A coffee table with a sex tape inside becomes a sharp statement on contemporary design

Alexandra Batten and Daniel Kamp, who lead Batten and Kamp, are a couple in life. They filmed themselves having sex, saved the clip on a usb flash drive, and embedded it in a 110-by-70-centimeter sheet of glass that became the top of a coffee table. Those who buy it will have the sex tape, but to watch it they will be forced to shatter the glass that holds it. Not voyeuristic bait for design lovers, but a line of inquiry that begins with the pornification of the present and asks what value the things we design — and buy — actually hold.

"With Sex Tape we ask our audience what they really want from us, and we ask ourselves what we are really willing to give.", the designers tell Domus. With this unique piece, they interrogate how much of the self should be in a work, and to what extent should the designer continue to be a part of it.

This is an investigation into the meaning of the "signature" in design: a discipline historically linked to the anonymity of its creators but which, especially today, attaches an increasingly central and indispensable value to the identity of the designer, transforming the designer's very name into a component of the product.

The coffee table is a one-of-a-kind piece made in 2023, and the thick sheet of glass that holds the sex tape is supported by two massive satin-finished steel legs. The work is part of the duo's production of "functional sculptures," placed somewhere between product design and art that investigates, through minimal structures that echo brutalism, natural and biological processes.

Opening image Batten and Kamp, Sex Tape, table, 2023. Courtesy Batten and Kamp