Transforming design
In the 18th and 19th centuries it was not unusual for members of the nobility to have artistic-looking ruins built as a romantic stage set and refuge, a place of escape in their new landscaped gardens. This fictional past created a new contextual setting for the designed nature of the park. Designer Thomas Ballouhey pursued a very similar approach with the objects he created for his final project entitled “Ways of Altering” at the Design Academy Eindhoven. Using a customized sandblaster, Ballouhey lends modern industrial objects a “glaze” of sand and glue, transforming them into items whose “low-tech” look makes them look like relics from a distant past. Similarly, fragments from a wide variety of origins can be assembled under the new surface and placed in an entirely new context. With this “hacking” of mass products, Ballouhey seeks to encourage visitors to see the everyday in a different light. His poetically raw works are intended to make people think about an alternative course of history. (fap)
