Josephine M. Schulte

Josephine M. Schulte
Email: st2644@burg-halle.de
Dear OpenDesign User!
Thank you for downloading my atomic_doily file!
This doily was generated in an OpenDesign project at my University and is part of my collection named „neo_
Babbitism“ (german title „neo_Spießichismus“). It is about the culture of smugness or „Spießigkeit“, as we call
it in Germany. It should be a homage or a parody (as you like) on this kind of phenomenon.
Therefor I used the looking of oldschool handmade lace (as you probably know it from your grandmother) took
typical items which you connect with smugness and transfer them into a special, ironic and ambiguous meaning.
The result should be playful, humorous, critical, maybe shocking, definitely astonishing and also decorative.
For showing you which thoughts and suggestions have played a role in my working process there is an essay
enclosed, which I wrote.
I hope you enjoy my work!
Kind regards,
Josephine M. Schulte
Production instructions
For my atomic_doily I used the cutting plotter method. You can go to any printing shop which offers you this
method. It is very cheap by the way, usually you just pay the adherence foil. So select any colour you like and
stick the ready doily on any interior in your appartment! please be creative!
Please note that you can use this design as many times you like, change it, send it to others, and express
through it any personal point of view and creativity, as long as you follow the Creative Commons licence
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/).
I would like you to write me about your experience with this product and read your suggestions. In case you
made modifications or found nice applications to it, I would be curious to see them!

In Germany there lives a human genus called Spießer. It is a typical phenomenon in some parts of german‘s society. I
looked the word up in my english dictionary, and found the word „bourgeois“. After more research i don‘t think that this is
a proper translation, so I used the german word in the following essay. I hope you will figure out, what i mean when I use
this term.
The common Spießer owns a wall unit made of dark oak, decorates his TV with lace doily and crystal vase including fake
flowers, gives his pillows the right looking with the help of a accomblishly placed slap of his hand and upbraid the kids
who are playing in his fresh mowed front garden full of lawn gnomes. In his freetime he collects stamps and polishes his
car obsessivly. Inside his car there are lambskin upholsteries and a crocheted cover on a toiletpaper roll placed on the back
shelf.
Under general suspicion have always been officials, caretakers, opel drivers, allotment holders, building society savers,
rabbit growers, owners of tapestries with belling stags and fizzy mountain streams. The typical Spießer wears suspenders
and white socks with sandals.
Wikipedia offers following definition:
Spießbürger or Spießer are narrow-minded people who are charachterized by intellecutal immobility, conformity to social
norms, antipathy to changes of familiar ambience and strong need for social security.
Well, nobody wants to be called narrow-minded, but social security and a bit mainstram once in a while does not hurt,
does it?? A little bit conservative does not mean automaticly to be spießy!
And shouldn‘t we call the ones of all people Spießer, who adjudge the supposed Spießer in their neighborhood??
The german actor Christian Ulmen who performed „Herr Lehmann“, the ultimate Spießer, thinks, that a Spießer is somebody,
who is not able to look beyond his own nose. Ulmen says: „If someone is intolerant and does not allow anything else,
he is a Spießer. I think that many people who do not want to be Spießer anymore, do that in the same way as a Spießer.
They become the new Spießer or Neo-Spießer, as i would call it because they are so afraid of being spießy that they are as
spießy and as intolerant as the right Spießer.“
Seeing this definition there is one business which seems to be full of Spießer: Policy. Anyway the term Spießer has several
politically meanings. Especially the left-wingers in the 68ies loved to use this term on dissidents and over the years society
used to peg the Spießer as a Nazi. It turns out that today mostly the left-wingers are called Spießer.
So today‘s Spießer, the Neo-Spießer, as Christian Ulmen calls him, how does he look like today??
He lingers at Starbucks at Cologne Centralstation together with his macbook. He wears trendy glasses and a bluetooth
headset. He does not care about the horrendous price of his Cappuchino because he is called with his first name, when
the coffee is ready. He could also buy his drink for takeaway, so he could walk on the street with a paper cup to show
everyone how bussy he is.
After work he goes into city park where he does nordic walking, a trendy sport which promises vitalisation of arm and
back muscles.
That‘s the new german Spießer, but can you call this phenomenon an exclusive german one??
By the way, since a while old-fashioned spiecyness undergoes a revival. Again it is hip to buy second hand interior or accessoires.
In today‘s student appartments you often find retro kitchen cabinets and once in a while a modified deer antler on
the wall. Somehow spießyness is becoming cool again. Maybe it is the way of today‘a young people to show and underline
their anti-spießyness.
Anyway, isn‘t it granted only to young people under 22 not to be spießy?? Actually you automaticly become a Spießer
when you get older. At least if you think in stereotypical way.
The human needs stability and structure by nature, something which he can hold on. This has also something to do with
conformity and cosiness. Something which shows you the certain way of living.
Josephine M. Schulte: atomic_doily

CAD file of the atomic_doily as downloaded from the site.
The design is published with a Creative Commons attribution-non commercial-share alike licence.
atomic_doily, Josephine Schulte, cc 2010
Josephine M. Schulte: atomic_doily

Josephine M. Schulte: atomic_doily