Azimuts 57

Description of the project from les presses du réel (translated by DeepL):

What would de-sign be? To undo, to unravel, to dismantle, to untangle, to unpack, to clear away, to unlock, to uninstall, to deserter, to deproject, to defuturize, to demythologize, to desorcelate…

The best way to understand how an object is constructed is to take it apart piece by piece. This process allows us to identify its components and understand how they fit together. In other situations, the process must be reversed. We need to understand before we can disassemble / undo. For example, to untie a knot, we first need to understand which loops and intersections hold it in place. We need to study it and try to determine in which direction each loop should be pulled, so as to loosen it and be able to untie it.

We could define the designer’s profession as a capelage knot, a knot of tension produced by external elements that keep it tight. In this sense, untying the knot would mean identifying and acting on those elements (performance, profitability, competitiveness, etc.) that put tension on the profession and alienate designers.