The world of Michael Anastassiades has a minimal, utilitarian beauty—he humbly describes his own work as “almost mundane.” But his designs are far from ordinary. While simple in appearance, each piece has a subversive quirk, whether it be the orange glow of a shiny copper mirror, or the alarm clocks hiding in his gently rickety occasional tables (which jitter and rock on uneven legs for a morning wake-up call). Though all are designed to make life easier, some pieces need to be served themselves: his Social Light, for example, will only shine so long as conversation carries on around it, while his Anti-Social Light will gradually dim unless there is complete silence. As part of the 2010 International Contemporary Furniture Fair, which opens today at New York’s Jacob Javits Center, Moss Gallery is hosting the US launch of Anastassiades’s Kinetic Lights and Mobile Chandeliers. Like much of his other work, these abstract, Kandinsky-esque pieces enter into a dialogue with the space they occupy, gently swaying and changing into a seemingly infinite number of shapes. NOWNESS sent photographer Ben Murphy (a regular contributor to Wallpaper*, W Magazine and Vogue) to Anastassiades’s London studio, which is crammed with material samples, prototypes and a collection of unpolished stones that are a primary inspiration for the designer, who says he is “always amazed by how perfectly sculpted [they] are.”