本期選書與展覽由「重本書店」與「Digital Medicine Lab」策劃，展示「批判設計」、「推測設計」及「設幻設計」領域的相關書籍。展覽涵蓋多種類別，展示這些設計如何通過互動產品、數據演算、生物科技、漫畫、小說、裝置藝術及批判製造等形式，邀請人們體驗多元未來時空。展品包括紐約現代博物館的《Design & Elastic Mind》、《Talk to Me》及曾在網上引發爭論的《Design and Violence》等書籍。
For Kenya Hara, design begins with the comprehension of the unknown. The explosion of knowledge available to us today can be dangerous for a designer’s creativity. The concept of exformation, to which a chapter was already devoted in Designing Design, continues to preoccupy the Japanese designer. In contrast to information, exformation describes how little we really know and thus becomes the starting point for any type of design. Hara states: “What moves people’s hearts, in every case, is the unknown. Things that people already know don’t excite them.”
Based on a range of projects stemming from Kenya Hara’s teaching at the Musashino Art University, the book describes what exformation can look like in design practice and how this concept alters our classic understanding of information design. Following the path embarked on in Designing Design and its successor, White, Ex-formation continues to explore the void, absence and indeterminacy in contemporary design.
Each year, roughly a dozen students come together at the prestigious Musashino Art University, joining Hara in an attempt to make things unknown. Ex-formation presents their collective efforts, resulting in a book of incredibly beautiful, humorous and thought-provoking design and writing.
