Quo vadis?

Where are you going?
I've been getting this question a lot since I started on my MFA. Everyone thinks I am moving on, when in fact I am rooted here. Where I am going with this MFA journey is on a design investigation. I've always liked to plan and map out a place before I visit, and this journey is no different. My thesis will reflect on ways in which I have investigated process and design issues, and cultivated my role as a designer/educator. It will also discuss the conceptual use of mapping as a metaphor and delve into imagery and design that visually interprets experience- of a place or a life event. I have been exploring the concept of topophilia- establishing a conceptual and emotional bond with a place- and what a visitor viewpoint can bring to a "place."

I will be writing about some of the solutions I have created, specifically my Survival Stories books, the Vision Chicago project, Prairie Mosaic poster, and most recently the Fabulous Desert Ecotone project with deck of cards.

Tim and Eric and I are collaborating on a "Conversation Map" of i-chats we are having relating to thinking about our thesis and exhibition. This will be an intertwining piece for our exhibition- showing our thought processes along the journey. More on this later as it develops!

Who is Designing for the Poor?

In the book/magazine "Plugzine", there is a Chinese article that discusses designing for the poor. I thought it would talk about designers doing things for poor people, kinda like donation our skills or something of that nature. But it didn't.

There were various points, but 2 that struck me. One were designers that were designing pieces (like furniture) out of reused materials. So, a chair designer made a "Rag Chair" our of old pieces of cloth. Another used bottles. etc. The basic idea was in a world were resources are becoming more and more limited (aha! "Sustainability"), to find ways were you can express design while reusing materials.

The other was not about designing for the poor, but rather poor designers designing. And it doesn't mean poor college students. It means real poor people who have a need for advertising, but don't have the modern tools we do (like computers, copy machines, etc.). Their concern isn't about what the next cool program is or how to do this and that on a layout. Their concern is how to promote something with just a handful of drawing supplies.

Where this is really predominant in China (again, this is a Chinese article), is in the band scene. Bands need ways to promote themselves. But without money to make copies or color flyers, their designers end up using markers to individually draw up each flyer! These were not scribbles of notes that are quickly drawn; each has a unique labor of love! The end result is something edgy with hand-drwan types and human in each flyer and more direct to the audience. Painted posters and handbills (like San Francisco in the 60's). An expanding visual style that led to a handpainted magazine (it didn't last, but what an intriguing idea).

Now with China's modernization and push forward, this design art is slowly being pushed aside for more modern and fancy stuff. It was an intriguing idea. I can only imagine the reaction of students if we said you had to to do a full-on promotion using no computers or copy machines! Labor intensive, but probably a lot of fun once you get into it?

Spam Protection

Due to some spammers posting stuff on the comments pages, I've set this site up so only members of this blog can post comments. Just to let you all know.

Happy Birthday!

Just wanted to say Happy Birthday to Rachel and Ruhty this week!!! :-)

Flash-y Websites Without the Flash

The October issue of HOW has an article titled "Rethinking Your Website" that focuses on how too many designers (and design firms) are relying on "Flash animaton and other visual tricks" to catch people's attention- mostly clients and other designers. According to David C. Baker, a management consultant for small design/communication firms, most designers and firms who use this approach do it to control a user's experience, instead of allowing them to experience it on their own terms, which is the whole purpose of the world wide web.

Since the Internet has become the main marketing medium for many small firms, it's really important for a designer's website to be a complete and user-friendly representative of the firm's capabilities and and experience. Too many are turning to Flash animation, which, according to Eric Holter of Newfangled Web Factory, is more of an annoyance than anything, getting in the way of information delivery.

What designers should concentrate on is the content of the site, and make sure it is always up to date and dynamic. Holter says that many designers don't "get" that the role of their website is different than the role of most of their work- "push" campaigns like print and TV- which focus on grabbing attention. People don't walk by websites, people choose to go to them to get information, or whatever their interest is.

So what should designers do with their websites? The article advises that keeping your content current is the most important. Keep up to date on posting projects- they advise making an online portfolio data-driven instead of static, sortable by media, industry, etc. Giving choices about how to interact will make the user more engaged. The ability to harness search-engine capabilities, even using title tags properly, can help prospective users find you and your information easier. (Most designers or small firms probably don't have the skills to develop a data-driven site, so they lean toward technically-undemanding sites. Holter and Baker recommend investing in a programmer to integrate this technology into a site if you can't do it yourself.)

They also recommend thinking about components on your site that lets users/clients know your focus, process, legal information, privacy policy, mission, philosophy, news releases, client testimonials, case studies, staff cameos, faqs, contact information, and how you are different from other designers. As a matter of fact, the more words you use on the site, the more possibilities that search engines will find you!

So, Flash is great for some things, but not for all things. It can be entertaining, but it can also get in the way of communicating because its end-product is static. How difficult is it to learn some programming for a data-driven website? Is this another skill that a designer should learn, or hire it out?

