Annalisa Rosso is a design writer and curator, as well as editor-in-chief of Mondadori’s monthly “Icon Design” since 2019 and the co-founder of consultancy firm Mr.Lawrence. In charge of Domusweb from 2017 to 2018, she has written for a number of international publications, was guest curator of two exhibitions for the 5VIE district during the 2018 and 2019 Milan Design Weeks, and curator of the seventh edition of Operæ, Turin’s independent design fair, in 2016. / in conversation with Sara Fortunati, director of Turin's Circolo del Design, ed Elisabetta Donati de Conti, author and curator.
Sara: What is work like at a magazine, these days?
Annalisa: We are lucky at “Icon”, because we are already used to working flexibly, and our team includes many internal and external collaborators who stay in constant contact from all over the world. Being able to work with different types of stakeholders, and to put some projects on hold when other ones need attention, is part of our DNA – not only in my work in publishing, but also at my consultancy firm Mr. Lawrence. When you halt certain phases, you take better notice of how others re-emerge that are usually covered up and neglected. This is what is happening with digital activities now.
Elisabetta: Magazines and blogs, as well as press offices, museums, brands etc. have started putting out a lot more digital content. Will this plurality create dispersion or will this collective effort help the industry?
Annalisa: We all want to constantly keep in touch like we did before, but at the moment we have to turn to a phone call or, even more often, to forms of digital contact. Anything we used to talk about over coffee, just a couple of weeks ago, now takes shape in blog articles like Laura Traldi’s, who published in her designatlarge a collection of opinions about Dezeen’s Virtual Milan (now Virtual Design Festival). This collective critique has been hugely popular because it expressed a solid and coherent point of view on an unpleasant fact. This shift from offline to online is a great turning point: from now on, digital technologies will be a part of life, even for those who didn’t want to use or somehow resisted these tools before.
Sara: Just think of online grocery shopping: some of us already considered it an obvious choice, but now people of all ages are resorting to it.
Annalisa: Now imagine applying this logic to the world of collectors. The greatest galleries and fairs, such as Art Basel Hong Kong, are experimenting with online solutions. One of the factors behind this is generational change: the target audience used to be more mature, but now young and even very young people have become interesting potential clients for part of the art and contemporary design market. The lockdown is not over yet – I’m afraid it will last at least another month or two – so once it’s over we will have a new tool that is extremely powerful, and perhaps we will know how to use it better. We are fumbling ahead, forced by the situation to a digital full-immersion, which, in and of itself, is a very formative and interesting experience.
Sara: Online content is often a mere transposition of analog to digital, but this could be a real opportunity to see interesting changes: have you noticed any new examples worth mentioning?
Annalisa: I haven’t seen a real change yet, but I believe we must strive to find new ways to communicate design, using the tools we already have. A few good websites and functional apps already existed, and I probably had not paid enough attention to them, sometimes preferring their print version. But at the moment I am actually trying out a lot of digital tools, and really enjoying them. So maybe after this phase even the habits we thought were the hardest to shake will change.
Sara: It also depends on how long this phase will last. Let’s not forget it began “only” a couple of weeks ago.
Annalisa: The deepest change I am experiencing myself is in the fact I was used to exchanges with the people close to me, “contiguous” to me, especially at work. Now, ironically, I talk everyday to friends in London or New York: my concept of closeness has changed.
Sara: We are all equidistant now.
Annalisa: The situation has leveled the playing field, making exchanges more horizontal.
Elisabetta: You mentioned Art Basel Hong Kong. They are trying to replicate their analog format by publishing Viewing Rooms online, passing the message that having a booth to visit is still the most convenient solution. The events industry has explored digital solutions much less than the world of communication: do you have a vision for the future, or something you would like to see come up soon?
Annalisa: I am very interested in virtual reality – I’ve been following the topic for a while. For example, in December I had the chance to visit a new project by Diesel in Miami: in the middle of a lot awaiting development, inside your typical construction-site office container, a visor allowed you to enter an imaginary building, go up its stairs, and look out the terraces down to the streets below with a breathtaking level of detail. The leaves on the trees moved, cars drove along or parked, the breeze created ripples in the curtains around the windows. The imitation of reality has reached incredible levels, and now the challenge is to find new ways to implement it, to think of something beyond reality and to explore exhibitions or fairs in a way that we still cannot imagine.
Elisabetta: In some cases, a museum’s content can be experienced digitally in a variety of ways; in others, it is harder to envision the pieces of a collection in a new form. An experiment worth mentioning is the 3D documentary Rebuilding Notre Dame, created for the Oculus Quest, which allows users to visit the iconic gothic church in Paris. Could contemporary design naturally approach similar experiences, or do they sacrifice too much in terms of physicality?
