I am a British designer and artistic investigator who uses his industrial design background to interrogate the future of human existence. How might our actions impact what is to come and how can we change this?
Since winning the award, I have found myself being interviewed and asked to display work, something I feel has only come from my success of winning this award. Another big thing for me was the financial gain associated with the prize. This enabled me to reduce debts incurred through studying. Studying a creative degree is costly and when your background isn’t so financially fruitful, awards like NOVA not only offer a great form of personal gratitude about your work but also financial incentive to make it all worthwhile.
Reference: STANDING001
Title: Aqua No More
Date: 2020
Author: Joseph Standing
Details: A speculative view of how England would look if freshwater supplies no longer existed. Aqua No More is a critical public engagement project made up of a series of voicemails overlaid with graphics.
Media: Image
Credit: Courtesy of the artist
Description: These three scenarios are conveyed through graphics and speech from the angle of inhabitants of London and the governing body the Ministry of Water. It aims to inform and enact discourse of the dangers of water pollution and the fragility of water ecosystems, and how their degradation could impact our lives further down the line.
Reference: STANDING022
Title: Aqua No More [Film]
Date: 2020
Author: Joseph Standing
Details: A speculative view of how England would look if freshwater supplies no longer existed. Aqua No More is a critical public engagement project made up of a series of voicemails overlaid with graphics.
Media: Film [6m29s]
Credit: Courtesy of the artist
Description: These three scenarios are conveyed through graphics and speech from the angle of inhabitants of London and the governing body the Ministry of Water. It aims to inform and enact discourse of the dangers of water pollution and the fragility of water ecosystems, and how their degradation could impact our lives further down the line.
Reference: STANDING005
Title: Mäusebunker [Mouse Bunker]
Date: 1981
Author: Gerd Hänska
Details: Located in Zehlendorf, Berlin
Media: Architecture
Credit: ignant.com/mausebunker
Description: In the outlying suburb of Zehlendorf is the Central Laboratory for Animals; a hulking mass of concrete with strange space-age adornments that cause it to resemble a battleship or tank far more than a scientific workshop. Nicknamed the ‘Mäusebunker’, it was designed by German architect Gerd Hänska during the late 1960s to house 88,000 scientific test-animals. Completed in 1981, its colossal size makes it an imposing and peculiar addition to the Freie Universität campus that it is stationed upon.
Reference: STANDING006
Title: Tschechien Botschaft
Date: 1978
Author: Věra Machoninová and Vladimír Machonin
Details: Located in Mitte, Berlin
Media: Architecture
Credit: ignant.com/tschechien_botschaft
Description: Today, the Embassy of Czechoslovakia stands as it did in 1978; an untouched example of the expressive aesthetic of the period. Sharp-edged and raised from the ground, the building seems to defy gravity, hovering above Wilhelmstraße in Mitte.
Reference: STANDING008
Title: Aquatopia – Waterobjects
Date: 2018
Author: Katrin Spranger
Details: Speculate project on fresh water supplies
Media: Sculpture
Credit: katrinspranger.com/aquatopia
Description: Aquatopia takes a critical view on our fresh water supplies, its increasing demand and pollution. In the UK, we may not recognise the urgency to rethink water consumption, yet our choices in food, materials and lifestyle tie into a global issue of increasing water scarcity. According to the United Nations, two-thirds of the world’s population will face water shortages by 2025.
In the dystopian narrative of Aquatopia, pure water is on the verge of depletion and the precious resource is venerated by keeping consumption and waste to the bare minimum.
Reference: STANDING012
Title: How to Build a Water Filter
Date: 2016
Author: Vytautas Jankauskas
Details: This project aims to reshape the notions of nationality and citizenship, through a fictional microcosm from a near, neo-capitalist future, in which all of the world's water has been privatised.
Media: Images
Credit: designawards.core77.com/How-to-Build-a-Water-Filter
Description: It draws upon a mutated type of citizenship, where financial status determines personal monthly water allowance. Tap water is accessible via special national identity card extensions, that come in Basic, Black and Gold versions. My presented future is a saturated manifestation of corporate power and monetised nationality, where policymaking is officially handed over to capital interests.
