The account Concepttalk has 370K followers on Instagram and despite its short description, the link provided to the website of a curator leads us to one possible clue to a certain theme, which could be applied at least to some part of the pictures from Concepttalk. While the former is meant for “retro lovers”, the latter has a lot to do with it as well.
According to the study Retro - The Culture of Revival, by Elizabeth E. Guffey, retro is a movement which beginning gets associated with the rehabilitation of works by Beardsley, and the movement of Art Nouveau in general. Even though revivals or enhanced interest in a specific historic period did happen in the past, according to the author, this movement was different.
Based on interpretation by Guffey, the revival of art and design of the late nineteenth century suggests a unique tendency - a “popular thirst for the recovery of earlier, and yet still modern.”
The author suggests that the most potent connotation of 'retro' that tends to be overlooked is its fundamental shift in the popular relationship with the past. When it comes to its object, it focuses on the recent past, rather than the Middle Ages or Antiquity.
When it comes to its attitude or the way of looking at this recent past, the author describes it as half-ironic, half-longing, detached, and “attempting to come to terms with Modernity’s ideas, as well as its boundaries and even its mortality.”
However, Guffey warns against dismissing the appeal of these tendencies as simply looking backwards or merely a series of stylistic gestures and suggests that it is better understood as a kind of subversion of “looking backwards in order to go forwards.”
While playfulness and the lighthearted wit of the pictures also bring Postmodernism and a fun rewording of “Less is more” to “Less is bore” by Robert Venturi to mind.
The movement from 1970 to 1990, was known for shattering established ideas about design and art and its style associated with a mix of various seemingly opposing elements that make it “visually thrilling, multifaceted" and defying definition.
According to the study by V&A, such irreverence, which is meant to criticize purely functional design or simply to cheer up the viewers with some lighthearted wit, is among the movement’s main characteristics.
Many designers of the things from the pictures shared by Concepttalk seem to have figured out one recipe for escaping the routine of a purely functional take on things and processes to use them for a different purpose than they were created for or expected to be used by many.
Also, they add elements that have no function at all except for exaggerating and embodying the remote associations with certain daily objects in a dream-like or somewhat fun way, possibly surprising the creators themselves as their perception gets caught up in this sort of play.
So now, please feel free to participate by scrolling the list and sharing your thoughts in the comments!
#18 "It Would Be Fun To Listen To The Product Designer Of This… Multi Gadget."
