Karim Rashid has a vision for how the world should be, and he spoke about them freely and openly. I felt like I was watching a preacher-man, telling stories, and sharing views for the world, a gospel on design (can I get a Hallelujah! kind of thing)... but in actually, it was more about his philosophies on design, and how he and his studio designs with those ideas and belifs in mind. Because it's a belief, people are disagreeing and agreeing with his views with much passion. More than anything it sparks conversations amongst the audience.
Some discussion that went on were different topics he brought up. Such as how the world is starting to live in a "casual age", a world he calls "more at ease". He wants to design for that age, allowing people to live a seamless life, a world with no obstacles, a place where you don't have to think about the problems. Allowing people to live this way, he says, results in allowing people to think more and contribute to culture.
He also brought up his thoughts on a term he calls "techno-organic", a method in which the technology creates the organic forms; you write the software for what the machine can do and define it's limitations, but the machine itself controls what it wants to make. This focus on machines and technology is based on his philosophies of how nostalgia is dead. New technologies and new ways of life should create new designs, and designing something from the past (examples like the pattern: plaid) should just go away.
This statement sparks so many discussions. Do you disregard the past completely and pave way for the future, push your vision for how it should be? How do we design experiences if we do not know a person's past, their nostalgic past, to gauge what they might enjoy, love? I found parrellels in what he was saying with some religious and spiritual views, like how we should live life in the moment, and appreciate what is in front of them no matter what it is they are doing. It's all a matter of perspective. But a complete removal of nostalgia also removes the awe and respect for the past, where we can learn and then develop a beautiful future without the mistakes from the past. I'm really looking forward to seeing his work in twenty years, when his current designs become nostalgic itself. I want to see where he will be taking the designs at that time.