Yael Eylat Van-Essen PhD – Curator / Researcher

The concept of “open-source” has become part of the collective vocabulary towards the end of the twentieth century. It connects to utopian groups of computer developers, who have chosen to expose and share program codes in order to bypass known capitalist production patterns. The implementation of the core ideas of Open-Source in Design is at the center of the “File:\Home” exhibition.

The introduction of Open Source to Design changes the role of the designer who is transformed from a professional creating an object to the one who is responsible for the feasibility conditions of many possible products. This change in attitude has special significance in the design of the house as a space where this potential can be implemented by its end user.

This exhibition analyzed the deep meanings rooted at the concept of open source and its implications on design. While its internal ethics try to keep it “free” in its multiple meanings, it does not always succeed in fulfilling this vision. Manufacturers and companies who identify the potential embedded in open-source, extract concepts such as “self-customization” in order to create a fake impression of the inclusion of the client in the design process.

By entering the gallery designed as a domestic space of a home, the visitor in this exhibition is invited to take part in the dualist discourse that the exhibition presents between a program and object, an idea and its implementation and between values and their annihilation. In this way it offers a new perspective on open-source design and on its future.