as a commodity to own, and to devour or squander at will. If everyone on the planet consumed natural resource at the rate of the average Eouropean, we would need more than two planet Earths to sustain us. Consuming at the us rate, we would need nearly five.” - Jay Griffiths

”We are all “homesick for wilderness” - Jay Griffiths.

Ok made blog

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 03:08:00 +0100

Ok i made a blog, so i will do some blogging here. Why? I really don’t know why, cause i really haven´t written anything, anything special at least. And not in English.. never ever. So maybe that´s why, can i end this life without writing down my thoughts and share it with few people how are interested or, and interesting, maybe there are non. I don’t know. Maybe i am just doing what everybody else is doing, i am not sure of it. I am going to post my thoughts anyways, thoughts about different things, in connection with what i am designing or not, maybe some things that i find really interesting and make me happy or sad. Maybe this wont make sense, cause i have some troubles making sense of my self and i also have some troubles with the limits of languages, but at least it wont make less sense then anyone of you guys. At least i will be doing, posting ideas and imagery that are part of moments of time, that will be containing some corropted material.

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