Class of 2006

Review commissioned by Zefir 7 | September 2006

The annually returning Zefir7 evening at which the newly graduated levy of designers present themselves always attracts large crowds. Everyone wants to immerse himself in the promises inherent in young talent. In the selection of speakers no theme is envisaged, yet each year certain trends emerge in the projects presented. This year, the falsehood of the virtual world was in the air. The five speakers addressed us about the paths they trod in their final graduation projects.

Jelte van AbbemaJelte van Abbema, of the Design Academy, investigated the necessity of growth and the inevitable decline that come with it. After a number experiments he focussed on the computer, which never visualizes its own decline. He developed a series of fonts that through time change their shape, owing to several types of decline. Leaves dry out, bacteria grow, lumps of sugar melt. With unprecedented zeal and precision did he work out his project, like a mad professor who is there to save us from eternally tenable truths.

To Meinhard Spoor the set house style assignment of the Willem de Kooning Academy was a veritable struggle. The development of an identity for the image institute created such contientious objections, owing to the ultimate emptiness of images, that he promptly started an investigation into the ways in which commercial images monopolize public space and our own sphere of life. Unoriginal, unreal commercial advertizing images were to disappear from his imageless glossy. In my view, the ways in which he worked this out lacked precision: 95 per cent of the contents of such a glossy is, after all, marketing. Is that so bad? Arenít those that do not see through this not already so far gone that we should just leave them undeceived?

Meinhard Spoor His second, free, project dealt with the theme that an image departs from reality and that the very idea of this takes this one step further, and so on. He observed this in the pine tree in a forest, and his own shiny white, artificial Christmas tree from synthetic material, and in the canals of Venice and their realistic replica in a Las Vegas hotel. He made posters with the infinitisimal reductive repetition of an image (the archetype being a Dutch chocolate box of the brand Droste), among them a poster on a meter cupboard, on a poster on a meter cupboard, on a etc. and he combined the archetype with its evolved, modernized descendant. The result: six posters deeply estrangeing the public domain from the spectator.

Pierre DerksPierre Derks, (Royal Academy, The Hague) shared with us his archive that is the result of his hunt for unconsciously shared documents on peer-to-peer networks. The results make you laugh and cringe at the same time: amateurish portraits of delightfully normal people, rhymed letters of application, a home video of dancing teenagers with a brush for a microphone. Around me I saw anxious faces. Voyeurism is fun, as long as you are not its object. Pierre did show his consideration for the unknowing file exchangers: he preserved their anonymity with the well-known black eyestrip. Pierre had not attempted to impress his design mark on the archive. It is what it is, and splendid it is.

At the Arnhem Academy of Art, Jeremy Jansen was engaged differently in displaying the human element in the digital world. For some time now, Google has been making books of which the copyright has expired freely available on the web. Jeremy focussed on showing the human side of this. Fortunately for us (but unfortunately for those have to earn a living by this), these books are scanned manually, and where people work, mistakes are made: a hand here, a smudge there, a page upside down in between others; Jeremy collected these almost divine revelations under the brilliant title Ex Libris. After all, whose are those books, once you have printed them at home?

Petra Warrink (School for the Arts, Utrecht) proved that, as a designer with a fascination for landscape and a sharp brain, you can be an excellent editor. She selected quotations, images, and articles and embedded them all in a book of sec design in the service of information, strengthening thereby the impact of that information. Even Richard Long, admittedly an unavoidable clichÈ, she managed to give a niche in such a way that he added strength to the work of less well-known artists, writers and critics.

It was good to see that this levy has used their brains: assignments were not followed slavishly, and intelligent and honest use was made of the findings coming out the research that preceded the designing process. It is a pity, however, to have to conclude that Academies still neglect to reserve a place for the art of presentation. Those gifted with an extraverted disposition, power of articulation and a feeling for the attention span of an audience will no doubt succeed. Those who have to work harder to find favour with an audience are in need of extra attention. A few simple hints about preparation, intonation, presentation tools and clarity would not only steer fresh graduates with glory through a Zefir evening, but also assist them in securing commissions, or applying (the horror of it!) for a job.