DESIGNING FOR IMPERMANENCE WITH TYLER HARVEY
Image: Tyler harvey
Tyler Harvey is a UK-based multidisciplinary designer born and raised in Singapore. He has lived and worked in Vancouver, BC and is currently pursuing the study of Design Products at the Royal College of Arts in London, England.
As an industrial designer, Tyler works with materials humans touch and engage with on an everyday basis. As an artist, he calls those materials into question, testing their boundaries both physically and literally, experimenting with new forms of technology and incorporating tools like artificial intelligence into his practice.
Tyler Harvey, AI Doppelganger, 2022
His project AI Doppelganger, 2022 explores self-perception and identity by cleverly challenging the AI software, Dalle 2 to render a visually-similar version of himself. Giving the software only written prompts that describe himself visually, Tyler completes this exercise multiple times with increasing specificity, effectively creating an AI-generated selfie. His piece The World Does Revolve Around You, 2022 combines robotics, cameras and motion sensors all housed inside of a mirror. The piece allows users to see how their own tech devices objectively view them and exposes the extent to which we are being surveilled on a regular basis. The result is equally uncanny, educational and entertaining.
Tyler Harvey, The World Does Revolve Around You, 2022
“[I] started thinking about how I can change the way people think about objects and how that links with critical design. Also considering how these link in with product design”, Tyler notes in his diligent process journal. “Through looking at critical design, I wanted to look into and focus more on how we think about things in our day-to-day lives. Possibly change our view. Sort of similar to how when a comedian makes a joke about something taboo. It starts the conversation.”
Through a series of transatlantic texts, we asked Tyler to delve into his latest fascination:
PC: Can you talk a bit about what you’re currently working on?
TH: I went down a rabbit hole and got super interested in how things connect physically. Like nuts/bolts/nails/glue etc. Take nuts and bolts for example, they come in standard sizes that are used all around the world. If you think about it, there are all these crazy custom products all around the world (cars, couches, tables). They’re designed by people in different countries, decades apart and yet the one thing they have in common is the hardware that holds the product together.
Because of this standardization, in a way, it’s forced designers to conform to set sizes of hardware (no individualization). The more I thought about this, I came to realize that you can split ’ways of connecting’ into different categories. Not permanent (paper tape), semi-permanent (nuts and bolts) and permanent (welding).
At first, I was interested in the non-permanent, because that’s technically the sustainable way of designing something. It’s what we are all taught to design for. If a chair leg breaks, you can fix it cause it’s attached with a nut and bolt (sustainable). The opposite of that idea is permanent connections—things that are designed not to come apart. They are forever objects. Built to last forever and ever. This is what I’m more interested in (as non-eco-friendly as it is lol).
I have been playing around with permanent materials and permanent ways of connecting and seeing what I find interesting. I picked expanding foam to begin with.
This is it after it dried.
This is it with the cast off, dipped in plastic.
This is it with the cast off.
Another mold, but this time with zip ties.
Same sort of thing but I made an aluminum box and didn’t connect it together. I injected foam into it and was left with this. I love this one, probably the best outcome yet.
A few weeks later, Tyler explains how he applied the concept to a furniture design project.
TH: I decided to make two chairs. One that was made with super thin aluminum and filled with expanding foam to make an unsustainable, one-shot product that can’t be repaired.
Tyler Harvey, Foam Chair, 2023
TH: The other chair is made of super thick aluminum, bent with a press break and held together with thick bolts. Therefore being able to be repaired/change pieces out.
Tyler Harvey, Bolt Chair, 2023
PC: Are they functional or decorative? Or both?
TH: Both are functional. The foam chair is delicate. You can sit on it but because the foam is the glue, when you sit on it, there are these cracking noises, which is the foam inside being crushed. The bolt chair is the opposite. Very sturdy.
PC: What do you want to do with the final products? Where will they live?
TH: I want to hold onto both of the chairs. The Foam Chair, I hope, stays with me for a while. It’s just so beautiful. Because it’s so unconventional, I see it as a statement piece. The Bolt Chair I see as being more decorative. Because it’s half the scale, I can’t actually use it so might just be sat on a shelf somewhere.
Tyler Harvey, Foam Chair, 2023
PC: Will you make more? A table? A lamp? What’s next?
TH: Not more of the same. When I finished the foam chair, a friend of mine had a bunch of styrofoam that she was going to throw away. I was thinking about that as a material and how it is so durable, yet in a way bouncy, which kind of contrasts. I was thinking if I were to make a chair out of thin aluminum, like the foam chair, and instead filled it full of cuts of styrofoam and permanently fastened it together. It would then be super durable and super light. I do love the chairs I made but they are quite impractical. They don’t really belong in a home. but the things I’ve learned while making them allow me to think more practically if I were to design a series of furniture for the home. If I were to make a chair out of aluminum and styrofoam I would want it to exist everywhere. Because it would be so durable. It could exist outside, it could be inside or you could take it to your studio. Because you can beat it up, it could be an all-purpose chair.
PC: Does the concept of conjoining or connectivity relate to the rest of your artistic practice?
TH: I think the ways of putting things together are incredibly important and something people don’t really consider when making things. So choosing this as a focal point for my design taught me a lot. I think after doing these projects with this in mind its something I will forever be conscious of when doing design work.
Tyler Harvey, Foam Chair, 2023
