Forgetting, for a moment, the lascivious nature of some of the chosen poses for the accompanying images of the “At Your Command ” series of Mannequin Lamps, I’d like to begin this post by saying that the work done by Daniel Loves Objects is important—this, in spite of the full frontal leg spreading executed by the gold-plated hominid/android/robot that does double duty as a floor lamp. Though the pose strikes me as just a touch obvious, DLO’s point is well taken. Especially in the age of the curvaceous and over-sexualized Absolut Vodka Fembot, it behooves us to contemplate where all this virtual reality business might be taking us. (Check out the Bruce Willis vehicle Surrogates for a fairly dark vision of this aspect of the future).

At Your Command. Designed by Daniel Loves Objects.

Functional, Adjustable, and Fun

Of course, I’m prone to over-analyze, and the appeal of At Your Command is not that it promotes philosophical discourse, but that it’s a kitschy—if provocative—homage that’s also highly utilitarian. The designer behind DLO appears to prefer to remain un-named, but I’m betting that he/she is a huge Star Wars fan, because I can’t look at At Your Command without thinking of the iconic image of C-3PO. The lamps strike me, in fact, as a hybrid between that gold-plated droid and the mannequin furniture in Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange—artifacts that suggest we were contemplating the sexuality of objects long before the idea of virtual reality.

Whatever their antecedents, the At Your Command Lamps will impart no small amount of decadent drama to their surroundings. The fully articulating limbs can be positioned in multiple ways, facilitating imaginative and pragmatic solutions—and perhaps creating new problem–but I’ll leave that up to the individual consumer. And I’ll give the last word to the designer, whose copy nicely captures the inventive spirit of the series: “What if this lamp allows your imagination to run wild? And every movement of joint is at your control? What will the evolution be? The results may be controversial, provoking or elegant.”

Via Coroflot.