Output details

Adhocracy

The exhibition explores a new direction in contemporary design through twenty-five projects—presented through artifacts, objects, and films. In the place of standardized, industrialized perfection, the exhibition embraces imperfection as evidence of an emerging force of identity, individuality, and nonlinearity in design. As design welcomes the new technologies of the information age, the field itself is being reshaped. Some have built their practice around the collaborative ideology of the open source movement; others explore the opportunities opened up by new low-cost fabrication technologies. Some are exploring new economic models of production; others are challenging the established hierarchies between designers and end-users.

In the last few years, exponential technologies have substantially transformed how we work, communicate, and relate. Network culture today permeates everyday life and this has profoundly impacted the way designers think and work and the nature of the objects they produce. This exhibition explores these transformations and offers a critical contextualization within the history of design. “Adhocracy” is purposefully heterogeneous, embracing everything from medical innovation to cultural and political criticism, and from furniture design to weapons manufacturing. It included many examples of practitioners whose work embraces open source hardware design, and will particularly emphasize the idea of the “commons” in relation to production.