MANIFESTO FOR ESSENTIALISM
Jeremy Faludi, February 2001

Design must return to the simple, naked essential. In America 2001, we are inundated with a dizzying array of objects, of forms, of styles, of marketing, which has alienated us from the direct experience of the world. To remedy this assault of artifice, we must strip down the forms we create to lay bare their essential nature--if the object's nature be a mechanism, that mechanism must be shown; if the object's nature be a certain function, the object must speak entirely and solely of that function.    The objects we use are getting more complex as they attempt to do more and more, and they are increasingly wrapped up in brand, market, and lifestyle. The intensely refined psychology of consumer design and advertising is digging its myriad roots into each individual's rich soil of personal needs--seeking to either anchor itself on a stone so deep we cannot pull it up, or to spread and thicken into such a complete mat that it cannot be torn up without destroying the ground it feeds on. The distortion of content to appeal to particular markets has become a science, and as demographic profiling becomes more extensive and refined--more inescapable--we begin to live in a world where all information we receive has been "spun" to fit our tastes, to appeal to our preconceptions. From overt advertisements to covert product placement in entertainment media to suggestive news, this "spin" is not perpetrated to make us more comfortable in our lives, it is perpetrated to entice us to buy more products.    The saturation of misinformation, information distortion, and selective omission have made twenty-first century Americans inherently distrustful of all media, all authority figures, and in essence, all information itself. We are cynical about the ability of a cigarette to make us feel like a rugged cowboy, or the ability of a laptop computer with a titanium case to make us feel like a technological sophisticate. However, since we have no neutral ground to work from, no safe haven of objects and information that do not come burdened with their own agenda, we have no choice but to choose the particular marketing gimmick that most effectively navigates the landscapes of our subconscious. Our cynicism is an impotent tool, failing to save us from being taken advantage of, but merely making us conscious of and bitter about it. This alienation compounds the anomie pervading American culture today, an anomie created by the collapse of social community that has come as a result of the increased mobility and citification of individuals.    In order to reverse this trend of manipulation and alienation, design must delve into the essentials of the objects themselves, not of the whims of market and fashion. In doing so, the designer will gain deeper insight into what the true function and usage of the object will be, and the user will gain an experience true to the nature of the object, not isolated from it by layers of styling and clever spin.    For instance, in designing a lamp, the designer must eschew the frivolity of decorative shades, frilled knobs, and sculptural bases. The designer must instead delve down to the essential nature of light--how is it made? Is it created by the tungsten filament, the glowing phosphor, the acetylene flame? Whichever medium is used to generate the light, the medium must be laid bare, without distraction, so that users may feel what it is to make light, not just to have light delivered to them wrapped up in a ribbon and bow.    When a person can be surrounded by objects that speak of their essential nature, and not of some contrived statement dreamed up by a pandering designer-advertiser, that person can begin to relax their cynicism, trust their surroundings, and make meaningful decisions about them. That person can then begin to recover from the alienation that has separated them from the world.