*Probes and provocations.
http://www.domusweb.it/en/design/royal-college-of-art-degree-show/
"Of all the degree shows that take place each year at this time, the Royal College of Art's (RCA) is one of the most keenly anticipated. Now in its 175th year, the RCA has a well-deserved reputation for furnishing some of the brightest new additions to the design world.
"This year provided plenty to think about before even getting to individual student work. For the first time design was split in two, with Design Interactions and Design Products at the College's Battersea campus, while Innovation Design Engineering and the rest of the design-led disciplines remained at the South Kensington site. This division reflects bigger regroupings at the RCA to reflect its growing size: this year saw the biggest ever cohort of over five hundred art and design graduates.
"The increasingly populated field is just one of the concerns for this year's graduates. Facing unfavourable economic conditions and mounting environmental and social challenges, there was a notable ethical and political charge in many of the exhibits.
"Visitors to Battersea's de-industrial Testbed 1 site were welcomed by Joseph Popper's The One-Way Ticket, a low-tech film prop representing the interior of a space capsule, intended to question our view of space as the final frontier. Man's extension into new environments was just one of the subjects explored by Design Interactions students, that also included speculations on advances in digital, transgenic and biotechnologies in relation to issues such as ageing populations and food shortages. While weaker projects stretched the bounds of incredulity, others showed real insight, like Shing Tat Chung's A Superstitious Fund, a trading algorithm based on lunar cycles and numerology..."
