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>The fetishized austerity and performative asceticism of minimalism is a kind of ongoing cultural sickness. It's hardly more than a design trend. Similar to n
by l33tbro 10y ago
>The fetishized austerity and performative asceticism of minimalism is a kind of ongoing cultural sickness.
It's hardly more than a design trend. Similar to naturalism in the 1970's, when the walls of your home and your television set had a wooden finish.
>We misinterpret material renunciation, austere aesthetics and blank, emptied spaces as symbols of capitalist absolution, when these trends really just provide us with further ways to serve our impulse to consume more, not less.
Not really. It's more the fact that a guy called Steve Jobs reanimated a dying computer business into a global mega-cult, wholeheartedly embracing and thereby popularizing ideas of people like Dieter Rams.
While some alternatives to minimalism would be nice, I think what the author is (rightly) dissatisfied with is our economic system and the exchange of goods, not the actual way in which those goods are selected and consumed.
- ktRolster 10y agoSimilar to naturalism in the 1970's, when the walls of your home and your television set had a wooden finish. Oh, I always wondered why that was. Now I know why, the aesthetic trend of naturalism.
- mitchty 10y ago> Not really. It's more the fact that a guy called Steve Jobs reanimated a dying computer business into a global mega-cult, wholeheartedly embracing and thereby popularizing ideas of people like Dieter Rams. I suppose thats one way to look at it, but a counter example. I'm getting into hardware debugging/hacking/etc... so I've a need for an oscilloscope and a logic analyzer. I could get an el cheapo oscilloscope for about $450, and a logic analyzer for about another 400. But then both of these are separate, and the logic analyzer depends on my computer as well. So instead, I'm saving up for a Rohde and Schwarz MSO oscilloscope that while much more expensive at about ~$3,000 with all the options, takes up less space and does everything. (it also has no fan which i'm huge on) Yes this is arguably minimalism, but i'd argue the trend is more rooted in modernism of the 20's. I'll spend more to reduce clutter, I don't really have a glut of space in which to put it all.
- LordHumungous 10y agoI do often wonder if exposed beams and varnished concrete floors will be as ridiculous to people in 2030 as shag carpets and faux wood paneling are to us today.
- hosh 10y agoI'd like to see that!