*Hmmm. That response is quite interesting.
http://www.iconeye.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4547:review-nonobject
"Nonobject is a collection of fantastical, impossible designs created by former IDEO member Branko Lukic. There are all-bristle toilet brushes, forks bent into right angles and crystal toilet bowls. It’s a fun sort of book – think of an updated Heath Robinson, or perhaps a monograph on industrial design by The Onion. It would make a fine humorous stocking-filler for the jokier design aficionado. One to keep above the bog.
"Except it isn’t. Wipe that smile off your face. We are not here to be entertained. This is serious. Nonobject “will change the way we think about design and designing” says Bill Moggridge in his foreword, which also contains the words “beauty ... the hand of a great designer ... masterful ... thrilling designs ...” Barry M Katz, in an introductory essay, manages to go even further, saying: “Nonobject may be the first approach to design that rises to the level of philosophy.”
"Blimey. Regular readers might recognise the name Lukic: we featured three nonobjects in Icon 080, the Fiction Issue. We’re in the territory of fictional design, a relatively new subset of critical or conceptual design that is as interested in impossibility as much as possibility, and puts more emphasis on narrative than function. Humour, a useful mental lubricant, is in use here, but the aim isn’t to make you laugh, it’s to make you think. This is design as cultural research, Lukic is not “imprisoned” (Katz’s word) by functionalism – totally free from constraints, he’s able to soar to new heights of design, exploring the space between the user and the object. And the entire endeavour comes carefully vaccinated against objections by Katz, who describes sceptics thus: “These are the same benighted souls who complained that Picasso painted two eyes on the same side of a woman’s head, and there’s not much that can be offered to them but our condolences.” Like I said, this is really, really serious.
"Nonobject does play a valuable role in critical design, even if that role is somewhat oversold in the introductions...."
