Liberatingly free?
Design is a broad concept.
The spectrum varies widely from functional to free design. What if you let go of functionality as the primary requirement? What if you allow your creativity to run wild? What if you break routines? Does free design feel liberating? What will the impact on your product design be? Bent Fierens has embraced creative experimentation. Loops is his first visual art project. A liberation!
Loops stops you in your tracks. What is it? You are immediately arrested by those hairy legs. They evoke all kinds of emotions, trigger all manner of associations. Archetypal images, sweet memories, each a cherished moment on the cuddle spectrum. You want to touch those legs, feel them, stroke them in fact. If you let go of your inhibitions, allow your emotions to run free: turn the object around and crawl between the legs. That primal feeling of safety, security. What is holding you back? That aluminium seat: that is the intention – but it wasn’t the starting point.
Bent is trained as a product designer. He begins with a problem and seeks a solution. That is always an interesting journey that follows a fixed pattern. Yet, something began to gnaw at him. (Well, what do you expect when your star sign is Libra…). Why keep on following a mapped-out route? What if you let go of functional design and give your creativity free rein? What do you get then? Does anything even emerge? Yes indeed! Then his harmonious energy is expressed more powerfully. Thick versus thin, warm versus cold, bare versus hairy. Opposing materials enhance each other. An experimental creation like this may provoke controversial reactions, but it certainly sparks conversations. That’s like gold dust in today’s society.
The conclusion of this expressive experiment: free design is liberating! So where will things go from here? Who knows. One thing is certain: “I want to make a positive difference to the world.”
