Hertzian Tales: Electronic Products, Aesthetic Experience and Critical Design [Paperback]

"Design culture asks not just how sleek or usable some object is, but what it actually inclines us to do. As the world slowly realizes that electronic objects cannot be exceptions to this rule, it is worth remembering how early and how well Dunne & Raby showed us so. At last in an edition worthy of its role, Hertzian Tales offers provocations whose significance has only increased."--Malcolm McCullough, University of Michigan, author of *Digital Ground* "A worthwhile challenge to the market subservience that dominates industrial design, indicating some of the ways of turning design towards more speculative, critical possibilities." Design Philosophy Papers "Anthony Dunne's thoroughly researched book is a harbinger of the future a future where invisible electromagnetic spaces with their surreal qualities become a major component of architectural ambition and aspiration. Marvel at the secret lives of dreaming electronic objects and enjoy this fantastic odyssey. And see the future fully for the first time." Neil Spiller , Professor of Architecture and Digital Theory and Vice Dean, Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London "Anthony Dunne's thoroughly researched book is a harbinger of the futurea future where invisible electromagnetic spaces with their surreal qualities become a major component of architectural ambition and aspiration. Marvel at the secret lives of dreaming electronic objects and enjoy this fantastic odyssey. And see the future fully for the first time." Neil Spiller , Professor of Architecture and Digital Theory and Vice Dean, Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London "Anthony Dunne's thoroughly researched book is a harbinger of the future -- a future where invisible electromagnetic spaces with their surreal qualities become a major component of architectural ambition and aspiration. Marvel at the secret lives of dreaming electronic objects and enjoy this fantastic odyssey. And see the future fully for the first time."--Neil Spiller, Professor of Architecture and Digital Theory and Vice Dean, Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London "This compact manifesto is essential reading for anyone who's ever used an electronic product. *Hertzian Tales* explores the complex chemistry whereby industry, design, use, misuse, and marketing all combine to form product. But while products are often boring, Dunne sees the potential for them to offer the sorts of 'complicated pleasures' we get from film or literature, and points to concrete ways that poetic products could be engineered. A theorist and practitioner, Dunne sees industrial design as a form of popular culture, and his analysis of that culture is accessible and profound."--Christopher Csikszentmihalyi, Media Arts & Sciences, MIT --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Hertzian Tales weaves a poetic and critical analysis of the electonic object drawing on influences from architecture, art, industrial design, film and music. It attempts a radical rethink of the status of product design urging a move away from the constraints of the marketplace in favour of more critically, socially and aesthetically engaged practice.

Architecture and furniture design have operated in the realm of cultural speculation for some time, but product design's strong ties to the marketplace have left little room for exploring the cultural function of electronic products. As more of our everyday social and cultural experiences are mediated by electronic products, designers need to develop ways of exploring how this electronic mediation might enrich people's everyday lives.

Hertzian Tales sets the scene for relocating the electronic product beyond a culture of relentless innovation for its own sake based simply on what is technologically possible and semiologically consumable to a broader context of critical thinking on its aesthetic role in everyday life.

Dr Anthony Dunne is Senior Research Fellow in Computer Related Design and Senior Tutor in Industrial Design and Furniture at the Royal College of Art, London. He is also partner in the design practice Dunne + Raby.