Unfriendly by design
By TIM LLOYD
30jan06
JORDAN D’Arsie believes in anti-user design. The 22-year-old honours graduate in interior architecture has been undergoing something of a change of heart since finishing his course work at the University of SA last year.
“I started doing jewellery as a bit of a hobby, I guess, and I found it was a good medium for me,” he says. “I enjoy making things out of plastic.”
“I found out at the end of the course that I wasn’t quite so interested in interior architecture any more.
“I like working as an artist and that’s where I have started from.”
D’Arsie earns a living by working in a furniture shop, but he has been developing a whole range of arts projects. The jewellery design began two years ago, starting with pieces submitted as course work, but resulting in a small exhibition of his work at Zu in Gays Arcade last year.
It has been followed up this year with an exhibition in the Jam Factory’s Atrium, which opens on February 1 and runs for a month.
Called Crooked Hearts(#), it captures something of the artistic direction that D’Arsie is pursuing. “I have been developing a design methodology which I have called anti-user design,” he announces.
“What it means is that everything in the design world and everything you work with is designed to make things easier to understand and to operate, and easier to work with, engage with, and interact with.
“But what I find is that we are simplifying things and making them too easy and too quick to use and to interact with.
“We need to slow that down. I am trying to make it a little more difficult to work with, and people have to understand it a bit more in order to use it and to enjoy it.”
D’Arsie says he has become fascinated by the idea, and admits that it has always been a tendency. “Everything I do is a bit manual,” he says. “I don’t use CDs much and I like vinyl. I like old cars that I have to work with a lot to get them to run well.”
Jordan D’Arsie decries the “modern condition” where everything has to be simple to be good.
He can’t so easily articulate how these feelings find their way into his jewellery.
However, one look at the fiddly concoctions of polycarbonate frames surmounted by brightly coloured accessories made from buttons, computer fittings and lots of spindly threads suggests the mysteries of function over form. He says he hopes the unusual designs encourage people to engage more with their jewellery.
“It’s not necessarily just a piece of jewellery,” he says. “It’s something you would play with and look at and muck around with.”
What started with jewellery seems to be transforming itself into a whole outpouring of visual and literary arts expression.
D’Arsie says that he and girlfriend Vi Nguyen have formed an enterprise they call Brown Cat Brown Dog, which they hope will stage projects to explore their various ideas.
Nguyen works with drawings, jewellery and installations.
“Myself, I do a lot of writing and I am planning to bring out a book this year of poems and collected writings,” he says.
“I have done a lot of video work and installation work which is related to my sculptures and jewellery – my main interests are writing, film and jewellery.”
# Crooked Hearts is at the Jam Factory Atrium from February 1 to 26. 19 Morphett St, Adelaide, South Australia 5000 Tel +61 8 8410 0727 Fax +61 8 8231 0434
It was a reward to myself for getting a numeric model finally working!
