GALLERY 2010/2011

Our economic system based on consumption is failing because is an exponential curve of growth drawn on a linear and finite system as planet Earth is. The economy of mass consumption is not yet exploded, but we are in a moment in time where can prevent a state of complete unpredictability. Nations are acting as a suicide just before jumping out the window on the top floor of a skyscraper. Regulated by a perverse use of money, that create constant depth, most of the governments are driven by non empathic persons. An everyday use of the concept of money as a light substitute of reality, and an everyday thinking about the needs of the mass production machinery, lead the mind to forget the link with nature and activate perverse nets of selfish understanding. Human being are far more complex than money! Most of the citizen are blind after fifty years of mass image production oriented to push people to buy. Steady State provide a way to continue a viral awareness about a world that do not desire to jump out the window on the top floor, but a world of people that want to come down to the city, move in the nature and practicing new sustainable economies.

The graphic simplification of radical ideas is an necessary but little tackled task for visual communication. This piece demonstrates that a matter of fact visual language that avoids both the manipulative seduction of corporate advertising and potential alienation of highly subjective aesthetics can be digestible and memorable.

The poster works well but perhaps would benefit from some visual refinement (eg in terms of different element's relative weight and general typography). Amongst the universalising icons I would have also enjoyed some unexpected detours - a little poetry amongst the data.

While the metric nature of this approach to visual communication hides the fecund and organic nature of the processes described it seems a fair trade-off to ensure communicative success. There are still issues within the seeming holistic logic of the overall composition, as in addition to reduced complexity, we also have ideals of financial and ecological interaction. While these are "true" they are also scales within which variation occurs, not absolutes. The overall formal approach steers towards the uniform, which may in some cases misrepresent that diversity of voices possible within the relationships described.

I'm reminded here of George Monbiot's HEAT – solutions to Global warming can be quite simple at the level of the individual, much less so at each successive level of population as one moves in consideration towards the global populace. I think here the opportunity is to connect the portrayed relationships and concepts as they pertain to the (single) viewer.