Episode 14: Jerszy Seymour
Jerszy Seymour is a designer who first made a name for his industrial products. His practice soon turned into a much more experimental one that combines materiality, relationships, and setting up situations
"Dirty art department is like a spaceship, and the ultimate form of education is to blast off into the universe, sometimes stopping at a planet. The spaceship itself is like a platform, the tutors are the engineers that make sure everything is working, and the students are steering the ship.”
While his work is included in numerous museum collections from MoMA to Centre Pompidou; he continues to make large-scale projects or storylines that follow an ethos of imagined societies towards designing the new world. He has also ventured into creating educational situations. He founded and is still directing The Dirty Art Department, a master’s program focusing on applied arts and design at the Sandberg Institute.
Episode Notes & Links
Magis is an Italian furniture and design company. They collaborated with Jerszy on several products such as the Flux chair and Bureaurama office furniture series: https://www.magisdesign.com/designer/jerszy-seymour/
The Situationist International (SI) was an international organization of social revolutionaries made up of avant-garde artists, intellectuals, and political theorists. Their ideas were influential in instigating the protests that occurred in the summer of 1968 in France. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Situationist_International
Macao is a new self-organized center for arts in Milan that was founded during a national uprising that has led to the occupation of many public spaces for a more accessible culture through a radical process of reclaiming centers for the township in 2012. https://www.macaomilano.org/spip.php?article166
In 2004 Jerszy embarked upon a series of experimental projects seeking to revitalize the position of design within society. One notable ongoing exploration centers on an imagined society of amateurs and has been realized in evolving iterations beginning in 2008 with the exhibition “The First Supper” at the MAK, Vienna. https://www.viennadesignweek.at/en/archive/2008/mak-design-nite-first-supper/
The "Living Systems" installation was the outcome of a series of experiments with organic plastics developed by Jerszy which was displayed at the Vitra Design Museum. http://collectiononline.design-museum.de/#/en/object/44305?_k=yef2ui
Walden first published in 1854 is a book by Henry David Thoreau. The text is a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings. The work is a part personal declaration of independence, social experiment, a voyage of spiritual discovery, satire, and—to some degree—a manual for self-reliance. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walden
The Amateur Workshop is an exhibition that facilitates the experimental play associated with the dirtying, hands-on experience of the playground. https://jerszyseymourdesignworkshop.com/project/amateur-diagram/https:// https://criticalissuesintheculturalindustries2.wordpress.com/studio-2/ode-to-the-amateur/
The German word Gesamtkunstwerk literally means "total artwork", which refers to a work of art that makes use of all or many art forms or strives to do so. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gesamtkunstwerk
Part of the Sandberg Institute, Dirty Art Department is an alternative pedagogical modem that sources from design and applied art. Founded by Jerszy, it is described as an open space for all possible thought, creation, and action. http://dirtyartdepartment.com/about/
The Cradle of Humanity: Prehistoric Art and Culture is a collection of essays and lectures by Georges Bataille on anthropology, comparative religion, aesthetics, and philosophy. https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9781890951566/the-cradle-of-humanity
Martin Kippenberger was a German artist and sculptor known for his extremely prolific output in a wide range of styles and media, as well as his provocative public persona. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Kippenberger
Enzo Mari was an Italian modernist artist and furniture designer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enzo_Mari
Erik Olin Wright’s How to BE an Anti-capitalist in the 21st Century is a concise and tightly argued manifesto analyzing the varieties of anti-capitalism, assessing different strategic approaches, and laying the foundations for a society dedicated to human flourishing. https://www.versobooks.com/books/3763-how-to-be-an-anticapitalist-in-the-twenty-first-century
Formed in 2014 as a reaction to the increasing financialization of Higher Education in the UK, School of the Damned (SotD) is an arts and educational platform. Re-forming on an annual basis, each cohort has the opportunity to define the agenda and produce work and events individually and collectively. https://schoolofthedamned.wixsite.com/sotd2019/about
Coined by Thomas More, utopia is an imaginary community or society that possesses highly desirable or nearly perfect qualities for its citizens. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopia
Powered by Macao Milano, Common Coin is a social local currency integrated with a basic income based on social cooperation. https://www.macaomilano.org/IMG/pdf/3_-_commoncoin_basic_income.pdf?1498/0c7e90052d75f199cb712e014f1f8100f3113c3e
The Wandering School is a project by the Dirty Art Department in collaboration with Macao which occurred as a series of events, interacting with the community of Macao and the local and international public for the Design Week and MiArt http://wanderingschool.com
Lucky Larry’s Cosmic Commune proposed a place for people to stay during the Saint Etienne Design Biennale in 2017. Described as a utopian non utopia by Seymour, the experiment aimed to create a space for the public to nap comfortably or take part in the cooking, cleaning, gardening, and distributing propaganda material for the concept. https://www.biennale-design.com/saint-etienne/2017/en/programme/?ev=lucky-larry-s-cosmic-commune-30 https://jerszyseymourdesignworkshop.com/project/lucky-larrys-cosmic-commune-2017/#0
Life on Planet Orsimanirana is a futuristic, immersive DIY radio “pumping funk of molecular consciousness” https://www.radio-orsimanirana.com
RiMaflow is a recovered factory that is run by its workers. Located in Milan, it aims to match the solidarity economy with productive activities and social fabric https://commonfare.net/nl/stories/ri-maflow-recovered-factory?story_locale=en
The Mondragon Corporation is a corporation and federation of worker cooperatives based in the Basque region of Spain. https://www.mondragon-corporation.com/en/about-us/
The Mietshäuser Syndikat provides advice and support to self-organized house projects so that they can be taken off the real estate market. https://www.syndikat.org/en/
Written by Guy Debord in 1967, Society of the Spectacle is a critique of capital, cultural imperialism, and the role of mediation in social relationships. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Society_of_the_Spectacle
Xenofeminism is a call to action written by Laboria Cuboniks in the form of a manifesto that aims to situate feminism within the purview of techno-politics and deploy it as an emancipatory affordance towards building a new world in the 21st century. www.laboriacuboniks.net
Mary Maggic is an artist whose work spans amateur science, public workshopology, performance, installation, documentary film, and speculative fiction. https://maggic.ooo/About-Maggic
Inventing the Future is a book by Nick Srncek and Alex Williams in which a post-capitalist economy capable of advancing standards, liberating humanity from work, and developing technologies that expand our freedoms is expounded.
In Fully Automated Luxury Communism, Aaron Bastani conjures a vision of extraordinary hope, showing how we move to energy abundance, feed a world of 9 billion, overcome work, transcend the limits of biology, and establish meaningful freedom for everyone.https://www.versobooks.com/books/3156-fully-automated-luxury-communism
Emma Goldman was an anarchist political activist and writer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emma_Goldman
Written in 1890, News from Nowhere is a classic work combining utopian socialism and soft science fiction written by the artist, designer, and socialist pioneer William Morris. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_from_Nowhe
Episode recorded on Zoom on April 20th, 2021.
Interview by Can Altay. Produced by Aslı Altay & Sarp Renk Özer. Music by Grup Ses.