Description
Book SynopsisAnti-trend investigates resilient, anti-trendy living and design as viable alternatives to the insatiable “more wants more” mantra of consumerism. The overall purpose with this book is to encourage designers and consumers to take responsibility for overproduction and overconsumption, and to alter unsustainable production and behavioral patterns.
The anti-trendy design-object is designed to be used. It is created to nourish the user aesthetically on a long-term or short-term basis. It is alive in the sense that it is made to develop in accordance with human life—by either being alterable or perishable. The anti-trendy object supports a life worth sustaining. A life that contains wholesome rhythms and edifying challenges and isn’t dependent on consumption for pleasure.
Anti-trendy living is a natural, fulfilling, and sustainable way to live. It may have many different expressions but is characterised by authenticity and meaningfulness. Reduction of consumption and long-term usage of things is a vital part of anti-trendy living—it involves mending and caring and maybe even sharing.
Through an analysis of resilience and sustainability life in general and in design-objects the themes of the book unfold: intuition and anti-trend research, a life worth sustaining, existentialist despair, raw and resilient aesthetics, sustainable storytelling, legitimisations for designing products in a world with too many things, democratic sustainability, craft innovation, civil disobedience, and collaborative consumption.
Table of ContentsFOREWORD INTRODUCTION 1 ANTI-TREND VERSUS TREND To Be or Not to Be Trendy The Immaterialist Analyzing Anti-trendy Tendencies Basic Assumptions The Desires of a Time An Anecdote Concerning the Lowering of Productivity Balancing Between Too Much and Too Little degrowth bad faith the fisherman and the businessman when assumptions collide 2 ANTI-TRENDY INTUITION The Intuitive Compass Right and Wrong Hunches Logical Conclusions Confirmatory Bias Intersubjectivity Immediate Knowledge Getting to the core of things Mindful Reduction Object Analysis Common Ground and Open Horizons The Core of Sustainable Living Disrupting the Familiar Epoché Human Common Ground The Importance of Fiction The Stabile Core The Sublime Moment of Insight Momentary Elimination of the Familiar Transitions Synaesthesia and Sensory Experiences Aisthetikos Open Sensing magic Learning to Navigate Intuitively Intuitive Forecasting ubuntu the guiding principle of inner needs 3 ANTI-TREND AND AUTHENTICITY Living in despair The Aesthete Civil Disobedience, or the Art of Choosing “the Good” Change Must Come from the Individual Oppression restlessness The Importance of Acknowledgement the master and the slave To Will Oneself Free is also to Will Others Free being connected Genuine Freedom the ethicist Irrational versus Pre-rational Consumption The Sustainable Golden Mean encouraging usage discovering aesthetic links Sustainable Storytelling values and beliefs sustainable forms of appeal pathos Time and Value No-pain-no-gain Resilient Living Nourishing Repetitions A Life Worth Sustaining Status Symbols The Emperor and the Painter 4 ANTI-TRENDY EXPERIENCES OF BEAUTY Anti-trendy Perceived Obsolescence Magical Things Disinterested Pleasure Aesthetic Nourishment Resilient Aesthetics The Cathartic Experience robustness relevance Unbearable Lightness Wild and Raw Aesthetics Rewilding the Design-object Adaptability The Beauty of Rhythms The Daily Chorus Continuity Aura 5 THREE ANTI-TRENDY REASONS FOR DESIGNING NEW OBJECTS IN A WORLD WITH WAY TOO MANY THINGS Waste Materials, Deconstruction, and Upcycling Crafty Imperfections Boro and Hacks Disassembly Sustaining and Empowerment The Essence of a Craft Expression the tactile bond tactile literacy Craft Innovation Democratic Sustainability Encouraging Sustainable Living Collaborative Consumption: Swapping, Sharing, and Repairing the characteristics of a shareable object inclusive design repairability, flexibility, and aesthetics Long-lived and Short-lived Objects encouraging variety and celebrating change the butterfly embracing transience facticity and transcendence The Open, Raw Design-object broadness and affordability no person ever steps into the same river twice 6 THE ANTI-TRENDY DESIGN- OBJECT Creating Resilient Designobjects Natural Limitations Alteration Resilience to Changing Needs regrowth Resilience to Anti-trendy Perceived Obsolescence Deterioration Resilience to Fleeting Trends Resilience to Exploitation of Natural Resources permaculture anti-growth closedness versus openness Biblography About the Author
