Hasta La Ideas

Travis Feldman’s Molecule Synth was one of those Kickstarter projects that I discovered just a little too late in the game: the Portland, OR-based tinkerer reached his funding goal within two weeks and I bookmarked the ‘buzzy’ project for future coverage. Still, the charmingly lo-fi video made me feel guilty that I’d neglected my trusty Microkorg for years, piqued by the modular synthesizer kit that offers a hands-on experience for electronic musicians of all skill levels.

Lo and behold, Feldman’s taking the show on the road to upcoming Maker Faire New York and I’m eager to see the it in person at the New York Hall of Science this weekend. Feldman will be in Zone B, and he’s given us some exclusive insight into his design process and the future of the Molecule Synth in anticipation of the Faire.

Core77: I understand you are a scholar of Comparative Literature and Classics; how did the Molecule Synth come about? Conversely, does your background in humanities inform your approach to design?

Travis Feldman: My approach to design comes less from my background in humanities and more from being a geeky kid, making ‘zines and comics, playing Dungeons & Dragons, skateboarding, hacker culture and Arduino tinkering. I’ve kept various art, programming and electronics going on almost nonstop since I can remember. My interest in music always seemed especially impractical, even when compared to something like translating ancient Greek texts, but they initially inspired me to pick up the soldering iron and begin making my own modified microphones, altered effects pedals, and, finally, my own homemade modular synth gear.

The Internet is teaching us all how to research and learn in new ways, and my understanding of electronics and my abilities to find out about everything that has gone into the Molecule Synth has depended a lot more upon the Internet than upon any traditional resources or formalized ways of learning. I might add that my attention to detail, patience to figure out unfamiliar things, interest in seeing the big picture in relation to “minute particulars,” and intuition about what looks, feels and sounds “right” have been important for bringing the Molecule into existence, and those traits served me well in academic research projects. It’s fair to say that the last few months have been busier than any other time of my life and challenged me to work harder than ever, but rather than think about how this could connect to academia, I keep coming back to the thrill of realizing that I am doing exactly what I want to do right now.

You note the “Lego-like interchangeability” of the Molecule Synth, but I also see some affinity to Sifteo cubes, with each element representing part of an analog synth patch bay. In other words, it appeals to novices and experts alike. What was the development process like?

Those Sifteo cubes are super cool! I can’t afford them though and I’ve never actually played with them… I like the gaming component to them, too—I want the Molecule Synth to feel like a game of sorts. One important distinction between the concept behind the Molecule Synth and those cubes is my interest in hardware. Sifteos are software-based. I am reminded too of the design sensibility of the Reactable Synthesizer, have you seen that? It’s also a software-based synth, with a brilliantly conceived set of cubes used to trigger and control it. I got to meet some of the designers and play with one recently while in Barcelona. But Legos are worth bringing back into comparison here, since the Molecule Synth is entirely hardware-based, snap-together circuitry, except for the Arduino-powered MIDI input.

My idea for the Molecule Synth came from experiences prototyping and experimenting. I spend a lot of time breadboarding synth circuits and then just listening to the results of swapping out one capacitor for another, or one type of controller for another. I thought I might be able to capture that in some device, and that idea led me to the Molecule Synth. I also like circuit bending, when you bring home a toy instrument from the thrift store, open up the back, and begin prodding and poking around the circuit board, seeking out that 555 timer circuit by rubbing a little slobber onto the resistors—that’s tons of fun!—and I wanted to have some of that experimental chaos and closeness to the actual, physical circuits built into the Molecule Synth’s design.

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The twofold characterization of Sebastian Errazuriz as a designer and an artist has bedeviled his endeavors for over a decade now. This much is apparent in the dialectical introductory texts to his first monograph, The Journey of Sebastian Errazuriz (Gestalten 2012), to say nothing of the work itself, which resists characterization as a tightrope walker hovers between life and death. So too does the prolific ‘creator-of-things’ (for lack of a better term) walks a taut line of irony and makes it look easy.

Yet Errazuriz is also glad to show us that unerring lines of reasoning often lead to the absurd results. To mix the metaphor, he picks at the seams of a reality that is ready to burst, only to discover that nothingness trickles out. This sheer viscosity of meaning—i.e., its essential fiction—is precisely what drives the Chilean-born, UK- and US-educated, NYC-based polymath to simultaneously subvert and elevate objects, ideas and symbols into, well, art.

