Bedside Table/Alarm Clock - Michael Anastassiades

Bedside Table/Alarm Clock, Michael Anastassiades, 2006. Image © Heini Schneebeli

Object Details

Date of making: 2006
Date of acquisition: 2006
Technique/Process: Furniture making: metalworking, assemblage
Materials: Enamelled sheet steel, clock, vibrating mechanism
Dimensions: L200mm x W210mm x H520mm
Collection Number: W160

Maker Details

Birthplace: Athens, Greece
Place Trained: Royal College of Art, London, MA Industrial Design, 1991-1993; Imperial College of Science Technology and Medicine, London, Civil Engineering, 1988-1991
Studio: 122 Lower Marsh, London, SE1 7AE, England
Awards: Crafts Council Setting Up Grant, 1997
Link: website -->

About

For years, industrial designer Michael Anastassiades has produced his work in very limited quantities, with the aim of producing exceptionally designed objects of permanent value.

Although he humbly describes his own work as ‘almost mundane’, his designs are far from ordinary. While simple in appearance, each piece has a subversive quirk, and in the case of Bedside Table/Alarm the alarm clock hidden in this bedside table vibrates to wake sleepers. Anastassiades likes objects that do things. ‘I'm interested in the behaviour of things, the psychological relationship you establish with objects.’

The original Bedside Table/Alarm was acquired from the 1998 Crafts Council exhibition No Picnic, which focussed on attitudes towards products and production among contemporary designer makers. It has since featured in Crafts Council exhibitions ‘Industry of One’, 2001 and ‘Collecting a Kaleidoscope’, 2008.

Jana Scholze
says...

“Knowing Michael Anastassiades’ work, the date does not seem right. The original tables were made around 1997 and burned in the infamous fire of a Momart store. 2006 is the date of the re-make of the four prototypes of the Occasional Table series the Crafts Council owns. With the series, the designer intended to impose meaning to an object that, in his opinion, lacked any sense of identity. Hence, he introduced new and specific functions. This table can be used as an alarm clock and rocks due to the different length of its two pairs of legs.”