MR. SMISH & MADAME BUTTLY RAZOR WIRE

In the following part id like to come back once more to the different roles of the designer and the artist and how they sometimes should be distinguished more clearly especially when design pieces are exhibited.
MR. SMISH & MADAME BUTTLY RAZOR WIRE is a wire fence with butterfly-shaped razors. It has been part of the MOMAs 2004 "SAFE – design takes on a risk" exhibition. To underline his critical statement about rich and poor designer Matthias Aron Megyeri presents his exhibition piece as a buyable product of mass production on his website www.sweetdreamssecurity.com. The reason why it fails as a product is because it doesn’t go to the ground of the problem. It fulfils the need to mask the growing amount of security products in our environment but it refuses to take on the real problem, which is the growing gap between the rich and the poor. The ironic nature of his statement can be already detected in his profile where he is described as a designer, „who chooses to use his products as vehicles to explore societal issues, following a critical approach closer to journalism than conventional product design.“ I’d like to contrast this piece of design with a quote of Volker Albus at „Zeitzonen 2006“ in Vienna at the University of Applied Sciences“: „Art says no, Design says no, but...“. As one of the duties of art is to question the authorities, irony is an adequate instrument to point out grievances. But design should always give an answer to a problem rather than just highlighting it. The butterfly doesn’t propose any solution to the problem. And as a product is always designed for a user it should convey a positive attitude rather than an ironic one. Sure exhibition pieces have got a right to exist but sometimes it should be questioned whether it would be possible to produce a working product as well.

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www.sweetdreamssecurity.com