Interior Design is an activity that belongs to a very remote anthropological culture. It is a theme connected not exactly with historical styles, but with another much more articulate type of thinking. The aim of the paper consists in presenting the methodology used in a reflection on this activity, a research which included not only the Western rationality, but also the magic sphere of the shamanic world. In particular, it is a reflection on the culture of Brazilian modern project and shamanic tradition of the Amazon Indians. Brazil is a country that hosts the native cultures with their traditions, objects, and villages in the same way that it is refuge of West civilization, with its design and contemporaneous architecture. While Brazil is the place where the contradictions may be conciliated, the magic is a key that human beings developed in order to comprehend the environment and to live in harmony with it. This key offers a vertical perspective to the human minds which elemental fundament is the integration of nature, that is, everything is part of a unified set. Unlike shamanism, Western rationality has a horizontal vision that tends to separate things.
At first, the ethnographic methodology was adopted in order to identify any evidence to connect shamanism to design. In this sense, I made an immersion in the daily lives of some indigenous groups of Amazon to understand their culture and, mostly, their cosmology. Then, to assess the indigenous influence within design, the historical moment that discussed the height of the primitive aesthetic in the world of arts was investigated. The information that emerged from these analyses was that Brazilian designers had developed an experimental process that led them to a subversive phenomenon. The subversion consisted in transforming objects in components with juxtaposition of fragments. This experimental approach has contributed to redimensioning the aesthetic and conceptual structure of Brazilian design.
When the origin of this phenomenon was being investigated, it raised the hypothesis that the experimental process of design in Brazil would be based in shamanic principles. This evidenced the existence of a symbiotic relation between the indigenous cosmology and the universe of Brazilian design. After comparing both universes, two common principles of shamanic origin established interdependence between them: the principle of experimentation and the principle of contiguity. In indigenous culture, these principles demonstrate the possibility of transformation and a continue creation of the elements which compose the Cosmos. According to indigenous habits, transformation is to transmute to another body. In design, the same principles may be interpreted as projectual phases constituted by the fusion of trivial elements and technological components. Here the transformation does not equate to transmutation but to subversion: components had their original function subverted to be used in a different context.
In order to carry out these activities of transformation, shamans and designers decompose and recompose the world they know by exploring it through free associations of elements. Once the original matter is transferred from its natural habitat, the values of the components are transformed within a context of revalorization. This way, they create new structures with new meanings. Shamans and designers, more than only perceiving the connections between things and beings, they modify them, recontextualize them. In effect, the transgression of the original matter incites the spectator to carry out a new reading of the object which, in turn, will lead him to express an unexpected emotion translated as mystical or magical.
The hypothesis of shamanic experimental basis led me to the concept that the behaviour of the Brazilian designer would also be shamanic. He creates original pieces with great expressive force and strong emotional appeal. His approach is intuitive and does not rely on theoretical models in order to develop his projects. This behaviour is similar to the mechanisms of shamanic thought, which encompasses magic and relies on knowledge and experience, not on valid models. Shamanic magic is not complex. In order to create or to transform things, shamanic magic seeks simplified solutions. Quite often the components are already available in the environment itself and all that is needed is to regroup them in a new structure, always considering things from their totality, not from their parts. It consists in seeking icons, finding new correlations, and transforming the various elements dispersed in the world into creative expression. All this is intended to help man achieve a less materialist human condition and thus integrate him with the universal whole. What matters is not the way nor the style, but the spirit.
Although shamanic logic is very different from western logic, the research results have demonstrated that Brazilian designer has a behaviour which is able to bring together these two rationalities. Obviously, this shamanic behaviour is more a mental form than a combination of techniques used to disassemble and reassemble physical components. However, these results still belong to the analysis of a single object. The indigenous universe is much broader, and its relationship with design could not be summarized only to this. Similar to the object, indigenous habitat has a different atmosphere in comparison to West: it is loaded with symbols, spiritual entities, mystical narrations which, in a general way, are representations of life. So, the hypothesis to be explored in this paper is about an integral relationship, a relation that is not just limited to the object, but the complex that surrounds the entire system of objects. If the shamanic behaviour also extends towards the built space, what sort of relationship could exist between Interior Design, the spatial culture in Brazil, and the form of indigenous houses, the organization of villages, and the familiar group of Amazon Indians?
This research is not limited to the context of Brazil. The ancestry brings new questions and new values that are universal; they are incentives to the creation of other charismatic figures in contemporaneity. Indeed, this is a general reflection on design and anthropology, a type of construction which exceeds the historical approach that believes design would start with the Industrial Revolution.
