the design of a sober happiness

Keynote Speech
The Design of Sober Happiness

"Today the last act of our consumption odyssey has begun: Odysseus’ return to Ithaca. And like Odysseus, so the consumers - having almost been drawn into the sea of illusions, disappointments and fleeting seductions - are now longing for their homeland: a ‘home planet’ where authentic individual and collective fulfilment has its place and time."

"People are calling for objects that don’t simply stand out only because of their (form follows function) functional benefits, nor for their (form follows fiction) trendiness. They call for objects that also embody a strong ecological and (aesthetic) ethical message which is able to help them reconnect with a future they believed they had lost."

"This is also the reason why design-as-usual doesn’t work as usual today. Design is much more than just a mere marketing instrument in the hands of marketing managers: ‘Just do it’ was the last myth that affected mass sports culture. This is a claim that no longer corresponds to today’s Zeitgeist. It is a motto that incentivises a brainless and soulless compulsory urge for just doing, in a time in which one is instead starting to be reflective about what one is doing."

‘Form follows sense’ is Simonetta Carbonaro’s design paradigm. She undertakes research in the area of consumer behaviour, forecasting the directions of consumer culture. With her key-note speech on the cultural and ethical challenges of sustainability, she points to the loss of cultural behaviour.