November 15, 2006. The Apple Store in the Shinsaibashi district of Osaka played host to the DESIGN MATTERS meeting.
Momentarium: Design-powered interventions in the urban public Swiss-born designer and conceptual artist Markuz Wernli Saito recently launched Momentarium.org, an experimental creative laboratory which intersects art and social work in the everyday domain. Being a graphic designer by trade he utilizes the power of media design to engage the public outside of the commercial and ideological paradigm.
His two-month long experiment 'Irasshaimase' (At-Your-Service) offered citizens a chance to participate in daily and fun interventions in urbanite Kyoto to ignite our hyper-functional lives with meaningful surprise and encounters. Markuz gave a great presentation detailing the idea of 'artist-in-service' where the beauty of mediocre places can be found, and about the role of performance in public and what the issues of 'self-sufficient' video documentation are.
Profile
Markuz Wernli Saito is an international designer and conceptual artist inspired by personal observations and life experiences. His projects explore the dialogical character of communal spaces in daily life. His current participatory projects examine the structures that govern the public domain, the roles we play in them, and the influence they sustain in the construction of identity and community. Markuz' eclectic artwork is getting local and worldwide attention. In 2005 he published a photo book on modern Japanese Garden in the US and his image series on public baths (Sento) was shown at Noodle Gallery in San Francisco.
