Design plays a dominant role in shaping social and political ideologies within our physical environment, while also adapting its values based on the prevailing ideals of the time. This project highlights how our perception is ideologically influenced and emphasizes the importance of recognizing oneself as a starting point.
Bruno Baietto's installation tackles this issue through the reinterpretation of a significant symbol: bread. He reclaims bread as a representation of labor, politics, religion, and his own family history. Through the incorporation of glass blown inside bread, ceramics resembling waste, and tiles made from discarded workwear, Baietto presents these elements alongside an animatronic waste bin. This interactive installation offers a critical commentary on how design determines what is considered valuable or insignificant in our physical surroundings. It highlights that as societal conventions are challenged, outdated perceptions of material worth, social class, and labor continue to persist within the realm of design and within ourselves.
By combining this installation with the painting "Het glas rode wijn", by Raoul Hynckes, the selection engages in a conversation that highlights the still life nature of the installation. This pairing illustrates how the still life format has historically been linked to the portrayal of items that are considered valuable or insignificant, depending on how and where they are depicted. Moreover, both works depict a distinct quality of a scenario in ruins, symbolically representing a decaying system of values, and us as eternal observers.
Justin the dustbin
Justin the dustbin is an animatronic puppet used as a critical device.
Controlled either as an interactive live performance or as a prerecorded narrator, the project introduces a character that comments on the pageantry of a given context outlining its ideological contradictions. Reclaiming its voice as the only permanent object in our surroundings that is not trashed away. Justin is an observer of the ever-changing nature of values in design. In between a punishing voice and fellow companion, the character narration and performances establishes a reality check to who it confronts. By observing our contradictory behavior and the human eagerness of the new for the sake of it.
Watch the video here:
Justin The Dustbin Gets Gnarly
Materials
Plaster, wood, ceramics, porcelain, glass, breadcrumbs, and Arduino-based mechatronic components.