The Sea of Fertility.: Transmission1-‘The Avant/Garde Diaries’ by Raf Simons

On 15th of July I attended the preview of the "Transmission1" exhibition and event curated by Raf Simons. The showcase acts as the launch event for the newdigital interview magazine by Mercedes Benz, entitled as ‘The Avant/Garde Diaries’, at the BCC place close to Alexanderplatz. Raf said the exciting thing is not logical, actually I wasn't really surprised Raf started this cool project with Mercedes Benz. From Raf's collection I could tell he is the designer who is always thinking about the culture and science of the world,from present to the future.So, what is this event about exactly? I was quite curious about it before I went to the exhibition. And I found the result and fell in love with this event when I went to the exhibition perview. Raf picked few creative designers to present their ideas about the future world design in automation.The line-up includes Peter Saville, the British art director best known for designing all Joy Division, OMD and New Order covers.Konstantin Grcic, the industrial designer, created an installation made of chairs, entitled ‘360′. Artist Peter de Potter created a large scale photographic installation all around the top floor of the BCC building, which were rather impressive and instead of making me loose interest it woke me up. Works showed online from Germaine Kruip, Goose, Begum Sekendiz Bore and Peter Henderson. Peter Henderson, one of the artist of this project, I do follow his lovely blog" Hapsical" from long ago.The showcase of downstairs which around beautiful foggy scenery was the A-Class Showcar Installation, with the car put into a beautiful foggy scenery.

Now Im not a designer.......wait...I AM a designer. So I will comment on the design of the car. The shape of the car first of is somewhat normal, a typical breed of car like any other and has nothing special to it. Then as you pay more attention it wins you over with its delicate charm. For me when I see the shape of it there is a resemblence to aquatic designs in the natural world. There are these nice sharp curves on the top of the hood which swoop towards the windshield in a elegant fashion, the side of the car as well has a similar shape but much more pronounced which makes the profile view of it more striking. No I can not comment on the interior working of the car itself, only the aesthetics of it. To venture out of my comfort zone will make me sound ignorant. But the exterior of it really did catch my eye as all the shapes did compliment each other as a painting's colors would compliment also their counterparts, the framing and composition. Clearly you can imagine an artist working away night after night to create something a bit more original yet trying not to go overboard or break the traditional form of what is accepted in this field of design. The show itself was, a moderate success . Some would say mediocre even. Yet what people do not seem to get from their presentations is that they focus on the future a great deal, well in part. But they did go in detail about the inspirations and the history. Including their wish to go become more environment friendly.

In these 3 days you also could have the chance to watch some great classic movies, which showed the future world and sci-fi topic from that time. As Raf said, it is an endless project, I am looking forward to see this event in New York, London, Shanghai as well soon.

pictures by Nancy.Z