Interview with Andrew Rogers, Director of the ARID industrial design group (within the University of Adelaide's Research precinct). They spoke about the seductive blurrings of boundaries between man and soft machine.
Australian Textile design from an RMIT perspective surveying current and future initiatives - practice based issues of developing guidelines for copyright in an industry that is known for - in polite terms-recycling and reworking proven designs, to the more speculative concept of creating a dialogue in textiles between Australian and other countries via the internet.
Book review Know-how, the guide to innovation in Australia
Interactive CD Rom published by Powerhouse Publications,
Powerhouse Museum, Sydney NSW
Macintosh/Windows
RRP $99.95
Exhibition review Messy and Restless: Helene Czerny, Julie Duffield, Paul Hoban, Terri Hoskin, Derek O'Connor
Contemporary Art Centre Adelaide SA
1- 24 November 1996
Whilst on a global scale Australia still dawdles on ecodesign, pockets of cutting-edge research and design are moving ahead with international recognition. Overview of events. In 1991 RMIT in Melbourne hosted the EcoDesign 1 Conference 1989-1992 Designers for the Planet, Perth WA Society for Responsible Design (1990 - ) NSW Re-Design Group Melbourne, Victoria (1991-93).
Perth based Australian Fine China, the only maker of porcelain in Australia and New Zealand, is currently using a number of artist-designers to move from being a stolid china manufacturer for railways and cafes to one whose products are seen in top flight restaurants in the big hotels, in classy tourist venues and now on the dining tables of the nation. They have some way to go to entice Australians to purchase the 'local product' for their homes but they are making steady progress.
Textile traditions of indigenous Australians have provided an impressive basis for their current divergent development within the framework of introduced technologies. Looks at various textile producing centres around Australia Tiwi, Ernabella, Kaltjiti, Injalak, Keringke, Ngunga Designs, Warta kutju, Kaen design, Djookan design....
What landscape architects in Australia have been doing since about 1970 is to begin to address the Australian lanscape in all its extraordinariness and vastness - as a subject for design and interpretation in the creation not only of our settlements but all those places where we may leave our mark, even if we don't inhabit them.
A unique exhibition curated by Steve Ronayne (owner of Aptos Cruz Galleries) held at theJam Factory Gallery in 1996 'South Australia - Emerging crucible of contemporary design' showed just how many local designer-makers of contemporary craft are adopting industrial processes in their work.