Anthony Dunne... on ideas, Knowledge & poetic provocation

'The fit between ideas and things, particularly where an abstract idea dominates practicality, allows design to be a form of discourse, resulting in poetic inventions that, by challenging laws (physical, social or political) rather than affirming them, take on a critical function. Such electronic objects would be conceptual tools operating through a language of functionality which is entangled in a web of cultural and social systems that go beyond appearance'.

'...conceptual gadgets that render useless our expectation of what things ought to do; they turn knowledge itself into a gadget and allow us to catch glimpses of how knowledge works and wonder at its beautiful but useless mechanisms'.

'Design must not just visualise a 'better world' but arouse in the public the desire for one'.

(Taken from; 'Herzian Tales - Electronic products, aesthetic experience and critical design')