“We try to keep the distance between the customer and the workshop as short as possible…These are objects that I want to be used. And it should be used hard. That’s what they’re made for…Buying a table takes a long time. It takes months….Most of these people are buying the last table for their life…For me it would be a success if the grandchildren still like the table.
Interview with Stefan Schridde, founder of the Murks Center against planned obsolescence. Murks means “botch”, or “bad work”. “Products designed with planned obsolescence don’t meet the needs of the society.” He sees cheap consumer goods as “lonely” and the alternative is a “durable” future.
Dinner at Zagreus. Best €36 I’ve ever spent. Every bite was so delightful. Zagreus is an art gallery owned by a chef. Every exhibit inspires a meal, collaboratively co-designed with the artist. This time, the show was by a group of students in product design. The table, napkin, lighting, and servingware for each course were designed by different groups and Chef Ulrich Krauss invented fabulous flavors for each aesthetic experience. The serviceware was so compelling […read the rest]
“You have presented things I have never seen in the same chain of meanings.”
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Historical evidence insists that oppression on its own does not produce social movement reaction. In places with little culture of resistance, there will be little social movement reaction to social problems, or occasional outbursts may not be sustained. San Francisco has had, regularly and recently over the last decades, a series of effective and sustained street manifestations, so there are people, organizations, networks, systems, etc. to make the next ones bigger and more robust.
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If Disneyland had a farm (and they probably do} it would be The Grounds. It’s farm aesthetic as money machine. And swarming with spenders sucked in by the latest gimmick, an urban farm. It’s definitely got a lot of landscaping. Mostly flowers. The kale has gone to seed and the vegetable area does not appear to be tended or harvested. Certainly the planting is not organized to maximise on-site food production. There are farm animals. […read the rest]
His explanation of his strategic capacities is “I am an electrician.” This reminds me of Matthew Crawford’s painstaking work on the “cognitive riches” of trade labour. (Summary here.) Crawford’s point is that trade work is satisfying. Wałȩsa’s point is that it is also a form of analytic training.
