Present Tensed

On Design Choices

(Mis­sives to the Masses)

To: Flos and Starck

Beneath the sur­face, there’s a lot going on here*. Clearly, a lamp is not always just a lamp.

–SR.
—-
*NOTE: The fol­low­ing is from the designer’s prod­uct webpage:

To Life, To Death

First there were attempts at life, then the draft
of life, then Life itself.
It didn’t have much value — life and death alto­gether.
It was some­thing of an acci­dent, with­out impor­tance.
But Mankind kept work­ing. A lot.
A civil­i­sa­tion was crafted so that Life could live.
Sub­lime by oblig­a­tion, Life became sacred,
untouch­able. The great, beau­ti­ful Life, guar­an­teed
to every­one, surged und sur­vived until today,
the 21st cen­tury, the third mil­len­nium, the advent
of civilised civil­i­sa­tion.
Bravo! Rest in peace.
Crash! It’s never what you think.
After just a short period of enlight­en­ment,
the shad­ows return, fast, dense and men­ac­ing.
Rewind, death is at the door.
Nowa­days we kill — reli­giously, mil­i­tar­ily, civilly,
indeed very civilly some­times. We kill out of ambi­tion,
out of greed, for the fun of it or of the show.
Republics turn bananas. Tyrant are our mas­ters,
Designed, man­u­fac­tured, sold, dreamed, pur­chased
and used, weapons are our new icons.
Our lives are only worth a bul­let.
The Guns Col­lec­tion is noth­ing but a sign
of the times.
We get the sym­bols we deserve.
Hap­pi­ness is a hot gun.
Glory to our dic­ta­tors
To Life, To Death

“P.S.:
Light, func­tional, afford­able and ele­gant,
with over 100 mil­lion copies offi­cially
pro­duced to date, the Kalach­nikov is one of the
indus­trial design success-stories of our age.
Mr Kalach­nikov has never received any roy­al­ties
for this design. He often com­plains about it.
Thus, I intend to pay him a com­mis­sion for the
sales of the model that repli­cates his inven­tion.
Poor guy. The remain­der will be donated to
“Med­i­cins sans fron­tieres”, though some­times
I won­der why.
Aux larmes Citoyens
Aux armes Citoyens

Expla­na­tions:
The gold of the weapons rep­re­sents
the col­lu­sion between money and war
Table Gun sym­bol­ises the East
Bed Side Gun sym­bol­ises Europe
Lounge Gun stands for the West
The black shade sig­ni­fies death
The crosses on the inside are to remind us
of our dead ones. ”

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