Safe and Sound

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Safety instruc­tions, safe driv­ing poster campaigns, access control in company lobbies, X-ray tunnels at airports and protect­ive gear for leis­ure activ­it­ies are just some of contem­por­ary soci­ety’s many rules and proced­ures designed to improve secur­ity or prevent dangers. Insurers, lawyers, engin­eers, design­ers and scient­ists pay very care­ful atten­tion to public safety.

There is such a pleth­ora of inform­a­tion aimed at ensur­ing our safety that we no longer pay any atten­tion to it. But what is the point of these items? Are they a shield against fear, whether well-foun­ded or fictional? A need for total control? Do consumers demand them? Are they a pretext for taking risks? Why do we devote so much energy to secur­ity these days? Why have certain States made them a virtual profes­sion of polit­ical faith? Nowadays, ultrase­cur­ity, the denial of the unex­pec­ted and the desire for total foresight are the norm and go together with a certain denial of death that char­ac­ter­ises our soci­ety.

Current state of surveil­lance and protec­tion

The exhib­i­tion Safe and Sound exam­ines the current state of these phenom­ena, bring­ing together design works, every­day objects, photo­graphy and contem­por­ary art. It touches on the inter­con­nec­ted subjects of safety, fear, protec­tion and surveil­lance, four key terms which guided the selec­tion of works in the exhib­i­tion. Its start­ing point is the convic­tion that these terms are insep­ar­able in human psycho­lo­gies and in the way soci­ety treats them.

Some projects present design solu­tions to very concrete prob­lems, such as Anna Haupt and Terese Alstin’s airbag for cyclists, which deploys in the event of a colli­sion, or the $1 gauge which enables the right amount of bleach to be diluted in a bucket of water to make it an effect­ive disin­fect­ant. The earth­quake-proof table designed by Arthur Brut­ter & Ido Bruno can shel­ter two school­chil­dren during an earth­quake, and protect them from heavy fall­ing debris.

Parod­ies, appro­pri­ation and crit­ical discourses

Other artists and design­ers, by contrast, take the side of détourne­ment, humor­ously point­ing out the fantas­ies of secur­ity and control. The Earth­quake-Proof Table by ECAL/Martino D’Es­posito is a parody of this device, com- posed of all the neces­sary elements for survival in Switzer­land: milk­ing stool, fondue pot, saus­age and a bottle of Henniez, not forget­ting, of course, a milit­ary blanket, and leis­ure mater­ial – an adult magazine!

Other projects high­light all the ambi­gu­ity of our rela­tion­ship with secur­ity and play on the discom­fort it evokes. These include the spec­tac­u­lar install­a­tion Fences, by the designer Dejana Kabiljo: a bed enclosed by protect­ive yet disturb­ing fences. Happylife, a domestic appli­ance by James Auger, Reyer Zwigge­laar and Bashar Al Rajoub, helps us identify the mood of family members; it is thus an aid to commu­nic­a­tion, yet it works by submit­ting them for profil­ing and regu­lar eval­u­ation by the machine.

Several design­ers and artists have developed a crit­ical discourse around surveil­lance and control of the general popu­la­tion’s deeds and actions, partic­u­larly in the public sphere. For instance, Ruben Pater and Trevor Paglen address means of identi­fy­ing threats from the sky. The former is the author of a poster identi­fy­ing types of drone so that civil­ians living in the areas where they are used can recog­nise them and better protect them­selves. The latter is a photo­grapher and geographer who tracks and photo­graphs secret satel­lites in orbit, thanks to data gathered by a vast inter­na­tional amateur network.

Whether the objects in the exhib­i­tion are incon­spicu­ous aspects of contem­por­ary life, or were created by artists and design­ers to express a partic­u­lar point of view, they combine to form a reveal­ing panor­ama of these insep­ar­able issues and their every­day ubiquity.

Design­ers and artists: James Auger & Jimmy Loizeau, Alan Murray & Reyer Zwigge­laar & Bashar Al Rajoub, Claude Baechtold, Josh Begley, James Bridle, Ido Bruno & Arthur Brut­ter, Bureau A: Daniel Zamarbide & Leopold Banchini, Centre Martin Luther King Lausanne, Dainese, Timothé Deschamps & Paolo Gnazzo / HEAD–­Genève, Anthony Dunne & Fiona Raby, ECAL/Martino D’Es­posito, The Empower­ment Plan, Ying Gao, Shilpa Gupta, Mishka Henner, Hövd­ing Airbag, Humans since 1982, Indus­trial Facil­ity: Sam Hecht & Kim Colin, Forrest Jessee, Dejana & Jasen Kabiljo, Onkar Kular & Inigo Minns, Math­ieu Lehan­neur, Mamoris, Bujar Marika, Alberto Meda & Fran­cisco Gomez Paz, Chris­tien Meindertsma, Gabri­ele Meldaikyte, Simon Menner, Sébas­tien Mettraux, Nils Norman, Studio Orta: Jorge & Lucy Orta, Trevor Paglen, Ruben Pater, Thomas Ruff, Daniel Ruggiero, Leonardo Selvag­gio, SEN.SE, Studio GGSV: Stéphane Villard & Gaëlle Gabil­let, Super­life: Edrris Gaaloul & Cyrille Verdon, Susana Soares, David Swann, Julia Veldhuijzen van Zanten

With the support of Loterie Romande, Fond­a­tion Leen­aards, Fond­a­tion Sandoz, Fond­a­tion Ernst Göhner, Société Académique Vaudoise and Fond­a­tion Engel­berts.