Lucas Muñoz

Imagining the unexpected

Department: Contextual Design

Bastardism

To ‘bastardise’, as a design method, involves exploring non-design-related fields to add aesthetic and usability references. The resulting objects function as any other of their type, but with an appearance and performance that suggest an unexpected genetic combination. This method creates a conceptual link between two points that is parabolic rather than straight, as is the norm. Examples include containers that don’t directly relate to their expected content, and vice versa. The idea is to play with a user’s perception of an object and the references that perception may trigger. In this way, Lucas Muñoz hopes to achieve a degree of imagination that transfers from the designer to the user, opening the door to questions about usability, materiality, culture and our artificial environment. And so, bastardised design may well break through the limits of what is considered essential, common or mainstream, pushing through the elastic skin of the normal into the dreamlike. Bastardism was realized with thanks to Weber-Beamix, Area 51 Skatepark and Gebroeders Teurlincx.