Humanity and Design

How individuals and community can create a better society through design along with the key concepts of ‘Human’, ‘Community’, and ‘Social'

By Gwangju Design Biennale

2019GwangjuDesignBiennale

Humanity and DesignGwangju Design Biennale

The theme of the 2019 Gwangju Design Biennale is Humanity (HUMAN+COMMUNITY). HUMANITY extends its concept from an individual to a community level by co-existing and considering the surrounding environment and people around 'me'. Humanity, after all, is a story of ‘the lives we live in’. Therefore, the main exhibition 'Humanity and Design' aims to examine various aspects of human nature. Likewise, encourages the audience to enjoy moments where bring us to (re)design a true meaning of humanity that resides in every human heart. By shedding light on the fundamental idea of humanity, hopes to invite meaningful questions, discussions and interpretations that ceaselessly generated within us.

Main exhibition curator interviewGwangju Design Biennale

Interview Excerpts from the curator of Main exhibition 1, Danny Dongyeong Lee.

The theme of the Main exhibition 1 is ‘Humanity and Design.’ The exhibition takes a deeper look at how individuals and community can create a better society through design along with the key concepts of ‘Human’, ‘Community’, and ‘Social.’ Design is the force that drives the world in bringing the sense of humanity and warmth for all. This exhibition primarily aims to stress the human-centered design in contribution for our society, rather than solely to display the functional or aesthetic-based form of design.

LUCID DREAM LUCID DREAM by YIYUN KANGGwangju Design Biennale

Intro: The loss of humanity in our time, and emphasizes the need for communal attitudes towards the future.

'Lucid Dream' is a projection mapping work installed in a 24-metre-long tunnel. This piece creates a dynamic entrance to the 8th Gwangju Design Biennale’s main entrance by enveloping visitors’ bodies in an immersive audio-visual environment.

LUCID DREAMGwangju Design Biennale

A lucid dream is by definition a dream during which the dreamer is aware that he or she is dreaming. It can refer to the state of being either half-awake or half-asleep or experiencing a brief wakefulness—a micro-awakening.

I named my work 'Lucid Dream' to question whether we are fully awake at this very moment. My wish is that through experiencing the phantasmal 'Lucid Dream', visitors will have time to ponder our current and future life as lucid dreamers.

Humanity IIGwangju Design Biennale

Human: Connection within a disconnected society through our innate mind - body connections.

'Singing People' is an exhibition of mixed media mapping designs that orient to the human being. In the exhibition, the audience becomes immersed in intuitive humanness through their own bodies. At its center, the body of the audience becomes a subject singing humanity.Through this, 'I' and 'body' directly experience the significance of human-centered design while delivering future messages for people. The audience understands and empathizes with each other through design and also experiences pure immersion in looking into the process of creating a win-win society.

Humanity IIGwangju Design Biennale

Like so many people in the exhibition, people and people have their own colors. The colors are not fixed and constantly changed to new colors by meeting and mingling with other people. Such changed colors also remain individual and unique. While the countless people and countless people in the exhibition, harmony and songs are all different, the colors of the audience that will be found in them remain as their own. Outside of the world of media mapping, we finally experience a festival of humanity in our community.

Ball.Room. – “Hello emograms”Gwangju Design Biennale

Community: Overcomes discrimination and prejudice, and further discusses the coexistence.

The rise of emojis is a fascinating cultural and linguistic phenomenon occurring in digital space. This is a unique communication method today, and it occupies a large part of modern social communication. Kissmiklos presents a variety of pictographic designs that express 13 emotions of human beings.

Ball.Room. – “Hello emograms”Gwangju Design Biennale

The facial expressions engraved on large spherical sculptures and a number of runner balls are universal feelings that we often exchange with others in our daily life. Before the advent of the writing age, there were pictographs that relied on pictures to shape the meanings and the design named here as the Emogram is a reversed pictograph that was re-created through the lettering and punctuation marks.

Lotus DomeGwangju Design Biennale

Social: Reconsider the power of human warmth.

LOTUS DOME is a living dome made out of hundreds of ultra-light smart flowers which fold open in response to human heat and light. When approached, the big silver dome lights up and opens its flowers.

Lotus Dome Lotus Dome by Daan RoosegaardeGwangju Design Biennale

Its behaviour moves from soft breathing to dynamic mood when more people interact.The light slowly follows people, creating an interactive play of light and shadow. This dynamic relation between people and technology is what Roosegaarde calls ‘Techno-Poetry’.

Credits: Story

Humanity and Design

Curator
Danny Dongyeong Lee

Researcher
Dain Jung

Coordinator
Seungha Lee

Artist
Yiyun Kang
Jeong In(.mill)
Kiss Miklos
Studio Roosegaarde

GwangjuDesignCenter
Eunji Choi

Credits: All media
The story featured may in some cases have been created by an independent third party and may not always represent the views of the institutions, listed below, who have supplied the content.
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