Body of Evidence

Is crime influenced by art, or, is art influenced by crime?

The most famous of all “art murders” is attracting attention again, according to ArtNews Sept. 2006. This unsolved homicide of Elizabeth Short has been the subject of numerous books and films over the past 60 years. The latest is “The Black Dahlia,” opening in theatres nationwide on Sept. 15, 2006. The movie, based on James Ellroy’s best selling 1987 book of the same name, stars Josh Hartnett, Scarlett Johansson and Hilary Swank.

The Black Dahlia was a black-haired twenty-two year old waitress and aspiring actress who was brutally murdered in Los Angeles in 1947. The gruesome description includes “severed in two at the waist and washed clean – like a mannequin in a department store window. One breast was missing, and there were geometric shapes cut out of her torso and thigh.”

Based on that description, experts over the years have tried to tie this murder with the Surrealist art movement of the time. Cited are the segmented nudes of Man Ray (photo 1938), the fractured dolls of Hans Bellmer, or mannequins of Salvador Dali. The theory follows that the “surrealists’ fascination with violence and eroticism may help explain the bizarre and gruesome nature of the killing.” The Surrealists’ favorite game, “Exquisite Corpse,” also added support: players take turns drawing parts of a body. Another theory is that works by Marcel Duchamp in later years might have referred to the murder, Short’s body, and the true identity of the killer.

There have been other famous murders that have been tied to art as well. Several books, most recently Patricia Cornwell’s Portrait of A Killer, suggest that painter Walter Sickert was Jack the Ripper. It was believed that he made obvious sketches and paintings of the Ripper crimes. Television crime-solving series such as CSI and Cold Case occasionally refer to a painting as a solution or clue to a crime.

What do you think? Do copy-cats commit gruesome murders based on art they see? Do criminals paint their crimes? Does art lead to crime, or to criminals, or vise versa?

Acrobat Reader

Acrobat Reader talks about the increased focus on visuals in novels. One example is Mark Danielewski's House of Leaves. I've read this book and every time the word "house" is written, it is written in blue. The book describes a family who just bought a house. This house is posessed of some spirit, and begins to grow on the inside, but not on the outside. From the outside, it looks like the same house. But when the family returns from a vacation, there is a sudden appearance of an extra closet that didn't used to be there. Eventually the children hear sounds coming out of the closet and begin to play in there. The father is a film maker and tries to create a documentary of him mapping out the mysterious growing space. Once he enters the closet, the complete darkness meets him and the walls change and the space grows depending on his emotional state.
The typography for the book changes as well to reflect the change in space, and emotional state of the characters. The reader is greeted by pages smacked full of text and then suddenly an empty void. The text changes orientation, color, and fonts.
While this was visually interesting enough for me to pick up the book, it actually became slightly annoying at a cliffhanger. I think it was successfull in portraying the characters' sink into mental problems, but at times one word was repeated for three pages, so i would just skip ahead.

The picture on this post is from a page from the House of Leaves. The higlighted blue box is actually a backwards reflection from the page ahead.

Jill Greenberg Photographs

Sorry I have been absent from the conversation for a while. I will get caught up as soon as I can.

In last month’s Communication Arts magazine (the photography annual) there are a series of photographs by Jill Greenberg (page 138-139). Basically, the photos are of children crying. They have an interesting light and texture quality. They look surreal, like they were painted. A number of weeks or months ago I heard a story on NPR or a segment on CBS’s Sunday Morning, I don’t remember which. It was interesting to hear about the photographs and the controversy surrounding them. Greenberg takes these kids into her studio with their parents. She gives them candy or other stuff and then takes it away in an attempt to make them cry. When they do, she takes their picture. She calls it art, others call it child-abuse or pornography.

This is a link to the photographs. At the bottom of the page, there is a link to an essay called “Regarding What is Real in Photography” on the exhibition.

They reference the monkey portraits in a number of the posts and you can see them here if interested.

This is a link to a post about her on a blog that has created quite a stir.

This is a link to an interview with Greenberg in American Photo magazine.

It is an interesting discussion. What do you think?

Hell Phones

I found this article on Wired Magazine, I couldn’t help but to laugh even though most of the things that this guy pointed out are true. He talks bad about cell phones and the negative influences that has in our lives. Here are some:

INTERRUPTABILITY - Phones have always been interrupting machines. Like a screaming baby demanding to be fed, a phone demands your attention as soon as it rings. It requires you to be interruptible. And a hell phone, unlike a house phone, tags along with you wherever you go, nagging.

HEALTH HAZARD - Your hell phone may or may not give you brain cancer, but it certainly increases the quantity of microwaves being pumped through the air. What's more, like any electronic device, it's difficult to recycle.

Then there's all the cultural pollution hell phones are responsible for: annoying ring tones, or those loud conversations you're forced to listen to. These social aggravations affect your health by raising your stress levels; the confrontations they can spark with your fellow citizens can come to blows. Not healthy!

