The 1970s: Poland is going through the era of Edward Gierek – the El Dorado on credit. When the first comrade asked: ‘So, comrades, will you help?’, the society responded eagerly: ‘Yes, we will help!’ Or so claimed the propaganda. Eventually, loans taken from the West and purchase of new technologies turned out to be more helpful in building the new, communist Poland, the so-called ‘second Poland.’ What followed was an ostensible and superficial westernisation of the state. Thanks to the popularisation of television, Dziennik Telewizyjny (The Daily TV Show) became the primary communication channel of the government. The First Secretary's visits to industrial plants were accompanied by slogans about an ‘economic miracle’ and ‘dynamic progress.’ Gierek was assuring his citizens that Poland was the ninth world power.
In 1973, there was still no anticipation of the fall of Gierek's economic policy. At the beginning of the 70s, Krzysztof Wodiczko, an artist and designer and design graduate from the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, was working at the Polish Optical Company. Together with Krzysztof Meissner, he wanted to take part in a competition for a bike design organised by a Japanese company. Whilst working on the prototype, he completely changed his concept. Years later, he reminisced:
We produced a ton of different varieties, based on muscle activity, mechanical, translating the work performed by a human body into motion directed onwards. At some point, however, I realised I was not interested in that anymore.
He had to abandon work on the bicycle. ‘Krzysztof, I am backing out, because the vehicle I have on my mind is of a somewhat different nature’, he declared to his partner.
The direction which Wodiczko's exploration took was surprising and definitely did not comply with the competition's guidelines. As a result, he created Vehicle, the first object from a series denying the rules of design.
Wodiczko's Vehicle is a few-metre-long platform on four wheels. The vehicle moves in a straight, even and forward only motion. The author sets a tilted platform into motion by walking back and forth on top of it and thus making the wheels, which are linked to it through a system of gears and wires, turn and eventually move forward.