Autopsy Desk (2009)

Thus, the “Autopsy Desk” marks a felicitous opening to the survey of his oeuvre, organized loosely by medium to suggest that a retrospective taxonomy to his broad practice. I would have preferred to see the work in chronological order, albeit partly because I was pleasantly surprised, every few pages or so, to discover works that I had never seen before. Nevertheless, the desk—commissioned by none other than meme-friendly persona Keanu Reeves—is an easy metaphor for Errazuriz’s morbidly incisive body of work.

The Journey of Sebastian Errazuriz is available now in Europe and will be available in the U.S. shortly. Those of you in London for the festivals can see some of the work in person at the exhibition of the same name at Kenny Schachter / Rove Gallery, which runs through September 23; the book launch and reception will be this coming Wednesday, September 19, from 7–11PM.

Whether or not you make it to Hoxton for the opening, Sebastian has also obliged us with an exclusive Q&A on the occasion of the book and exhibition.

Nada de Nada (Nothing at All) (2002)

Core77: First of all, congratulations on the new book. How does it feel to realize the first of what will surely be many monographs?

Sebastian Errazuriz: It feels great, but It’s funny you mention it, since the book is out I can’t help thinking of the next one. Don’t get me wrong: this is a really a fun book jammed with 10 years of projects and ideas; but as you pointed out every monograph is timely and therefore incomplete. It’s impossible not to wish you had been able to include the latest project you finished yesterday or the one you are planning next week. Maybe digital books in the future will automatically upgrade to the new, latest version like our current computer software do.

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So far we have had four awesome designers share their wealth of experiences in this Inspirational and Exclusive Interviews series. Robert Brunner spoke about the core DNA of a designer/entrepreneur; Scott Wilson showed us how to rise from the ashes like a phoenix; Karim Rashid taught us his roadmap to success and Yves Béhar spoke about forging partnerships. My recent visit to the red dot award ceremony for product design at Essen, brought me face to face with the charismatic Hideshi Hamaguchi, the inventor of the USB Stick. Yes, the very same stick you use to store data, transfer files etc.

I could not let this opportunity pass up as I knew Hideshi’s perspective on innovation and design would be priceless and moreover his methodology and approach is so unconventional and inspirational, that it has to be shared.

To give you a background, Hideshi Hamaguchi is a chemical engineer and a math’s champion in Japan. He started his career in Panasonic as a researcher and after three years of working with the company he found something critically missing in the work environment and corporate setup. He realized that the company made no provisions to breed creativity. There was a lack of a logical approach to expanding the team’s resourcefulness.

Creativity for Hideshi is very intuitive based, however there were no concrete steps by the company to explore this aspect. He sought to formulate an approach that would expand his and his group’s creativity. And thus transitioned from a researcher to an analyst and then went to become a creative strategist.

I cannot draw!

Despite the fact that Hideshi has more than 120 innovations to his credit, it comes as a big surprise to me that he cannot draw! I had 2 Nikon cameras and an iPhone with me, and Hideshi, without naming them (confidentiality clause) told me that I was using 5 of his innovations at that very moment! According to him, if you don’t have the talent for drawing but are good at strategic thinking, then you can still become a great product designer. All you have to do is connect the design to the strategy and then turn into a language the company management people and the consumer can understand.

To sum up Hideshi, he is a creative thinker, a strategist, and an innovator who follows a process, which has a practical approach. His process theory is teachable and learnable, which is why he lectures around the world and conducts workshops.

How can people be creative without drawing beautiful pictures? What is Creativity?

You have to train yourself to draw diagrams and doodle.

Creativity is all about people’s mindset. Creativity doesn’t exist in the air. It’s in your mind, and even when we are collaborating, I am stimulating you and your outcome is stimulating me. To understand creativity we need to understand the brain.

Hideshi explains that the brain has two extremes: the structured thinking, which is very logical thinking versus the very intuitive and chaotic thinking. One side is focused while the other is all about exploration. The ideal balance between structured and chaos thinking is peaked at the sweet spot of Structured Chaos Mode, right on top. But this position is like a volatile ball that rolls in either direction, depending upon the individual’s inherent nature. To keep it balanced at the peak, you need to do something radical. From Hideshi’s experience the profile of moving from chaos to logical thinking to strike the structured/chaos balance, is wrong.