SURVEILLANCE - A hell phone is a device you carry that, when switched on, tells a satellite exactly where you are every few seconds. It's a device with a microphone in it that can transmit all it hears even when you're not consciously making a call. You don't have to be super-paranoid (or bin Laden) to see how this compromises your privacy, and you don't have to read very far in the newspapers to see how little we can trust governments these days not to use, misuse and hoard whatever information they can get on you.

DESIRE - Compare them with plain old cameras, computers, watches or any other once-desirable gadget and there's no competition; it's quite clear that the all-consuming, all-converging hell phone is the star of the store, the only machine that's truly compulsive at this point.

The hell phone is where the most passionate consumer desire resides right now, and where all the design ingenuity is going. It's just a shame that so few people seem to know the designer's name: Satan.

Even though this guy made all these negative remarks about cell phones, I have to admit that I can’t live with out it. In a tough situation it can actually save your life if we think about it. Do we have any cell phones haters here?...

Google Table

On You Tube, there is an example of how some researchers are working on a more interactive way to work with the computer. It's real inventive! Basically, you can interact with the computer using your hands (but no mouse or tablet)! You can resize windows and screens, give it voice commands, etc. Can you imagine one day being able to work on your digital art just like working on a solid sheet of canvas? That would be SO awesome!

This technology is in it's infancy, but not brand new. You can even experience a form of this in a Kansas City AMC theater. They have this projector shine on the floor and these cars go around a track. But if you step on the track, the cars will jam against your foot. In my Japanese school, technologist brought this chalkboard where as you write notes on the board, it will memorize everything on the computer realtime! So, you can go back in your computer later to see what you wrote, email them to absent students, etc. So, physical interaction with computers is on the way! But as the video shows, most likely it will get popular first with Gamers.

For the YouTube video:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3258368851377796496&q=genre%3Acomedy

For the guy's website (Edward Tse):
http://edwardtse.com/

Annie Leibovitz: Through Her Lens

Newsweek, Oct. 1, 2006, reports that America's most famous celebrity photographer, Annie Leibovitz, has published a new book, A Photographer's Life: 1990 - 2005, very different from her previous publications.

In this new collection of photographs, she is showing the public small parts of her personal life. Included in the book are images of her long time friend/companion, writer and critic Susan Sontag (On Photography) during her last days in her battle with cancer. Also included are photographs of her life as a single mother with daughter Sarah (2001) and twins (2005). The twins, born to a surrogate mother, were named Susan (after Sontag) and Samuelle (after her father).

What made her decide to "go public"? Sontag died in Dec. 2004, and her father six weeks later. Leibovitz wanted to make a memorial to both, and the book is the result. "I've been through everything mentally and emotionally," Leibovitz says, "and I'm very comfortable with them (the photographs). This book is me."

The personal images are mixed in with those of celebrities. I am interested to see the juxtaposition of intimacy vs. public, and see a side of Leibovitz that has previously been hidden behind the camera.

Graphic Novel

The October, 2006 WIRED magazine had a one-page article about an online graphic novel titled Shooting War. Set in the year 2011, this 11-chapter web serial is about the adventures of Jimmy Burns, an anti-corporate video blogger who witnesses his NYC apartment (above a Starbuck's) being blown up by terrorists. His video is appropriated by Global News, “Your home for 24-hour terror coverage,” and he becomes an overnight media sensation when his video helps locate the bomber. Burns is sent to Iraq, still embroiled in war after 8 years.



I decided to check the website out (http://shootingwar.com). I haven’t gotten through all of the chapters yet, but it is very graphic. If you do check this site out, it is important to realize that it is a fictional story- ahem- political satire. The press release about the site makes it clear that it is about “the future of citizen journalism.”

Writer Anthony Lappé, an award-winning documentarian about Iraq (Showtime's BattleGround: 21 Days on the Empire's Edge) and Iraq war blogger, is also the Executive Editor of the Guerrilla News Network. According to Lappe, “Shooting War is a commentary about where we’re headed in Iraq and the larger war on terror as well as the role of bloggers in telling the stories of the future.”

The artist, Dan Goldman, a writer/artists/designer and founding member of the online comics studio ACT-I-VATE, has used “a vivid combination of photography, illustration, and digital painting” to create a dark, violent, yet smart graphic novel. I like his graphic style and the way he has combined the art with actual photography. The work is to be published next year as a hardcover book.

The serial has been hosted by SMITH magazine, an online magazine “devoted to storytelling in its many shapes and forms.” SMITH editor Larry Smith elaborates that “SMITH magazine is the perfect home for Shooting War… SMITH is all about the next wave of personal storytelling, using and celebrating the technology tools that have made new forms of telling stories so exciting.”

Like I said, I’m not all the way through it yet, but I think it is a very sharp, kick-in-the-pants commentary about our world. And the writers should have us thinking about how we as citizen journalists- bloggers, storytellers- can shape our culture.

Graphics and photos courtesy SMITH magazine.