This year has heralded the rise of AI, the proliferation of deep fakes, and the ascendance, demise and re-emergence of NFTs – those pesky non-fungible tokens with their super-slick, digital aesthetic. It’s also the year a series of ultra-short animations pitting human-headed toilets against humanoid characters with electronic devices for heads racked up 36 million YouTube subscribers. To date, Skibidi Toilet, created by 25-year-old Alexey Gerasimov on his YouTube channel DaFuq!?Boom! has attracted 14 billion views.
Little wonder, then, that designers the world over are responding to this rapid (to not say rabid) dematerialisation of consumer culture with furniture, lighting and objects for the home that are resplendently hand-crafted, unabashedly robust and boldly gestural. In 2024, materiality will be king, or queen, or maybe rule in a non- binary way.
Colour Shift coffee table by Rive Roshan. Courtesy Gallery Sally Dan-Cuthbert The Amsterdam-based Australian design duo Ruben de la Rive Box and Golnar Roshan create ethereal household objects – mirrors, lighting, vessels – that seem to disappear but in fact occupy space with aplomb. It’s this visual paradox, shimmering in fluted glass, that makes them so compelling. Like this coffee table, which appears to glow from within but is, in fact, reflecting the life and light that surrounds it. “In the interplay between light and matter, our view of the world is formed,” note the designers. “We see by the grace of light.”
Rive Roshan is represented by Gallery Sally Dan-Cuthbert, Sydney