If the highest form of creativity is at the structured chaos mode, how can we manage it?

Technically there are two ways to manage it, first way: go back and forth between logical and chaos thinking, till you achieve the peak. Example, say I ask you to innovate a pen and present it to the red dot jury in one hour’s time. And after you do that, now I ask you again innovate the pen, but his time, I give you a day for it. The first day is to draw inspiration; the second day is to create some structures and ideas etc, till finally you give me the design. So stimulating the brain between the chaos and logic thinking, will peak your creativity to the structured – chaos mode.

The second way is to use a formula or some data analysis, example market size or market tastes for pens as a reference, and then combine it by drawing some beautiful lines that ultimately lead you draw some innovative features for the pen. So you make your brain use the logical and the intuitive side, at the same time. And thus you can hit the sweet spot. But in reality, you need to do diagram and you need to doodle to hit the sweet spot. Diagrams are something simple, something logical, and something visual. Draw the diagram and your brain goes to the logical side without being too intuitive, now to balance this you need to doodle. And this stimulates the creative brain.

So intentionally use diagram and doodling to keep creativity on the top. If you really want to have the highest level of creativity especially for a new idea or concept you don’t have to have the skill for drawing beautiful pictures, someone else can draw it for you. And the good thing is you don’t have to learn too many logical things either.

Since Hideshi is an innovator, I had to ask him…what is innovation?

Formula for Innovation : !? – ? = !

What – Oh this is the reason = Aha!

This is what Yanko Design is!

Innovation is all about creating new behaviors and new values for people. For example the USB Dongle. It created a new value of keeping your data on a small stick that was portable and new behavior, as in attachment to your data, sharing it with people and friends. In 1999 Hideshi came up with the idea for a client, of adding a tangible feeling for your data (he called it the sneak-kernet), we had that feeling for the floppy disk or the CD but it was time to move on to something different but no one agreed with him. At that time everyone thought that everything was going to be on the Internet and wireless so a cloud storage medium would have more value than this.

Even Intranet faced this issue. Hideshi and his friend are responsible for creating the first intranet in Japan. And probably the first in the world, it was done in 1993. He did it for Panasonic, where the board members were not so very computer savvy. If you see it this ways, intranet changed the behavior in people and the value for information.

Innovation is something that is something new; something that is doable and it should create controversy. It should create some tension in the conversation. One advice that Hideshi gives is that when you are brainstorming for creating an innovation; never focus on the idea itself, because that usually never helps. His focus is to analyze and see how people think. If you can analyze their thinking you can break the paradigm and go against their bias and thinking. You break the bias and push yourself towards the controversy thinking; this is how you break the paradigm. But if you cannot visualize the bias or the thinking of people, then you will not be able to innovate. You have to break the abstract things; you have to understand the way of thinking and visualize the pattern. If you visualize it, you can be a wonderful innovator. So basically you need to make a shift and break a bias, and this is the biggest barrier that innovators face.

Earlier in the 90’s the shift was focused only on technology innovations for computers, faster CPU, better inputs etc. but in comes Dell and they created a new shift with their business model. They revolutionized their supply chain, the customer experience and online customization of the PC. This was breaking the paradigm.

Engineer-designer conflict!

How to create a balance when you have to present a design or an idea so that appeals to the technologist and the corporation managers; in short how to address the engineer-designer conflict?

When we chart the Structured chaos diagram in a real life situation, unfortunately most of the population lies with the intersection of two structured-chaos loops. Majority of them don’t think super-structured or the other extreme of super-intuitive thinking. The problem is that we don’t have many people who can handle the structured chaos mode. Corporate mangers and engineers are more inclined towards structured thinking and designers and artists are more inclined towards intuitive thinking. They are two different animals!

And as he explained earlier, the engineers and corporate heads tend to use numbers and the designers use images; hence the dialogue cannot be bridged. They are disconnected and there is a lack of communication. But if we lay some ground rules, a common language can be spoken, for example the corporate manager should refrain from asking the designer about numbers and cost calculations, where as the designer should go deeper and relate a story rather than just talking about intuitive design.

