From Audience Creativity to Asia’s Creative Scene: Talk Programs Charting New Frontiers in Product Design
Throughout the exhibition period at alter., daily talk sessions will be held at the venue and later distributed as podcasts. The sessions cover diverse themes: creativity among audiences, creative scenes in Indonesia and China, the design philosophy behind TENGA, which broke sexual taboos, and user interventions in products through repair and modification. Here, we introduce each session that illuminates the issues surrounding contemporary product design.
Seven Sessions Revealing Key Issues
alter. will host a total of seven talk sessions. While the exhibition presents new products from various perspectives, these seven talk sessions aim to highlight issues surrounding contemporary product design from angles different from the exhibition itself.
The opening session, “Responding to Today’s Challenges,” will kick things off during the reception on Thursday, November 6 (Note: This session is by invitation only but will be available as a podcast later). Committee members who served as judges for alter.—Tanja Hwang, Olivier Zeitoun, Kristen de La Valliere, and Keisuke Nakamura—will gather at the venue, with Simone Farresin of FormaFantasma joining online to mark the opening of alter.
In this session, committee members who have viewed the exhibition projects will provide feedback while discussing the significance of launching alter. and the landscape that lies ahead. As environmental changes surrounding society—including the climate crisis and the rise of AI—impact product design, this session will clarify what challenges product designers should confront today. Award-winning works selected by each committee member will also be announced during the session, revealing which exhibition projects received awards during the exhibition period.
Committee Members Appearing at the Opening Talk
Where Does Product Design Stand Today?
During the exhibition period from Friday, November 7 to Sunday, November 9, two talk sessions will be held each day around specific themes. On the first day, November 7 (Friday), under the theme “Current State of Product Design,” various creators who are emerging in today’s design scene will appear.
The first session is titled “Where Will Tomorrow’s Design Scene Be?” Among the more than 50 creators participating in alter., many young designers born after the 1990s are included. Their activities vary—from those working independently to those engaged in cross-disciplinary collaborations. In this session, many creators will speak in turn to reveal how they position the role of designers, what movements they’re focusing on, what challenges they perceive, and how they view the design scene surrounding them—creators who are likely to lead tomorrow’s design scene.
The second session, titled “Considering Asian Aesthetics Now,” traces the rapidly developing creativity in Asia over the past decade. Three creators currently visiting Japan from China and Indonesia will participate: graphic designer Rege Indrastudioto, who served as president of the Indonesian Graphic Designers Association at a young age; Wanqi, who works at the creative studio “Devolution” based in Beijing, China; and Meng Jinhui, who runs the distinctive music label “bié Records” in China’s music scene and also manages media ventures. Moderated by Shunsuke Ishikawa, representative director of KESIKI, who collaborates extensively with them, the session will unpack Asia’s creative scene.
The term “developing” belies the diversity—different countries have different modes of designer activity and creative ecosystems. Although Western influence remains very strong in the design field, the balance of power may shift in the future. The contemporary Asian creative scene revealed in this session likely holds important clues for thinking about the future of product design.
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Devolution based in China develops various projects across diverse fields.
The Potential of Individual Creativity
On the second day, Saturday, November 8, under the theme “Design for Engaging with the Individual,” the focus shifts from the macro perspective of day one to clarifying how “individuals”—users and designers—can engage with design.
The first session of the day is “Expanding Audience Creativity.” When we talk about “design” and “creativity,” we tend to focus on creators who make products and works, but audiences and users are also bearers of creativity. How should we understand the creativity of those who receive and engage with design?
To answer this question, the session features Ryuki Sugino, representative of DODI and one of alter.’s exhibitors; Hirotaka Fukui, a theater director who has focused on the relationship between objects and people; and participants from “Composition from the Viewer’s Side,” organized by GAKU, which develops workshop programs for teenagers, held in conjunction with alter. Sugino has considered not only creating finished products but also how to engage various people in the “process.” Fukui, meanwhile, is known as an unusual director who, while continuously presenting theatrical works, has developed research focusing on works where objects participate in theater and the relationship between theaters, objects, and people. Their talk session will give rise to new creativity mediated through audiences and users.
The second session focuses on the intense passion and will of makers: “Design Starts from Human Desire” Koichi Matsumoto, founder of TENGA who reframed “self-pleasure” in positive terms, and Takuto Ota, one of alter.’s participating creators, will join the discussion to explore the ego—the passion—that drives creators.
Matsumoto is particularly known for cutting into the previously taboo realm of sexuality and inventing the new product TENGA after three years of development. While TENGA may have rarely been discussed from a product design perspective, this product—realized through Matsumoto’s strong will, free from fixed ideas—can be said to be a rare one that opened up a new market through unprecedented functionality. Neither simply making what one wants to make nor creating products to meet market needs—together with Ota, who has presented various works as a designer/artist, they will consider the possibilities of product design emerging from TENGA.
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GAKU conducted an eight-session program titled “Composition from the Viewer’s Side” from August to November.
Reconsidering Product Design from the Margins
On the final day, Sunday, November 9, under the theme “Designing the Frontier,” attention turns to themes often marginalized in product design. This is because the margins may hold the key to thinking about the future relationship between society, products, and design.
The first session, “The Right to Repair, The Freedom to Modify,” focuses on the practices of “repair” and “modification.” Regarding repair in particular, the importance of the “right to repair” has been proclaimed primarily in Europe for some time.
While many electronic products, including smartphones, have become more sophisticated and affordable, once they break down, users cannot (or find it difficult to) repair them. From users’ perspective, this may not seem like a major problem since they often have opportunities to exchange products for new ones at low cost without repair, but we could say we are unknowingly losing our agency as users. In this session, Takehiko Yoshida, well-versed in right-to-repair issues, will speak to clarify why repair has become important now.
Meanwhile, TV producer Tomomi Nagasawa, who will appear alongside Yoshida, focuses on “modification.” The program *Nights of Magical Remodeling*, which she directs, is known as a popular show where engineers from prominent manufacturers “magically remodel” existing home appliances and toys to create wildly transformed products. While “product design” tends to evoke the finished products proposed by designers, not all products were created from nothing. Rather, new functions and values have been proposed through modifications of existing products. By considering the creativity of acts where users actively intervene in products—like repair and modification—this session should redefine our relationship with products.
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Nights of Magical Remodeling features numerous innovative products born from modification.
The final session is “Expanding Interfaces.” While we interact with diverse products daily, devices such as computers and smartphones have become indispensable while greatly transforming people’s lives and experiences. This may be changing our relationship with products beyond mere digital tools.
Appearing in this session are artist Rintaro Fuse, who is publishing a theory of interfaces this fall, and philosopher Tora Koyama, who specializes in analytic metaphysics and robot philosophy. Fuse has focused on recovering “solitude” and “being together” in cities since the release of smartphones, while Koyama is known for his expertise in the history of computer thought. As various software and hardware—including AI, head-mounted displays, and robots—permeate our lives beyond the smartphone era, this talk about past and future interfaces will offer important insights for considering the experiences that product design brings.
The seven sessions held at alter. can be freely attended at the venue and will also be distributed as podcasts after the exhibition period. These talk sessions, ranging freely across various themes, should provide new perspectives for thinking about “products”—both for those involved in design and for those who are not.