The Purpose of Design is to Make Design Obsolete

"the purpose of design is to make design obsolete"

This thought struck my mind today. It's probably my interest in general systems theory speaking. Might give you something to ponder.

Mark Rothko

"Certain people always say we should go back to nature. I notice they never say we should go forward to nature."

This is what the great artist Mark Rothko once said. Does his quote not suffice for a whole month of blog posts? As I understand it, Rothko had the transcendent goal to spiritually liberate people in a time where modernism forces people into abstract lives that seemed to free them, but actually made them suffer on a deeper level. He valued the intimate and the human, instead of the grandiose.

It seems that art is intellectually way ahead of technology design. Actually art is a kind of technology I think. Anyway, there are vast fields to be roamed for inspiration. I at least think that Rothko provides some ideas that will help in the development of technological products that are sustainable on a spiritual level, and not just a material level. His often huge paintings might seem boring and require some intellectual abilities to already be present in the viewer in order to understand them; they are about the ideas that lead to the paintings, not just about spatial arrangement of colours and forms...