Katazukue: the tidy table
posted November 11th 2005 12:00PM
Maverick designer Crispin Jones, he of the Stress Watch and Go Drive keycase fame (in case you forgot, the former changes clock speed depending on stress levels while the latter only reveals your key if you're suitably stoked about the upcoming jaunt), is back again with another hi-tech product designed to make life more, not less, difficult. This time around he's hit us off with the Katazukue, originally commissioned for the BankArtLife exhibition in Yokohama, a modernist take on the classic conference table which uses dual conveyor belts to randomly and periodically sweep all your possessions onto the floor. In typical high-art style, the table is supposed to serve as a metaphor for technology in general, wherein our addiction to silicon simultaneously improves and takes something away from our lives. We were lucky enough to take the Katazukue for a test drive recently, and after losing a laptop (shoulda sprung for the Toughbook), a Treo, several wine glasses, and countless Hummel figurines, we've decided to stick with the plywood board mounted on our old college text books that has served us so well for all these years.
You could one up him with your old college book plywood setup: light the bottom book of each 'leg' on fire and see which side destroys your stuff the fastest! For an added bonus you could even start a pool on which side wins
And you thought that old linguistics book wasn't good for anything anymore...
This would speed up table turnover in restaurants...
What a great idea, furniture that breaks your stuff.
Next up, furniture that randomly fires poisoned darts at you.
It can be a metaphor for the tenous hold we have on life...
The old standby's... ah yes.
I'm still using the computer desk that I got as a freshman in college in '95. Pretty impressive, i guess, when I think back...
FYI, Katazukue is a pun with the Japanese language of two words. Katazukeru = to clean up and Tsukue (Tsu-koo-eh) = desk.
so where do the cash registers go?
I wish the belts were more hidden within the design of the table.
But as for the point of this piece, I quite like it.
personally, if I designed it, I would have to free standing sides, and each half of the table controlled by hydraulic arms. randomly drops all your crap on your feet. THAT is art.
I still like the Simpson's house of the future table the best. :-)
oh... not my new laptop!
i was just there two days ago! I was in that room staring at a glowing fluffy thing on the floor that breathes, when suddenly the conveyor belts turned on in the middle of a conversation between two people at the table. It was quite humorous.
You should definitely visit this place. It has the wildest objects in it. There's this one room with giant sponges in it.
I saw a performance that night in the grand hall where 20 people ran around half naked making fart noises with their armpits. It was such an experience! Got pictures at http://www.xanga.com/fishermaninjapan
Man, this table with the Rooma/Scubba would be a great combination.