Cream on Chrome

→Tiiu Meiner: You work with a lot of elaborate issues like the stock market, media landscapes, ecological rights, basic income, solar energy and more. What brings you to them, and what do you think is the role of you as designers to work with these topics?
Jonas Althaus: I think we often start with a topic that we want to know better because we ourselves are not sure what exactly is going on there.

Martina Huynh: Yes, we don’t really see ourselves as designers who solve problems, but rather design researchers and negotiators. For example, one of our first projects, 4D news, originated from the fact that we’d research events and think, “Wow, but I remember it seeming so different from the news that I was exposed to.” And so we asked: why do I remember the sentiment of a story so differently, and what happens because of that?

JA: Yes, and once we understand it, we can help other people understand it. I also think we bring an amateur view to subjects, which helps us to unlock it for other people as well. We’re not experts in solar energy or ecology, or journalism. But we did the research, spoke with experts in the field, and created this installation for audiences to understand it together with us through experience.

→TM: You often use metaphors and interactivity to allow people to understand your topics. Can you tell us more about how you found those tools to be a successful way to get audiences engaged?

MH: I think it started with our first collaboration, which was my graduation project, The Basic Income Cafe. By using the setting of a cafe and free coffee, I realised people were just much more willing to sit down and engage with the topic. As they had their coffee, they’d start asking questions like, “Oh! How come they got more coffee than I did?” or “Can I save my coffee in a thermos for later as well, or must I use it up straight away?”. Immediately people began questioning the concept of basic income and its fairness because they had this metaphor that is relatable to engage with.

JA: Yes, and I think we’ve applied this approach to a lot of topics to provide a new and fresh entry point. For example, our court performance Proxies on Trial, where we put globalisation on trial for consuming our future. Through the courtroom setting, which we are all at least a bit familiar with from TV, we could introduce multiple perspectives, bring in stories and facts, and then propose ways to reach our own conclusions. Same for the Environmentalist Stock Exchange, which envisioned a reality where ecological values were the driving force of our stock market. By pairing unusual perspectives and scenarios, the participants could begin to think in new directions.

→TM: Your installations all come across as some form of education on contemporary issues. Do you see design as education somehow?

JA: Yes, the platforms that we create are designed so that people can play with them. The point is to create intrigue and interactivity with a topic so that people become interested in forming their own perspectives about it. That’s also how maybe, ideally, education, in general, should work.

MH: We don’t only focus on educating people about the topic but also play with the way we communicate it to them. For example, our latest project Solar Energy Kiosk. It was a conversation piece about the potentials and possibilities of solar energy, visualised through the kiosk making juice whenever it would catch the sun at Alcova in Milan. The hook was: you have juice when there’s sunshine, you have less juice, or no juice when there’s no sun. It helped explain the benefits and difficulties of working with solar energy compared to the fossil fuels we are currently used to.

→TM: You’ve certainly been very busy-- what more can we look out for from you, and where might we come across your work in the near future?

MH: Actually, we’ll be travelling to Japan soon because we’re starting a new project in collaboration with two other designers, Pauline Augustoni and Satomi Minoshima, about the ancient Japanese craft of Washi paper making and how it fits into our contemporary and future society and labour markets.

JA: Yes, and the Solar Energy Kiosk will be travelling to ‘The Energy Show – Sun, Solar and Human Power,’ curated by Matylda Krzykowski at Het Nieuwe Instituut in Rotterdam in September. And also, we are nominated for the Dutch Design Young Designer Award 2022, so we’ll see how that goes as well!