Project: Tal Erez

Propjects

Using the webcam to control and debate the interior

The webcam frame invites users to become directors and editors on sites like YouTube and programs like Skype. For the first time, The interior, even if only as an image, enters the public sphere. Propjects invite creative amateurs to control, comment and debate the role and vision of the interior in an increasingly digitalized world.

Propjects are objects that exist purely to represent ourselves on camera. They are representations of objects which in turn represent our interior. all that is needed is a stage for them and anyone could control the way he broadcasts his surroundings and what they tell about him. because our interior says something about us. but it is more. its free, and the sanctity of real scale design objects is gone. they can be destroyed, changed, appropriated, re-contextualized. the online representation of our interior can then be imaginative. we control its composition, its components, its ability to be fantastic, unprofessional. It has already happened to journalism, music, film. The introduction of Propjects can spark a debate on the public sphere about design and interior, and start a process were designers are in a real conversation with their consumers, and might even be inspired by them.

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Propjects - screenshots of the propject video available in full on: http://www.talerez.com/projects/out-of-the-screens-and-into-the-streets/ Tal Erez

The propjects can re-introduce design as a political tool, by becoming a topic for debate by users on a public sphere, not only about its quality, but also about its goals and agendas.
It can regenerate the social and political relevance of design, and spark a conversation that can benefit designer and user alike.

Creative individuals and web 2.0 participants - the makers of amateur YouTube movies, the commentators and users on sites of creation like shapeways and etsy, and anyone who has something to say about our visual lifestyle.

It introduces a new product but also also a topic of conversation that isn't there yet. it opens a new field of potential creativity, and for the first time invites users to publicly participate in a debate about design.

The web 2. is crucial here, as it provides the tools of distribution and making. It also invites creativity which is sometimes spontaneous and has a possibility of a ping pong of re-contextualization that creates a true communal process.