Annalisa: The great difference between design and art is the fact that you can, and must, touch design objects. I like experiential exhibitions that engage the visitor – such as The Conversation Show curated a few months back by Maria Cristina Didero at the Design Museum Holon, near Tel Aviv, which brought together five great designers. Each one of them created an interactive installation in a way I had never seen developed with such intensity, but physical presence was what really made the difference. So now it is interesting to wonder how we might take those feelings and sensations into the digital world. Is all you need a pair of VR gloves to virtually touch things? I don’t think so. There must be a deeper and more visceral engagement, in perfect “Black Mirror” style. The general public is not particularly aware of these somewhat liminal and avant-garde experiments, but we might start exploring them now that we have more time and an interest to do find out more.
Sara: Do you think companies are ready?
Annalisa: They are in the sense they want to, they need to, and they know it. But I am not sure they are ready to understand the consequences and the practical benefits of activity in these fields. On the other hand, these days they are also trying to understand in what new ways they may present their products, since – for example – using photographers and sets is not an option. Over decades, the system has followed this same process: make an object, take a photograph of it, add it to a catalog and take it to fairs.
Meanwhile, I think there has been a very interesting boom of 3D artists and incredibly advanced designers, who can create whole worlds that not only look more real than reality, but can also be more intriguing. I don’t think this new creative method is just a new aesthetic way to create a beautiful image: it’s a way to communicate something more. So maybe this is an opportunity to both understand new ways we can operate in the field of communication, and explore tools that already exist but were considered merely as alternatives to consolidated practices, either because of the budget they require or just out of habit. In this sense, even social media networks have never been really pushed past what we are already familiar with.
Elisabetta: Don’t you think the usual manufacturing process could be turned on its head in some cases? I’m thinking of the pink petal chair Andrés Reisinger rendered, which was produced by a Spanish gallery one year later.
Annalisa: Most of the products showcased at fairs are only prototypes, so objects often don’t hit the market until various phases of refinement are carried out depending on early feedback. But this method is flawed because, once a product is seen, reviewed and photographed, the market has no time or will to wait until it can access it. What I mean is, there have always been tests – but finding the right method and timing is crucial to success. This is true both for the manufacturing process and for communication: is the moment you have an idea also the moment to put it into practice? I think moving at the right time is very important. If someone has some good insight about the digital world, this is the time to roll it out because companies need it.
Elisabetta: In Asia, for example, so-called “live streaming agents” review products that can be purchased online, live, to hundreds of millions of followers. Do you think the West is ready to make room for this kind of new job and new profession?
Annalisa: This is another very frequent topic companies discuss: influencers effortlessly blended into the fashion and beauty industries, but don’t have a comparable role in design. Plans to make design fairs virtual events have been criticized because they are meant for visitors to meet in person, talk to manufacturers and hear designers’ stories. So I don’t think this type of transition will be so quick in our field, especially in Europe where we are used to a certain type of code and ways of doing things that cannot be overturned in the name of total digitalization. Yet, we cannot pretend nothing is happening.
Maybe live agents could be similar to bloggers: you might decide to follow them, just like you pick a respected publication or writer to read their review of a chair before buying it. You expect they have the authority and skills to express an opinion. Different industries – fashion, design, lifestyle – vary widely even within the creative field, and ours is actually a very small and difficult niche. Not to mention that people who have a passion for design are usually extremely well informed. I like the fact that design is a demanding world, and that its audience is careful and well prepared; you can never write something obvious, and anything new requires a careful analysis, so it’s always a stimulating challenge. Maybe this is one of the reasons why we have not found a way to put print and digital communication on the same level. Print formats have the advantage of so many years of experimentation: just think of “Domus”, which started to develop a specific language, more refined photography and a critical approach almost a century ago. The people on the other side of the screen are a demanding audience too: it’s only fair that they are, and it’s a positive part of the game.
Elisabetta: Are people even more demanding right now?
Annalisa: These days, I am under the impression people are more interested in information about the outbreak. But I think many are looking for a platform where they can express themselves – for example, I’ve noticed a return to Facebook, which had been slightly pushed aside by a wider use of Instagram. We all want to say what’s on our minds, so the comments and debate community has been revived – as Dezeen’s case clearly demonstrates.
Sara: Reorganizing the digital world means equipping it to give us back what we lost in the analog world, but also open up new opportunities.
Annalisa: Fifteen years ago, forums were all the rage – their graphics were boring, but they were useful to exchange opinions and information. Today they are still used only for a few ultra-specialized niche targets, where people need very detailed conversations: I use a forum to learn how to take care of Kiwi, the young cockatoo I rescued. I think a similar formula, independent and possibly slightly more evolved, could be a great initiative, because I would prefer discussing topics with my colleagues and friends without having to write on algorithm-managed pages like Facebook’s. Perhaps I would prefer a platform that functioned like a festival of design festivals – who knows?
Sara: Also, design already encompasses a wide variety of disciplines, including many digital and communication skills.
Annalisa: At the moment, important industries such as fashion have reacted by collecting large funds to immediately contribute to covering the costs of this emergency – which is great. We all know the design industry is different: its volumes and its business are different. Sometimes I think our job is precisely to act at a more utopic level. We might not have millions to donate in a matter of hours, but when we are good at what we do we foster a deep change. This is what makes design so interesting to me.
