Zheyuan Luo 罗喆元

The Entanglement intends to reflect on the identity of ‘the creator’ from a post-human perspective, to find the position of myself and non-human beings (mainly referred to as machines) in the process of creation.

Me and Machines intend to explore beyond the boundaries of ‘human-centred’ artistic creation. In this project, the machine is considered as the real agent of ‘creation’, and I am, as a human creator, an active participant and co-creator of the whole creation process, across the fields of post-humanism, machine and arts.

Two machines with no preset route drew on the canvas. Connected by a line, two repetitive drawing machines pull and entangle each other on the canvas.

The picture becomes random and disordered from regular and orderly at the beginning. Gradually, the machine crossed the boundaries set by the human.

Other-funct aims to create a series of objects that jump out of the normal framework of practicality and usability. The project encourages people to see and think freely and fluidly about how objects are used and the boundaries of design in daily objects.

Other-funct aims to break the general impression of the object and its original function, namely the ‘proper way’ of using the object. All the original objects used in the project were randomly picked up, cleaned and combined by the designer on two random trips in London. The combinations that have a sense of functional contradiction are preserved and made into new objects to be delivered to the audience. In the same way as French artist Jacques Carelman’s Impossible Objects inspired interactive designer Don Norman to write down the famous The Design of Everyday Things, I hope this work can also experiment with the practicality of objects.

The designer will slow down from the process of creating new objects, observe and touch these objects, and reflect on the relationship between objects and users, and the possibilities between objects. The viewer will also slow down in front of the objects to contrast and study how the objects will be used.

POLYECHO is a design statement project initiated by Frandisco Studio designer Zheyuan Luo. The idea of the work is to explore and elaborate the studio ethos: fluid cooperation and playful design, expressed through a series of printed posters.

Fo us, the nature of curiosity drives members to experiment with their design possibilities constantly. While designing this statement, the designer also tried to seek and dance with her experiments on materiality. The connection of the acrylic and the printed texts forms new possibilities. The curve flows and echoes the words. We are the individuals that meet together. It’s the connections that make us who we are as Frandisco Studio.

The word ‘Poly’ in the statement stands for a dynamic collective. The studio is spontaneously formed by a group of members with curiosity in different fields, the exploration of unfamiliar areas and open-mindedness to different points of view constitute our opposition to single, fixed and closed design attitudes and support for the convergence of multiple interests. Meanwhile, the word ‘Echo’ stands for the way of connecting, it is a wave that spreads after the connection is shared. We hope to understand the cooperation form of Frandisco as a platform for sharing and exchanging. We expect to generate connections. Each member can be an anchor point for the ebb and flow of ideas to connect and collaborate. We influence, assimilate, produce, and continue to reverberate.