There’s a perceptible cloud of pessimism hanging over the 10th edition of the International Design Biennial of Saint Etienne, on view now in the former coal town southwest of Lyon, France, through Sunday. Inspired by this year’s theme Working Promise: Shifting Work Paradigms, designers, architects, and artists examine the possibilities of a workforce replaced by robots, the desirability of certain professions based on workers’ success on Tinder, and the imminent demise of capitalism.
“There are many points of view in this biennale, and cynicism is definitely one of them,” says biennale scientific director Olivier Peyricot, citing the unknowns of technology and post-capitalism as major themes. Take “The Ascent,” by London-based writer Ilona Gaynor, which re-envisions the workplace as the interior of an airplane. In her accompanying play, the plane crashes, and the passengers suffer comically grisly deaths.
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