Coming back to Enzo Mari, he came up with this idea of 'autoprogettazione'. A personal manifesto, mari’s text laid out the issue he saw as central to industrial production – the quality-quantity ratio, quality being defined as when the shape of a product does not ‘seem’ but simply ‘is’...Basically it meant people were given the power to make these things for themselves, This is briefly touching upon a subject I worked on last year, this was the production of cider for the 2060 CSM pop up shop. I basically made a batch of cider and sold it within the shop, but with the cider I also gave the instructions on how to make it, meaning the people buying the cider were then given the power or decision to make their own cider, at a fraction of the cost by cutting out the middle man, and they knew what was going into their drink. I guess it was essentially a recipe book for alcohol.
This idea is something I would like to look at again in more depth, as it is something that is apparent in our modern culture, this is the 'throw away' quality of everything. We buy something and then within a month throw it away and then get another of the same product. However would this problem be solved if something was made by ourselves? Meaning that we had the pride in it that it would last the test of time? Even looking at things like the packaging of certain objects and products is interesting, and the power of branding upon the world.
I do think it is an interesting way of approaching design, with no only the product that is being bought, but also buying the rights to the designs and being able to make something yourself is interesting and something that I would like to concentrate on.