DMY Youngsters

A few things caught my eye from the International Design Festival Berlin, which ran from June 3rd -7th in the historic "Arena Berlin." The festival is described on the main site as, "Emergent designers and young design studios from Europe to Asia and Australia as well as design academies from The Netherlands, England, Czech Republic, Sweden and Germany present their current projects and prototypes, giving insight into the latest developments in the field of design." Fair enough- new things, new materials used to re-design old things, insight however, would mean having an argument, or a vision and finding an interesting way to express it through an object. DIFFICULT! As most of the work seemed pretty short on content, one group stood out in their attempts take a conceptual approach in their process of bridge the worlds of fine art, fashion, design and architecture.

OH!LOGO is a German design/art collaborative that creates objects and stages interventions with the goal of "raising awareness of the complex mechanisms of our global civilization."

Their site offers brief descriptions of an assortment of projects that appear to subvert the viewer's expectations not only of the object itself, but of the way we might expect to interact with it. Below is their project, "O!L donotwear," in which they have taken familiar logos and applied them to simple clothing, creating a pattern.
A pattern of consumerism, a pattern of excess? Not entirely clear, but interesting. Check out their site for more info and projects.