In a recent post I noted the reproduction problem in design and advertising and I used a light bulb as a visual example. When I came across this light bulb by Anaïs Met Den Ancxt (the name sounds like a mythological character in Tintin) I remembered it and what was problematic with the last post. It wasn’t its definition of good and bad design; but the definition of design. This light bulb is actually a LED, it’s wind-up and it produces one hour of light. From a design perspective this would be provocative in its utility, but giving light to a room is not its function so therefore it can’t be analysed from that perspective. It’s function is to symbolise the hour lost in daylight savings.
This project is concerned with annual daylight saving times, which are considered as two Energy solstices. They symbolise the transition between the two energy seasons – summer and winter – with the initial purpose of saving the energy used in artificial lighting.
Anaïs point is that the technological advancements in society has made daylight savings irrelevant and that today it’s a cultural ritual and an act of symbolic value marking the shift of seasons. The experiential thought with this lamp, symbolising the light of that hour that affects us. So, just to add to the previous post, design has three elements, a utility, a form, and a social function. Even though this echoes of Bauhaus I claim that utility is the most important element when it comes to analysing advertising and design, but not art, its social function deals with something far to disparate and is vital for the intellectual growth of society.