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Designer Kelli Anderson on Disruptive Wonder and the Hidden Talents of Everyday Things

via Brain Pickings by Maria Popova on 2/14/12

Exploring the intersection of irreverence and whimsy, or how to expand what we demand from reality.

Kelli Anderson is one of the most talented, thoughtful, inspiring young designers working today, bringing to each project an artist's flair, a scientist's rigor, and a philosopher's deliberation. In this fantastic talk from TEDxPhoenix, she pulls the curtain on the machinery of her magic — something she calls "disruptive wonder," a mechanism for revealing the extraordinary talents of ordinary things.

From a solar-powered popsicle truck, a kind of "physical infographic on wheels," to a holiday card that makes paper interactive, to a wildly believable counterfeit New York Times from the utopian future, to an ingenious paper record player, her projects probe our most fundamental assumptions — about political reality*, about material experience, about design itself — to deliver a potent cocktail of irreverence and delight. Let these 16 minutes make your day:

The world is full of order that doesn't necessarily deserve our respect. Sometimes there is meaning, justice, and logic present in the way things are — but sometimes there just isn't. And I think the moment that we realize this is the moment we become creative people. Because it prompts us to mess things up and do something better with the basic pieces of experience."

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