Do we still have it? Can we invent new aesthetics, design sustainable products and rid our cities of waste . . . cultivate new sensibilities for our post-materialist age?

There are hints of this new aesthetic in Kenya Hara’s Designing Design when he talks about “a future without artifice,” “whispered value systems” and creating “vehicles of thought and feeling.” He says products are supposed to inspire “acceptance” not “appetite” . . . that the appropriate response to a product is “This will do,” not “This is what I want.”

And there are clues to it in Jean-Marie Massaud’s mission to create “a new art de vivre,” and examples of it in Banksy’s (and other street artists’) heady mix of politics, design and the intimacies of everyday life.

Our century will be a time of monumental ideological clashes, paradigm shifts and metamemetic insurgencies on multiple fronts. We artists and designers must be the advance guards - positioning ourselves at the forefront of every struggle and debate.

Just as farmers are the keepers of land, we are the keepers of mindscape. We must nurture it and care for it and make sure there will always be wilderness, diversity and freedom there.

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