Logical and intuitive people both can train themselves to move towards the balance sweet spot of structured chaos by pushing their boundaries and moving towards the other side of the graph.

The reason why Hideshi is ahead of his game is that while each person who he works with, specializes in their one field with total focus on it, and Hideshi has the ability logically connect the dots between innovation, marketing, strategy, tactics, uncertainty, technology and business model.

Special Thanks to red dot design, Germany and Dr. Professor Peter Zec.

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(12 Inspirational and Exclusive Interviews on Yanko Design – Hideshi Hamaguchi was originally posted on Yanko Design)

Related posts:

1. 12 Inspirational and Exclusive Interviews on Yanko Design – Yves Béhar
2. 12 Inspirational and Exclusive Interviews on Yanko Design – Robert Brunner
3. 12 Inspirational and Exclusive Interviews on Yanko Design – Scott Wilson

In anticipation of the upcoming 2012 D-Crit Conference, “Eventually Everything,” Core77 is pleased to have the opportunity to explore the breadth of SVA’s design criticism MFA program through a series of Q&As with a few members of the graduating class.

Barbara Eldredge will be presenting “Missing the Modern Gun: Object Ethics in Collections of Design” during the fourth and final panel of the day-long event, “Man, Machine, Morality,” on Wednesday, May 2nd. See the full schedule of events here.

Firearms are absent from all American collections of contemporary design, in spite of their importance to design history and their enduring significance in the culture at large. Even when they are discussed in a design-historical context, it is all too easy to ignore the moral implications that color our perception of guns. Why can firearms be displayed in art, history, and military museums, but not in design museums? What does moral good have to do with the Museum of Modern Art? Many design collections effectively serve as object-based ethical codes revealing how to live a “good” life. Nonetheless, exhibition of a firearm within a design museum has the potential to open a new branch of discussion about guns, design, and morality.

Why D-Crit? Why Now?

Human experience changes with the incorporation of each new technology whether it is fire to cook our meat or motorized transportation or a device that lets us play Angry Birds. It is important to take a critical perspective on the objects and built environments that help to shape how we think and who we are.

Design criticism exists in all cultures and times; it just isn’t always called by that name. But it affords a means of examining humanity through our interactions with objects and constructed spaces.

You cite the argument (made by the NRA, among others) that “if everyone has a gun, all are protected.” What about the arguments that “if no one has a gun, all are safe,” or “if anyone has a gun, no one is safe”?

I’m glad that you asked! Every time someone told me about the security benefits of universal firearms ownership, I thought of the 17th century philosopher Thomas Hobbes and his view that, if left ungoverned, people are essentially amoral. Hobbes is perhaps best known for writing that man is a selfish being whose life is naturally “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”

He was a major player in the shaping of Western thought. Many firearms owners who talked to me advocated a Hobbesian view that arming oneself was a legitimate precaution against the eventuality of human violence. After all, Hobbes also wrote, “If men are not naturally in a state of war, why do they always carry arms and why do they have keys to lock their doors?”

But I find the anti-gun arguments, “if no one has a gun, all are safe” and “if anyone has a gun, no one is safe,” to be equally Hobbesian and depressing. The assumption underlying all thse statements is that humans are so incapable of self-control and empathy that if they have the opportunity to commit violence then they will use it. So we have to take away such opportunities through heavy government control or being equally armed.

I like to think that the reality isn’t so simple. Carrying a firearm can never ensure one’s safety but neither can the total elimination of firearms. It’s funny to say this since we’re talking about design here, but I think that such perspectives put too much emphasis on the firearms themselves and not enough on the average person’s capacity for moral reasoning. There is a limit to what designed objects/systems can accomplish.

For many people, carrying a firearm provides more psychological security than practical security. It makes them feel autonomous and powerful. Rather than ban firearms outright, a more effective (though certainly more difficult and idealistic) solution would be to better support social and economic structures that empower individuals. The problem isn’t that it is easy to get a gun in America; the problem is that getting a gun is sometimes easier than getting therapy, social equality, and economic stability.