Reference: STANDING013
Title: The Golden Institute
Date: 2009
Author: Sascha Pohflepp
Details: Speculate project on the future of energy
Media: Film [6m19s]
Credit: vimeo.com/the_golden_institute
Description: An exploration of the energy issue through the lens of an alternate history of the USA, examining how visions of the future are being created and how they can make us reflect on contemporary issues.
Reference: STANDING014
Title: Nineteen Eighty-Four
Date: 1949
Author: George Orwell
Details: A dystopian social science fiction novel centring on the consequences of totalitarianism, mass surveillance, and repressive regimentation of persons and behaviours within society.
Media: Publication
Credit: wikipedia.org/Nineteen_Eighty-Four
Description: The story takes place in an imagined future, the year 1984, when much of the world has fallen victim to perpetual war, omnipresent government surveillance, historical negationism, and propaganda. Great Britain, known as Airstrip One, has become a province of a totalitarian superstate named Oceania that is ruled by the Party who employ the Thought Police to persecute individuality and independent thinking.[5] Big Brother, the dictatorial leader of Oceania, enjoys an intense cult of personality, manufactured by the party's excessive brainwashing techniques. The protagonist, Winston Smith, is a diligent and skillful rank-and-file worker and Outer Party member who secretly hates the Party and dreams of rebellion. He enters into a forbidden relationship with a colleague, Julia, and starts to remember what life was like before the Party came to power.
Reference: STANDING007
Title: Binsey Walk
Date: Unknown
Author: Graham Martin
Details: Scottish artist Graham Martin looks at architecture and the manufactured, artificial environment that surrounds us.
Media: Painting
Credit: sunnyartcentre.co.uk/binsey-walk
Description: The source of inspiration for his work lies in the quietly ageing estates and urban developments occupying forgotten spaces on the fringes of the city. His recent work, including ‘No Ball Games’ and ‘Binsey Walk’, is centred on iconic examples of British post-war housing. It responds to the scale of the developments, as well as notions of the sublime.
Reference: STANDING009
Title: Indus
Date: 2019
Author: Shneel Malik, Dr. Brenda Parker, Prof. Marcos Cruz and Richard Miller.
Details: Modular Tiles
Media: Ceramics
Credit: designmuseum.org/indus
Description: BIO-ID addressed the pollution problem of textile and jewellery manufacturing in India. Their clay tile uses an algae-laden hydrogel to purify water through the channels in its leaflike relief. Indus can be locally sourced and manufactured, maintaining a circular economy, and creates a visual impact that encourages community engagement.
Reference: STANDING010
Title: Filtering Glass Straw
Date: 2019
Author: Ulysse Martel
Details: A pair of glass tubes with a natural filtering cartridge can be used in an emergency to purify water.
Media: Product
Credit: interiordesign.net/water
Description: Water. It’s the all-powerful source of life, and a necessity for human survival. Unfortunately, drinkable water on this planet is astonishingly limited—only 3% of all water on Earth is fresh and only 1% of that water is accessible through lakes, rivers, and reservoirs. As the global population rises, so does the need for innovative ideas to bring clean water to desperate peoples and educate the public about their impact on the world’s water supply.
Reference: STANDING011
Title: Cloud Catchers
Date: 2017
Author: Lily Consuelo Saporta Tagiuri
Details: A compact single user kite that folds using tent like rods.
Media: Object
Credit: lilytagiuri.com/cloudcatchers
Description: It is designed to be packed for extreme situations in which there is no drinking water. The kite can be used to catch moisture from low hanging clouds and through thin tubes attached to the line, the moisture is transferred to the water bottle of the user. Depending on air quality, this water can be directly consumed, or filtered and then consumed.
Reference: STANDING018
Title: COVID-19
Date: 2020
Author: GOV.UK
Details: Artist photographs of Governmental public engagement posters used during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Media: Photographs
Credit: Courtesy of the artist
Description: Governmental public engagement posters used during the COVID-19 pandemic.