form vs function (a recent mefi post of mine)

[symbioidlj]

I'm new to mefi, and just want to apologize if this rant is a little longer than socially acceptable. If it is, please let me know so I can tone it down in my future posts... kthx. ;)

"...most of the high-design furniture I've ever seen is complete crap from an ergonomic perspective."

I agree 100%.

If you're merely talking aesthetics, then fine, it looks great, yada yada. I understand what you're trying to say Adam Greenfield, but the fact is, a chair is a chair, because it has a purpose. That purpose is to sit your ass down in it.

If you want to make an interesting chair and call it art and sell it for ridiculous prices, go right ahead, but don't you dare expect me to sit in it, and certainly not to hear me say how great the chair is, cuz it looks so damned pretty, even though it hurts my ass everytime I sit down in it.

Of course function (and I include comfort as part of function) isn't the ONLY factor, I don't want a chair that looks like utter shit but feels like heaven... wait, if it feels like heaven, maybe I wouldn't mind... But really, it's best to have a balance. I think that's really what lodurr is trying to say.

Everytime I look at these sofas from these fancy-pancy "designers" I always hope that I'll see something that looks comfy, but alas, I usually end up seeing these metal edges, and weird curves with only partial back support, or hard material...

It reminds me of the orchid/wasp thing, where a male wasp thinking he's "gettin' it on" with the wasp, but the orchid is really just a decoy. It's like you're being seduced by the form, but really, you just whored yourself out to the design-gods who made this product, in order for them to make more functionless crap that looks real pretty.

What's the diff??? Think of the designer as some sick demiurge playing with your hormones for fashion, and all the while, this demiurge just gets off sapping your mana/prana/mystical joie-de-vivre to make more theft-inducing-orchid-sofas... That's how I see it.

I want a chair that was evolved in coformity with it's environment(ie: the human body), not in the mind of some gigalomaniacal "artiste". I want a chair that doesn't just seduce me for it's own sickening ways... I want a symbiotic chair that seduces me for it's own creator, sure, but also for my own welfare, I want to get something out of the deal for myself, and not just some pride inducing "look at how great looking this is (but really, sit over on that other piece of furniture)"

If I'm going to buy some art, I want it where it doesn't clutter my actual living space which can be put to good use doing some actual thing beyond merely looking pretty.

Comments

[vesicular.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure I'd call that furniture "art". It's just high design. Happens everywhere really. Look at all the sports cars that have shitty engines. Or the house with a stone facade that's only stone on the front to give the illusion of an all stone house, and the stone isn't actually stone but fake fiberglass look-alike. A lot of people just want something that looks flash, regardless of if it works the way it should or not.

[symbioid.livejournal.com]

so it's okay if I hate those people who are the same people as the bastards who were all about "Guess" jeans and "Nike" and branded and shit? these are the same people? that's why I so don't like "hipsters" as a concept, but yet, here I am... a "hipster"... grrr...

[vesicular.livejournal.com]

Actually they're probably not the same people, but it's probably the same concept. I would argue though everyone is a "hipster" about something. I don't think that's bad per se, I think it gets bad when people judge others based on it (you suck cuz you don't wear guess jeans, or you have no taste because you don't have a Le Corbusier sofa).