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Our interview with the spirited Italian designer on a child-like design approach and his latest collection for Kartell

Trained as an architect some 30 years ago, Italian-born Piero Lissoni has since mastered every design discipline from architecture and interiors to product and graphic design. Lissoni has established himself as one of most notable names is contemporary design for his clean, industrial aesthetic while collaborating with many of the world’s most notable design companies. After a productive 2011 his collection for Italian furniture maker Kartell has drawn much attention for its innovative design and production processes. While visiting Milan for Design Week we caught up with Lissoni at Salone del Mobile to learn a bit more about his broad design portfolio and take a closer look at his two new pieces in the Kartell collection.

With a studio that works in architecture, furniture, graphic and product design, how do you manage one discipline over another?

I’m quite convinced it’s better if you start being a little bit more humanistic. I never believed in a specialized way of life. Every day you study something completely new. In an Anglo-Saxon way of life architects are architects and they design a shell. The interior’s something inside, designers design only products and somebody designs furniture and somebody designs industrial. For us it is more easy. You have to be open and able to design all facets. For me it’s impossible to think I design one building, only the external parts and somebody decides for me the technical parts inside, the decoration inside and somebody decides inside for me the spaces. That’s exactly the opposite way. If I design a table or if I design a chair, of course I’m totally convinced it’s interactive. The interactivity with the people, with the human beings, with the party, with the movement, it’s inside. And one space fits inside another space. I never accept the idea to disconnect these different qualities of work.

Do you think this comprehensive design mentality is the reason why so many architects find success in product design?

I don’t know if this is the reason why, but to be an architect, for me the meaning is being flexible. When you design one watch, at the same time you change the scale and design a building. It doesn’t matter if the building is bigger or smaller in the end it is a pleasure to be good on a different scale. I like to work like a child. If I design one small object I am a child with a small toy. If I design a big object, again I’m the same child with one toy, a little bit bigger. I like to live inside this toy’s life.

For your latest collection for Kartell you designed the “Zoom Table”, which is Kartell’s first ever extendable table. How did this idea come about?

I was asked to do a series, a family, and we used a special name. The nickname for the project was “Il Progetto Misteri”. During the day the table is a mystery, during the night with friends, with people it becomes a project. But the morning later, zoom, it’s again the mystery—perfect, small, pure, clean with flowers and with coffee. But again at night again it is bigger with friends, with noise, with food, with alcohol, with whatever you want. That was the exploration point. The second part was the discussion around doing something so precise with the super soft movement like a camera. When you move one macro in a camera the movement is so gentle, so soft. We tried to design a movement like this. It’s so easy to design one table, but the movement, the cinematics inside, small wheels inside, this was the goal. I told you I’m like a child.

How did the design process of the “Audrey Chair” differ from other projects you’ve worked with Kartell on?

When we designed Audrey, we started to design five years ago. Five years ago Audrey was a piece of paper with pieces of plastic and pieces of small models, but normally I never accept to design something in a small scale. Normally when I design I do some prototypes in a 1-1 scale. But the real project was not to design another chair but to design a process. This one, it was a secret.

We talked about robotics, and they designed for us the whole process of production with robots, building this chair. After that we started to design the chair because the robots, they are so fantastic but full of limits and we have to follow the limits of the machine, follow the limits of this technology. But again I become a child in front of the robots. We started to remodel the chair, one millimeter thicker, one millimeter thinner, one corner a little bit heavier, another one a little straighter—and then the process begins to become a project.

Although “Audrey’s” specific production process was a bit unconventional for you, is this concept of industrial over artisanal important to your design?

I like to stay in a family of industrial designers. For me design means industrial. Design without industrial isn’t impressive. Of course I like the unique pieces, I like the unique production, but I’m not good at it. I prefer to think in another way. I’m connected with the hardware, I’m connected with the factories, I’m connected with the users, with the human beings.

What other designers or companies have you worked with in 2011?

I’m very lucky because I design for many many companies. And luckily for me some of these companies are certainly very good. I designed a new collection for Cassina, Matteograssi, Flos, Porro, Kartel, I designed a collection of kitchen for Boffi. You know what more can I ask for?

What have you been working on since finishing your collections for Salone?

Two weeks ago I was asked to start to design one project for one house. I was without anything and then I rediscovered at home one piece of lego. And I designed a house with lego bricks. And I was inspired by the small lego house for my project. My studio laughed a lot and came to me and said to sit there and don’t use the telephone until I start to design the house. But it is funny because I am the boss. I like to be like a child.