SHALINI MISRA UNVEILS ‘TECHNOSTALGIA’
Award-winning interior designer, Shalini Misra, unveiled the design for Technostalgia at the 2018 edition of Sleep + Eat. One of several special feature areas, the space reimagines the nightclub by combining our shared nostalgia with modern technology.
Bringing together sound, light, interiors and dance, the nightclub has long been an intersection between creativity and hedonism. Shalini Misra’s Sleep Set is inspired by two generations of designer that completely reimagined the club. The first is the generation of young Italian designers, such a Superstudio and Gruppo 9999, that began thinking about radical new modes of inhabiting space through furniture, light, material and sound. These Italian clubs had distinctive interiors with bright colours and sleek shapes. It was a movement that also saw a resurgence in the 1980s, with the colourful geometric style of the Memphis Group.
These influences are captured in the space, with furniture from Custhom’s Contour collection, a range that explores lines and movement through graphic shapes. This is complemented by a bar and side tables by Andrew Martin, which feature brutalist lines in on-trend brass. Geometric wallpaper in a palette of gold and rich navy blue by Johnnie Lawes for Textura will feature throughout, along with artwork from Falcone.
As well as embracing the history of nightclub design, the space explores the connection between club culture, interior design and technology. In the 1980s in particular, club design was all about expression and the music of the time was heavily influenced by technology following the birth of music TV. Shalini Misra captures this relationship by including a special AV projection by Robert Taussig, celebrating the role of the latest in 21st century technology in the club scene.
The nightclub invites us to escape and to dream, and it has a similar effect on the designer. As a space that is often dark or hidden, it allows for much more creative freedom than other commercial spaces for architects and designers. It is this spirit of freedom and rule-breaking that Shalini Misra has distilled into the installation at Sleep + Eat.
