Contemporary furniture design : exploring the iconography of a technological aesthetic

The project explores the implications of preceding and diverse new technologies, as applied to furniture and object design, and researches new and innovative applications to contemporary design. The central theme of the study is to find a way to humanise our ever advancing technological age, to counterpoint the vast sweep of mass markets and mass production, through the rediscovery of craft in conceiving and making of the objects we use. Coming to design from a technical-engineering background, my work is influenced by the morphological aspects of technology with an emphasis on techniques and workmanship. The work is related to the Machine Aesthetic and styles like Streamlining and Biodesign. The forms, while attempting to express specific signs of the electronic age, recall the iconographies determined by preceding styles or movements. However, the work, except for its execution is not serious. Rather the conceptual idea, being a parody or even a travesty of Ronald Reagan's 'Star Wars' \Strategic Defence Initiative\". It is an interpretation of the sociological sociopolitical symbolic and morphological aspects of technology providing historical context by defining and detailing a body of work embedded in the machine aesthetic."