References
Arantes, José Tadeu. 2005. Ciência e espiritualidade: do xamã ao Prêmio Nobel, todos são filhos de Deus. São Paulo: Editora Terceiro Nobre / Mostarda Editora.
Badan, Rosane Costa. 2008. The indigenous cosmology of the Amazon and the Brazilian modern project: the relationship between intuitive thought and rational thought within contemporary design. Paper presented at the international design conference for the Cumulus Kyoto 2008, March 28-31, in Kyoto, Japan.
__________ 2007. A relação entre uma cultura primitiva e uma cultura contemporânea no design. Paper presented at the international congress for the World Congress on Communication and Arts. November 18-21, in São Paulo, Brazil.
Baudrillard, Jean, trans.1997. O sistema dos objetos. São Paulo: Editora Perspectiva.
Bisogno, Paolo, Daniela Bruni, and Giuseppe Caglioti. 2001. Immagini e conoscenza, Roma: Prometheus International.
Bottero, Bianca. 2004. Decostruzione in architettura e in filosofia. Milano: Libreria Cup.
Borges, Adélia. 2003. Designer não é personal trainer: e outros escritos. São Paulo: Edições Rosari.
Branzi, Andrea. 2006. Modernità debole e diffusa: il mondo del progetto all’inizio del XXI secolo. Milano: Skira Editore.
Caglioti, Giuseppe. 1986. Simmetrie infrante. Milano: Clup Cooperativa Libraria Universitaria del Politecnico.
De Bono, Edward. 2007. Il pensiero laterale: come diventare creativi. Milano: Bur.
De Moraes, Dijon. 2006. Análise do design brasileiro - entre mimese e mestiçagem. São Paulo: Editora Edgard Blucher.
Dormer, Peter. 1997. The culture of craft: status and future. Glasgow: Published by Manchester University Press.
Drouot, Patrick, trans. 2001. O físico, o xamã e o místico: os caminhos espirituais percorridos no Brasil e no exterior. Rio de Janeiro: Nova Era.
Eliade, Mircea, trans. 2002. O xamanismo e as técnicas arcaicas do êxtase. São Paulo: Martins Fontes.
Favaretto, Celso. 2000. Tropicália, alegoria alegria. São Paulo: Ateliê Editorial.
Fausto, Carlos. 2001. Inimigos fiéis história, guerra e xamanismo na Amazônia. São Paulo: Edusp – Editora da Universidade de São Paulo.
Gonçalvez, Marco Antônio. 2001, O mundo inacabado: ação e criação em uma cosmologia amazônica. Rio de Janeiro: Editora UFRJ.
Gordon, Cesar. 2006. Economia selvagem: ritual e mercadoria entre os índios Xikrin-Mebengokre. São Paulo: Editora Unesp – ISA, and Rio de Janeiro: Nuti.
Hall, Edward H., trans. 1986. A dimensão oculta. Lisboa: Antropos.
Hara, Kenya, trans, 2007. Designing Design. Baden: Lars Muller Publishers.
Katz, David, trans. 1992. La psicologia della forma. Torino: Bollati Boringhieri Editore.
Leon, Ethel. 2005. Design brasileiro: quem fez, quem faz (Brazilian design: who did, who does). Rio de Janeiro: Senac Rio Editora / Viana, and Mosley Editora.
Lévi-Strauss, Claude, trans. 2007. Mito e significado. Lisboa: Edições 70.
Mauss, Marcel, trans. 2000. Teoria generale della magia. Torino: Biblioteca Einaudi.
Netto, Adriano Bitarães. 2004. Antropofagia oswaldiana: un receituário estético e científico. São Paulo: Annablume.
Nunes, Benedito. 1979. Oswald canibal. São Paulo: Editora Perspectiva.
Papanek, Victor, trans. 1995. Arquitectura e design: ecologia e ética. Lisboa: Edições 70.
Prandi, Carlo. 2006. Lucien Lévy-Bruhl: pensiero primitivo e mentalità moderna. Milano: Edizioni Unicopli.
Riccò, Dina. 1999. Sinestesia per il design: le interazioni sensoriali nell’epoca dei multimedia. Milano: Etas.
Rookes, Paul, and Jane Wilson, trans. 2002. La percezione. Bologna: Il Mulino.
Santana, Pedro Ariel. 2005. O design no Brasil: móveis + objetos + instalação. São Paulo: Editora Abril.
Strathern, Paul, trans. 1999. Bohr e a teoria quântica em 90 minutos. Rio de Janeiro: Jorge Zahar Editor.
Teles, Gilberto Mendonça. 2002. Vanguarda européia e modernismo brasileiro: apresentação dos principais poemas, manifestos, prefácios e conferências vanguardistas de 1857 a 1972. Petrópolis: Editora Vozes.
