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ZEITGUISED on Its Bag with a Hole and ‘Phygital’ Projects

18/01/2018
Design Studio
Berlin, Germany
99
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The Berlin design studio’s founder explains their unusual 'BAGASHI' collaboration with Toshiki Yagisawa
If there’s one thing you don’t want when buying a new bag, it’s holes. Bags + holes = tricky. But BAGASHI is not the bottomless bag you might be imagining. This “phygital” project by Berlin-based design studio ZEITGUISED  is the result of a collaboration with designer Toshiki Yagisawa and his Japan based label X-Magazine, and combines algorithmic digital manufacturing methods with Japanese craft. 

It launched on Monday with an event at Berlin store Firmament, so LBB’s Addison Capper grabbed ZEITGUISED founder Henrik Mauler for a chat.

LBB> How did the partnership with Toshiki Yagisawa come about in the first place? 

HM> Toshiki contacted us and visited our studio in Berlin in the Fall of 2016, after he had seen our first collaborations on physical designs. We felt a good vibe from the first meeting, and over time our interest grew into a fond relationship.
 
LBB> How did the collaboration work? Did you work quite closely or assume quite separate roles?

HM> Toshiki explicitly gave us an open brief to remix this one bag design of his. We talked about everything, but he really gave us all the space we needed to turn this project into a ZEITGUISED remix. It was great fun - he liked all of our ideas and helped making them possible on the production side of the process.
 
LBB> What prompted you to take your commercial work beyond the digital space and into product design?

HM> Before we started to work commercially with visuals, we actually came from a physical object design background. We have always strived to use new mediums and tools for form-finding, which in turn played a big role in the making of our images over the years. We kind of came full circle in a way. Having done our first 3D prints in 2000, and our first generative prints exhibited in Berlin in 2005, we always succeeded in infusing our own approach into the new digital production methods.
 
LBB> And specifically, why was this project the right fit for ZEITGUISED and foam Studio?

HM> With the start of foam Studio as a premium visual service for brands, ZEITGUISED has now made the transition to a physical design studio, with its own autonomous language and art brand. The BAGASHI project with Toshiki felt like another natural stepping stone into these waters.

LBB> The actual bags themselves - what was the inspiration behind their design? 

HM> The idea was a conceptual one. A typical ZEITGUISED approach: which design feature would be the on the verge of un-usability? How could we manifest a whimsical anti-utilitarianism with something that is actually produceable and desirable in the end? And emphasises the tongue in cheek approach with a stupid amount of dedication to design and craft?

That's how we arrived at the bag with a hole. Each hole being unique, and designed but not designed, by an algorithm.

LBB> They’re developed using a unique algorithm - how does that work? Is each bag unique?

HM> We removed ourselves as much as we could from a traditional designer’s work approach, where one would have to make a finite decision about the exact right and most beautiful form in the end of the process. We looked for something more open, where we would be surprised. So we devised an algorithm that produced infinite amounts of three-dimensional shapes, but along a certain language that came from a specific design thinking. 

The process in a way illustrates how we thought of these shapes, but also produces unlimited variations of it. That was beautiful to see and watch, and it is very satisfying to explore so much in so little time. Each shape is then used to cut out the bottom part of the bags, as a spatial intersection. So each bag is unique, yes. And on the production side of the cutting and sewing, that was actually a small hell.

LBB> Tell me about the term ‘phygital’ - it’s a new one to me and, while it’s meaning is quite self explanatory, could you elaborate on it a bit further? What is the most obvious example of a phygital product in everyday life?

HM> This term was coined a few years ago, I think with something completely different in mind. But with our textile design film geist.xyz we were first labelled with this by Frame magazine and their ‘What's the Matter?’ exhibition at the Salone in Milan in 2016, amongst a few similar artists and designers. It is not a great word, but in the lack of a better one we sometimes use it.

LBB> How will foam be adopting these techniques for commercial clients and why is it the right time to move into the product design space? What were the lessons that you took away from this process?

HM> The means of physical production coupled and driven by digital design processes and thinking are multiplying still. This is an exciting time, and it feels like this is what we always wanted it to be, even though all of this was just beginning to emerge when we started out in the early 2000s. Now is the right time, because there is a huge demand and even bigger questions surrounding the new production methods, their politics, and what unseen shape languages can evolve from these practices. Our lesson is that we haven't even scraped the tip of the iceberg and feel encouraged to keep going in this direction.
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