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Everyday Consumer Goods Are De-Produced Into Rectangular Prisms of Raw Materials

Volkswagen Beetle. Photograph by Ronald Smits

Dutch design team Studio Drift (previously) codifies the complex mix of materials that are used to create modern consumer goods in their newest series, Materialism. The collection reduces down recognizable items ranging from light bulbs and pencils to bicycles and even a Volkswagen Beetle. Raw materials like graphite, copper, rubber, polyurethane, and aluminum are shown as perfectly sliced blocks, emphasizing the original substance rather than the abstracted functional shape (like a rubber bicycle tube or graphite pencil core).

In a statement about the collection, Studio Drift describes the lofty goals of Materialism: “To make the essential nature of the world visible. If humankind could somehow perceive this connection to materials, to our collective consumption and the earth it impoverishes, it would be a leap in our social evolution, in building an awareness that we must somehow become better stewards of our future.”

Materialism was recently displayed with Pace Gallery at the Frieze Art Fair in Los Angeles, California. You can see more from Studio Drift on Facebook and Instagram. (via dezeen)

De-produced bicycle. Photograph by Gert Jan van Rooij

De-produced pencil. Photograph by Ronald Smits

De-produced light bulb. Photograph by Ronald Smits

https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2019/02/materialism/