Design Museum's tribute to club culture reopens post lockdown
Art, photography, typography, shape shifting installations and music come together at Design Museum’s ‘Electronic: From Kraftwerk to The Chemical Brothers’
Headphones and 3-D spectacles are essential for the recently re-opened, fully immersive, audio / visual / multi-sensory, hyper-experiential exhibition ‘Electronic: From Kraftwerk to The Chemical Brothers’ at the Design Museum, London.
The showcase is a celebration of contemporary club culture, artwork and ephemera and a history of electronica-related equipment. Experience The Telharmonium (aka the first ever synthesizer or ‘the Victorian Spotify’) from 1901 through to a personally curated reimagining of French electronic music maverick Jean-Michel Jarre’s recording studio, right up to the cutting edge, tripedal synthesiser custom-made for Detroit DJ Jeff Mills by Yuri Suzuki, which looks more like an X-fighter dashboard than a traditional drum machine.
Kraftwerk
Former Wallpaper* guest editor Ralf Hütter, co-founder of Germany’s Kraftwerk, is represented by a sequence of still-captivating 3-D film shorts from the band’s 2017 tour. Art and graphic design – for vinyl record sleeves, posters, streaming imagery, rave and club flyers – is showcased as a visual response to the music, an extension of the electronic artist and their genre.
Fusing disciplines
The exhibition looks at how artists like Christian Marclay, Andreas Gusrky, Peter Saville, Mark Farrow and Studio Moross fuse typography, photography and fine art with the contemporary electronic soundtrack’s beats, bleeps and squelches. Norway/USA-based design outfit Non-Format’s work for London record label Lo Recordings is a dazzling exercise in typographic invention with studio founders Kjell Ekhorn and Jon Forss creating unique fonts and dynamic monochrome graphics for each of the label’s many vinyl releases.
Exhibition design
An adaptation of the hugely popular exhibition from Musée de la Musique - Philharmonie de Paris, Electronic’s original concept and 3D design is helmed by Paris- based 1024 Architecture, the studio contributing its own exhibit in the form of a robotic sculpture titled ‘Walking Cube’. Aurally sensitive and activated by ambient beats, the shape shifting cube’s jerkily diverse transformations are driven by air-powered mechanics prepared and executed with brutal force. ‘A demonstration presenting the chaotic possibilities in the deconstruction of a common and minimal form,’ explain the cube’s designers.
Working in collaboration with London’s All Things Studio, 1024 Architecture also conceived the truly mesmerising CORE light installation, a three dimensional soundwave of multicoloured rods inspired by the electronic music experience’s narcotic, synaesthetic perceptions.
The Chemical Brothers
Ending on a high we take a trip into the visual world of The Chemical Brothers’ Smith & Lyall-designed live shows where doomy and dreamy, IMAX-size film imagery and weapons grade laser lights interact to viscerally devastating effect. At this, the exhibition’s peak, uplifting music pumps while giant and vivid, almost tangible, cuddly/creepy Leigh Bowery-esque figures dance amongst the visitors. The Design Museum has never looked, or sounded, so good.
INFORMATION
Electronic: From Kraftwerk to The Chemical Brothers is open until 14 February 2021. designmuseum.org
Wallpaper* Newsletter
Receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories from around the world direct to your inbox.
ADDRESS
224-238 Kensington High St
Kensington
London
W8 6AG
-
'‘I wanted to create a sanctuary' – discover a nature-conscious take on Balinese architecture
Umah Tsuki by Colvin Haven is an idyllic Balinese family home rooted in the island's crafts culture
By Natasha Levy Published
-
‘Concrete Dreams’: rethinking Newcastle’s brutalist past
A new project and exhibition at the Farrell Centre in Newcastle revisits the radical urban ideas that changed Tyneside in the 1960s and 1970s
By Smilian Cibic Published
-
Mexican designers show their metal at Gallery Collectional, Dubai
‘Unearthing’ at Dubai’s Gallery Collectional sees Ewe Studio designers Manu Bañó and Héctor Esrawe celebrate Mexican craftsmanship with contemporary forms
By Rebecca Anne Proctor Published
-
‘R for Repair’ at London Design Festival displays broken objects, re-formed
In the second half of a two-part exhibition and as part of London Design Festival 2022, ‘R for Repair’ at the V&A displays broken objects, re-formed
By Martha Elliott Last updated
-
‘Finding quality through the act of making’: Pearson Lloyd celebrates 25 years of design
Pearson Lloyd’s show ‘Change Making’ reflects on past designs from its archives, showcasing the influences on and evolution of the studio, from furniture design to the NHS
By Martha Elliott Last updated
-
Tom Dixon marks his studio's 20 years with a show of design experiments
Mushroom, cork, steel coral and more: Tom Dixon showcases an overview of his design experiments as he celebrates his practice's 20 years
By Rosa Bertoli Last updated
-
Porro unveils new London showroom at Coal Office
London Design Festival 2022: industrial architecture meets pure geometries in the new Porro showroom, taking over a space within Tom Dixon’s Coal Office to showcase the brand’s systems and furniture
By Rosa Bertoli Last updated
-
Vitra unveils new London home in the Tramshed, Shoreditch
London Design Festival 2022: after a year-long renovation, Vitra opens the door to its new showroom in the heart of Shoreditch
By Rosa Bertoli Last updated
-
Mudlarking beside the River Thames inspires The New Craftsmen’s makers
London Design Festival 2022: The New Craftsmen’s new collection, ‘Claylarks’, features work from a group of creatives inspired by a River Thames mudlarking expedition
By Mary Cleary Last updated
-
One tree, ten designers: SCP presents The One Tree Project at London Design Festival
London Design Festival 2022: SCP enlisted ten British designers to create furniture and objects from a felled ash tree from founder Sheridan Coakley's Hampshire garden
By Francesca Perry Last updated
-
London Design Medals 2022
London Design Medals 2022 are awarded to costume designer Sandy Powell, architect Indy Johar, researcher Joycelyn Longdon and photographer Sir Don McCullin
By Rosa Bertoli Last updated