14 October 2007

Creativities Unfold 2007-2008

Creativities Unfold 2007-2008
Pen-Ek Ratanaruang Stefan Sagmeister
Creativities Unfold 2007-2008 at TCDC (10th-14th October) featured a series of design workshops, seminars, and symposia, and was part of the Bangkok Design Festival. The theme for this year's event is Genius Of The Place: In Search Of Excellence From Within. We went to the final day's event, the Genius Loci & Design symposium, to see Pen-ek Ratanaruang and Stefan Sagmeister.

Pen-ek, one of the leading directors of the Thai New Wave, explained that the uncommercial, depressing nature of his films reflects his personal interests in grief, death, and funerals. Alongside clips from his own films, he included sequences from Manhattan, and revealed that he is a fan of Woody Allen. (Unsurprising, as Allen appears to have a similar personality.)

Austrian graphic design superstar Sagmeister showed examples of his previous work, concentrating on Things I Have Learned In My Life So Far, a series of written mottoes (similar to Jenny Holzer's Truisms) which have appeared in a wide range of typographical styles. He gave a candid and fun presentation; unfortunately, though, he didn't mention his most famous project, which involved carving the text of a poster into his bare flesh in 1999.