Synopses & Reviews
Metahaven: Design Research is a think tank that focuses on design as well as on visual and political identity. Its aim is to use design research to reflect on the political potential of design and to set in motion a visual and theoretical discussion that gives rise to hypothetical projects, proposals, and direct actions. Metahaven: Sealand Identity Project is an example of this research.
In 2003, Meta Haven began to develop a national visual identity for the micronation of Sealand, which lies on a former British naval fortress in the North Sea. The platform, which was occupied by the Briton Roy Bates and his wife in 1967 and is not internationally recognized as a sovereign state, has its own currency, passports, and postage stamps. In addition to this project, the book presents other case studies, including an investigation into the architecture of the Cold War and the ways it is currently being used that takes the House of the People in Bucharest as an example. Essays by the designers provide detailed insight into the groupa (TM)s conception and philosophy.
Synopsis
Bridging between design, geopolitics, architecture, and branding, Metahaven's -Uncorporate Identity- defies easy categorization as a monograph. The book is organized as a sequence of five chapters, dealing with data havens and statehood, post-communist architecture, visual legacies of the war on terror, tourist brands and border control, and social networks restructuring soft power, branding and governance internationally. With each chapter comprised of case studies, notes and essays, it explores visual identity in a networked and multi-polar world.
-Uncorporate Identity- is conceived and edited by Metahaven (Daniel van der Velden and Vinca Kruk) with Marina Vishmidt, and has contributions by Boris Groys, David Singh Grewal, Vladimir Kolossov, Keller Easterling, Dieter Lesage, China Mieville, Chantal Mouffe, Pier Vittorio Aureli, Bruno Besana, Michael Taussig, Regula Stampfli, Mihnea Mircan, Florian Schneider, Marina Vishmidt, and others.
Synopsis
Uncorporate Identity is an anthology of Metahaven projects, ideas and models. A science fiction book about design, it describes corporate identity beyond certainty, entwined with politics, speculation and information networks. Carved out from the multipolar geopolitical spaces of the early 21st century and the paradoxical leftovers and peripheries of ancient regimes and ruined ideologies, Uncorporate Identity is at once an artistic manifesto for design under globalization and a workbook of essays, narratives and truisms investigating the ambiguous state of identity and branding today.
Authored by Metahaven, a design and research think tank consisting of Daniel van der Velden, Vinca Kruk and Gon Zifroni, Uncorporate Identity is edited by Marina Vishmidt and includes contributions by and collaborations with Armin Linke, Dieter Lesage, Chantal Mouffe, Peter van Ham, Regula StAmpfli, Michael Taussig, BAVO, Mihnea Mircan, Ruedi Baur, David Reinfurt, Adriaan Mellegers, Tina Clausmeyer and many others.
Synopsis
In Uncorporate Identity: Emblem and Void, design studio and think tank Metahaven
embark on a parabolic survey that links geopolitical conflicts to branding,
imaginary
nations to "star architecture", flexible governance to the iron-cast law of value,
and the totalitarianism of the standard to online social networks. Uncorporate
Identity
is at once an artistic manifesto for design under globalization and a workbook of
essays, narratives and truisms investigating the ambiguous state of identity and branding
today. The book is devised as a concept album crafted in lines of inquiry around
Metahaven's landmark projects, as well as essays, interviews and fiction by China
Miville, Keller Easterling, Boris Groys, Dieter Lesage, Pier Vittorio Aureli, Mihnea Mircan,
Chantal Mouffe, David Grewal.
Synopsis
Bridging between design, geopolitics, architecture, and branding, Metahaven's "Uncorporate Identity" defies easy categorization as a monograph. With each chapter comprised of case studies, notes and essays, it explores visual identity in a networked and multi-polar world.