Dan has been my main source of Postopolis! LA coverage this year. Design theorist Benjamin Bratton wrapped up the event’s discussion with an interesting, twisted bow of a speech. He talked about “Post,” but in the sense of Post-/Pre-, not the original Post/Comment the conference’s blogger organizers originally imagined.
He hopes we’re Post-Bubble, for instance, but isn’t quite certain:
Because design was a symbol of the bubble it is also a symbol of the bubble’s collapse. Think of OMA’s burned out Mandarin Hotel as the anti-Bilbao.
….
But what also seems clear at least to me, is that very many ways of doing things, of designing things, of consuming things, of consuming design are very likely, to sample Paul Krugman, zombie ideas. Design as money laundering bon-bon. The destiny of the post-Bilbao coke high of Dubai, seems be a psychotic desert ruin.
I hope Jurgen Bey is already working on Murray Moss’s pitchfork-proof panic room.
Benjamin H. Bratton (Postopolis! LA) [cityofsound.com]