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Mod. Salone del Mobile
For this year's Milan Design Week, (ab)Normal responds to KoozArch's invitation to explore the Un-built as Ground for Virtual World-making within the exhibition Salone del Mobile / Un-built.

Abstract

Mod. Salone del Mobile is a short text that reflects on the ability of large Design Fairs to simulate society and the spaces it inhabits. According to this perspective, the Salone del Mobile is comparable to a video game, whose scenography is made up of sweetened and stereotyped replicas of office and domestic spaces. Just like copies in Postmodern American theory, it is not to be understood as an impoverishment, but rather an expansion and support of the original’s "aura". The simulation of reality both amplifies and clarifies some aspects of our society, becoming a tool for its disclosure. The video game is now an integral part of everyday life, especially if we consider social media as platforms in which personalities are simulated or disguised through digital profiles. Consequently, it is natural to imagine a future in which Design Fairs themselves become video games open to all, where it would be possible to observe the simulation of design.

Crossing the entrance threshold of a Design Fair is an experience that can induce dizziness; it is an uninterrupted sequence of cubicles that simulate the reality of domestic life in its most sweetened and sparkling version. A few square meters of simulation suggest visitors how to obtain social promotion through furnishing components. The Fair is a suspended space, a limbo through which the ergonomic criteria of Western culture are defined. One can also sit on a plastic box placed on the edge of a sidewalk, yet new families of chairs, sofas, poufs and stools of different shapes and materials continue to emerge. They transcend comfort and replicate socio-cultural differences through which the dominant thought takes shape.

Considering the ecological trend that has taken hold in Europe and beyond, it's clear that the ecological sustainability of an object has become a key factor in how manufacturers and designers structure the narrative behind their products. In this regards, contemporary design might be closer to psychology of the masses, a specific and strange kind of "social ergonomics". In other words, since designed objects embed social values into their form, the furniture fair might be a simulation of society. This simulation is composed of bedrooms in various shades of coffee cream, living rooms dominated by extravagant sofas, stain and scratch resistant kitchens carved from fake stone, bathrooms structured like winter gardens where one can spend most of the day (yet nobody knows precisely what one is supposed do).

As in these platform video games, Fairs tend to draw visitors’ paths depriving them of a general understanding of the path itself; visitors are meant to get lost and follow the flow of people, they lose their sense of individuality and become part of a well-controlled flock.

The house is dissected and replicated in large numbers; it is divided in spatial functions in each of the various pavilions that make up the Fair. Basically, all Design Fairs are very similar to the sets of the first platform video games, characterized by labyrinths of building facades and repetitive interiors.1 As in these platform video games, Fairs tend to draw visitors’ paths depriving them of a general understanding of the path itself; visitors are meant to get lost and follow the flow of people, they lose their sense of individuality and become part of a well-controlled flock. The flow of visitors stops in front of ceramic tiles with faux imperfections, sofas in synthetic goat hair, seats made with recycled plastic, collected from the oceans. One can take samples and information brochures of all these displayed materials, and just like gamers in platform video games, they become small achievements along the way that increase the visitor's "life points".

We now live in a pre-digested, simulated and controlled world where value lies in the pre-simulation, the copy, and not in the original.

We now live in a pre-digested, simulated and controlled world where value lies in the pre-simulation, the copy, and not in the original. As a matter of fact, the copy amplifies the value of the object while devaluing the original, as Don DeLillo recalls in White Noise (2022) through the words of Murray, a key character in the book: “We’re not here to capture an image, we're here to maintain one. Every photograph reinforces the aura. Can you feel it, Jack? An accumulation of nameless energies." Walter Benjamin's paradigm has been overturned:2 the more reproducible life is, the more it acquires value, or rather “hype” - a term overused to describe the most popular trends. Precisely for this reason, the simulation of life in the video is now accepted as an expansion of real life without solution of continuity. From The Sims onwards (passing through Second Life and GTA) reality and simulation are increasingly overlapping. There are many examples through which the interpenetration between video game and reality has been understood and highlighted. The event that generated the most amazement is certainly the "Mod"3 by Fortinite in collaboration with Travis Scott, within which the visitor could choose a "Skin"4 and attend the rapper's concert inside Fortinite’s classic setting. The digital concert reached one billion streams in just a few days, becoming one of the most popular events in history. Ultimately, the video game democratizes, widens the range of spectators and makes any type of simulated experience accessible to all. It is no coincidence that the most successful simulated experience is that of furniture. All video games are based on a detailed interior design capable of restoring, through the choice of furniture and furnishings, the tone of the video game itself.

All video games are based on a detailed interior design capable of restoring, through the choice of furniture and furnishings, the tone of the video game itself.

Through Mod. Salone del Mobile we walk through the inside of the video game again as if it were visiting the Milan Furniture Fair: it is an infinite sequence of replicated domestic spaces, generic offices, houses where life is simulated even within the simulation itself. We are prehistoric animals that have evolved very little in the last hundreds of thousands of years and, therefore, to accept simulation we need to start by reproducing the space that is most comfortable for us and that resonates with the constants that have always characterized the simulation of the domestic space.

Our video for the Milan Design Week 2022 reflects on the overlap between reality and simulation, imagining a collaboration between the Salone del Mobile and the famous video game GTA 5. It is a game in which three characters - designed by choosing the “skins” of the popular video game to reproduce three classic stereotypes of visitors to the Salone del Mobile - navigate the scenography of an interior where they can choose and buy sofas, chairs and other pieces of furniture. Who knows whether this simulation of the simulation will one day become a reality?

Bio

(ab)Normal is a multidisciplinary practice set to explore different realms - i.e. design, architecture, scenography, illustration, novel - with a particular focus on Architectural Representation. Photorealism is carefully deconstructed and rearranged in illustrations based on Normal vectors, avoiding the traditional structure that builds the contemporary visual description of a space. Hence, this project is both scientific in its method and evocative for its thematic background.

The project Mod. Salone del Mobile was developed in collaboration with Luca Monaco.

Notes
1 Platform video games, or simply “platform”, are a subgenre of action video games. Their main objective is to move the player's character in an environment. These games are normally presented in an orthogonal view, similar to a section. Platform video games use two- or three-dimensional movement, or in an isometric perspective with the camera positioned behind the main character.
2 Benjamin, Walter, Massimo Cacciari, and Francesco Valagussa. L'opera D'arte Nell'epoca Della Sua riproducibilità Tecnica. Torino: Einaudi, 2014.
3 A “mod” is a set of aesthetic and functional changes to a video game. They are created by professionals or passionate gamers for the purpose of updating, improving or simply changing the game.
4 In video games, “skins” are chromatic variants of the models, i.e. variations of the textures that cover the 3D models of the characters.

Bibliography

Benjamin, Walter, Massimo Cacciari, and Francesco Valagussa. L'opera D'arte Nell'epoca Della Sua riproducibilità Tecnica. Torino: Einaudi, 2014.

DeLillo, Don. Rumore Bianco. Torino: Einaudi, 2014.

Published
31 May 2022
Reading time
13 minutes
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