Theft (and Design)
Yining Zhan
Theft is invented by our natural instinct, whilst it is posing profound influence on us as well, even in the field of design. Design in all forms has been put into adaptation to serve for or fight against theft in various ways from the past to present. The future practice of design is still to prevent stealing and broadcast the ownership, but could be more flexible and innovative. There may also be an opportunity for designers to interpret the concept of “theft” and bring it into the creative process by redefining “theft” as an alternative form of “inspiration”.
Project: A Monologue
This project is all about a narcissistic bicycle wheel whining all the time, inside a comic book. As a “popular star” of getting stolen, He as a victim suffers from the sense of loss raised by the removal from the place he originated by an unknown thief.
It is an attempt to discuss the moral dilemma of theft and how different it would be regarded as perspective shifts.
Project: Thieford
Thieford is a utopian town, purposed as an isolated experiment living place for thieves. This experimental project started with an idea of “what if theft is no longer a criminal conduct”, aiming in raising a discussion about different treatment towards theft (as crime or as a skill to survive).Project: Steal Like an Artist
As my study deepens and narrows down, it comes to a question about the essence of this “unlawful” and “shameful” conduct: is stealing really a bad thing with no benefit at all? When we steal from others, is there anything we can change?Capstone Project: Prepared Designbox
The Prepared Designbox is a proposal for the existing designers to make donations of what they have, based on a website which opens to the public, creating an archive of the open source assets that people can freely access, download and use, and, originate something new based on other’s properties.
Designing based on given references (or to directly "steal") seems to be similar to preparing a meal from a lunch box. But we still have freedom to do something. We can choose different ways of cooking, and add anything we like...This can be applied to "pre-constraint" design as well.
The purpose of this project is to show there's much more that can be done than just copy & paste - that even if you're using the exact same elements stolen from other places, you can still - create something new (Hopefully!)
Participants and generous donations to this platform.