Returning from Basel, I was struck by the seamless organisation and carefully-considered content one finds there even as a casual visitor. The city seems to make a really concerted effort to put together a cohesive programme of events, from Art Basel and Design Miami/Basel to offshoot events at Depot Basel and the I Never Read book fair, as well as tailored events at all the local museums and the Vitra campus. Even more impressively, the signage is highly visible (some of the type must have been 10,000 pt.) and concisely informative.



I was invited by Design Miami/Basel to moderate a panel entitled The Choreography of Collaboration between Daniel Arsham and Judith Seng, who was commissioned to produce the fourth iteration of her ACTING THINGS series, entitled Material Flow.


Photo by Design Miami/Basel

For this work, Seng has expanded her previous experiments with wax and production between dance and design to reveal a broader loop of work, from raw material processing to manipulation, finishing, and display.



Her collaborators worked eight hours per day on production, labouring quietly on a stage as visitors walked around them.



The discussion was a rare opportunity to ask these two practitioners to speak in-depth about their conceptual mentality, working methods, and reflections on their output. Between the poles of Seng's design process and Arsham's artistic practice, there is an overlap about the point of the stage; in contrast to the lofty pedestal on which contemporary design work is placed, however, they use the stage setting to heighten the consciousness of the viewer and to entice from them a more attentive and even bodily involvement with the work.



Being in Basel offered so much beyond the talks, of course. Design Miami/Basel is a tightly-edited but wonderfully rich show, with quite a different range of designers than the ones typically celebrated at Salone del Mobile. Libby Sellers introduced me to the work of Ryuji Nakamura, who produced the Water Lily bench with a painstakingly laborious process, colouring by hand the slender rods with a pencil before sealing them with a lacquer and attaching them together. From different angles, this bench revealed entirely different shades, while resisting any impression of solidity.



I also discovered Southern Guild, a South African design gallery, whose display included an astoundingly intricate collection of 3D-printed toys by Michaella Janse van Vuuren.



Miroir Froissé by Mathias Kiss was notable just for its sheer spectacularity; it seems to fit into a broader theme of mirrors and reflective objects in the art and design world—something, I should say, that was pointed out by intrepid fair-goer Zuzanna Skalska in 2012 in Premsela's Milan Breakfasts.



A Million Times and The clock clock white by Humans Since 1982 are both well-known by now, but it's hard to describe the feeling of seeing them in person—they are that entrancing.



However, I would venture to say that their Collection of Light series of scientifically annotated LEDs, presented almost in the style of a lepidopterist, was just as intriguing, even without the dynamism of the clock array. I love this estrangement of mundane human culture, as if a future ethnographer was examining our own civilisation.



I was also quite impressed with this series of adapted ski gondolas for Verbier Mountain Climbers, including Rock by Adrien Rovero...



...while Baker Wardlaw's Vending Machine was irresistible.



I have to thank Design Miami for hosting me in such a wonderful environment at the Krafft Basel. It was quite difficult to part with this room, although the train back to Italy did offer some intoxicating views, including Isola Superiore by Stresa...



...and I'll never forget the moment when I came within feet of Kanye West:


Photo by Seth Browarnik / WorldRedEye.com