L’appel du Vide

For my final year of my undergraduate program, I explored the Post-Modernism theme of utopian design to create a two-part series of digital prints. “L’appel du vide” is a wide-eyed reconnaissance of my research as I followed the work of Buckminster Fuller, Frederick Kiesler, Andy Warhol, and Jorge Pardo. I started small by designing an ideal agency where creativity would flourish. I then expanded my idea to create an entire world.

I began answering an extensive utopian-design questionnaire written by Peyton Richter and Walter Fogg in the 1970s. My biggest conflict was visually expressing all of my notes, findings, and elements of this world I was crafting alongside my research. I took inspiration from visual artists, William Powhida and Jane Townsend, and their collaborative piece Bellum Omnium Contra Omes, in order to overcome this hurdle. This amazing illustration led me to create my own large, hand-drawn map that depicts a region of the constructed utopia. The map was accompanied by a small book that functions as a manifesto, explaining the underlying social, cultural and political values that are upheld by its citizens. The work was shown to the public through a series of exhibitions, curated by my classmates and me.

“L’appel du vide” translates to “call of the void,” the curious desire to jump when hovering over the edge of a cliff. It is the fundamental fuel of inventors and designers alike, the constant impulse to attack obstacles and create solutions regardless of profit or purpose. With utopian design, one searches for a better place, in which the problems that beset our current condition are transcended or resolved, while understanding the notion that this place can only exist in one’s imagination, not reality.