designonething

Appropriating Conventions

I am still exploring steps and moments of transformation. When does your thing become my thing. The first few investigations deal with high/low art intersection and appropriating high art conventions. I am interested in appropriation being accepted as a valid form in fine art and what happens when design adopts high conventions and tools. The later investigations are more varied.

Part 1

I am concerned first with appropriating the substrate, but still using design imagery and reproduction technology.

Then simply framing an appropriated design solution.

This last investigation involves appropriating not only the substrate but also the tools and creating a painting from a design. While this was intended to be about appropriating fine art conventions it also became about craft and lost graphic design conventions.

Part 2

Just a quick sketch about lineage and annotating/citing/acknowledging whence things came from in an overt way, with a borrowed convention.

Part 3

Is this transformed enough to be different or would you say one was borrowing from the other? What if there is nothing new? (Unless Beruit ripped me off) This is not about appropriation but coincidence and the serendipity of design, or that and we both cribbed Brodovitch and Brockman.

Part 4

In this sketch I am attempting to appropriate google conventions to create the hint of a narrative about appropriation. This kind of idea can be pushed further and starts to communicate a point of view.

2009: 12/02
CATEGORY: Studio-Projects
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Cultural Read

Prompt: select a material object and do an assessment of it’s cultural significance.

I was interested in selecting an object that is both ubiquitous and mundane. An object intrenched enough that it was capable of being read in various ways. I select a brown paper bag.

Firstly, the denotative function of a brown bag is that it holds things. Originally for groceries, then adopted to other sizes for other uses, but still a vessel to transport other objects is its basic function.

What connotative description and implied meanings does a paper bag have? From a personal perspective alone, brown paper bags have multiple connotative functions. The first is the same as the denotative, I think of it as a vessel to carry things, like my lunch. I have memories of my mother using it to hyper ventilate into when she had a migraine. A third connotation is puppets, through out my childhood paper bags were as the foundation for myriad puppet projects. Yet another function is drawing/art classes, we always at some point drew a paper bag, because of crinkles and wrinkles and endless shadows. So within my personal experience I have three connotations that are unrelated to its original function.

Are there social practices that establish meaning?

The bag was used as a tool for racism or more specifically colorism. The brown paper bag was used as a test of sorts in the early to middle part of the 20th century. It determined if a Black person was sufficiently white enough to participate in a given activity, usual a social function of some sort. If any individual was darker than the back they were turned away,

The brown paper bag more recently has become to mean green or environmentally friendly in contrast to plastic bags. Paper is seen as renewable and recyclable compared to the apparent permanence of plastic. The advent of the reusable bag movement makes the choice moot and renders both wasteful. It is interesting that the disposable paper bag got its genesis replacing reusable vessels.

There are other connotations I would like to touch on.

The idea of the bag as a symbol of anonymity. Wearing a bag on your head means you don’t want to be know but in a very public way. It is often used as a kind of protest. The paper bag as a marker of alcoholism. Drinking liquor from a brown paper bag on the street is a practice to avoid open container laws.

For each more light hearted connotation there seems to be another more serious or even disturbing one. The final two I’ve considered are on the lighter side. The colloquialism of he or she not being able to act/fight/find their way out of a paper bag and finally the flaming poop paper bag on the porch prank.

There is a multitude of meaning that I might like to explore through the lens of another project if possible.

2009: 11/02
CATEGORY: Seminar-Projects
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Project 2.5 Refelection

Project 2.5

Prompt: Design : An Initiation to ________ , introducing new visual conventions that might logically follow, or interrupt, if such is the more compelling strategy. Any media, any point of delivery.

My initiation involved initiating World of Warcraft players to civility. The form was a flash movie.

My plan:

Borrow a system of conventions to speak to the community
Corporate training video is the set of conventions used to initiate new employees
Parody is a form players are familiar with
Allow the introduction of possibly controversial material in a non-threatening way
The guild sits in for the corporation, producing content to initiate new guild members

The following reflection was originally posted on our studio blog and speaks about my own work as well as that of my fellow students.

My initiation was concerned with modifying the behavior of individuals within an online community. During my research, I discovered that rudeness was an issue within the community. My conceit was an initiation into civility. The initiation I generated sat soundly on ground all members of the community were very familiar with.

When I consider all of our initiations there is a correlation between how familiar the content of an initiation is to the community and the visual conventions used and introduced. As a group the initiations for the most part made sense. They were based on need. Gamers are rude, bikers need paths, etc. As designers we identified problems to solve. This community could use X, kind of thinking. They were logical, linear. There was no internal motivation to introduce other visual conventions. It was inefficient to do so. As a group we framed it so that the only impetus to add/borrow/invent conventions was that the prompt required it. Ergo they felt shoehorned in or they were so superficial as to have not meaning. Perhaps initiations that did not respond to some perceived need, or initiations that had no intrinsic value to a community might have forced the convention issue. What would an initiation of an online fashion community into steamboat piloting look like. Or initiating one community into another. Potters initiated into the World of Warcraft. There is no evidence that our thoughtful initiations would be better accepted than a more ridiculous one. More ridiculous initiations open the door to introducing visual conventions that correspond to the foreign content. My explorations did not take me there. Everything was safe. No real challenges. I did not expect/ask anything significant from my community either visually or content wise. Is that about respect, reverence, timidity, fear, ignorance?

It is compelling to me that there is nothing in the original prompt that implies “problem”, yet so many of us went there immediately and dug in for the duration. The “problem” was to create an initiation, not necessarily identify a problem to create an initiation around.

I was interested in my design having value to the community and leveraging this value as part of my rhetorical stance. The value lie in the initiation fixing something. Did it need to be fixed? I thought did enough research to justify the initiation. It makes sense internally but does it have value to a community. The value a designer has to a community seems to be about knowing when to speak and when to listen. I think there is an element of design that is about possibilities and what might be. Good/effective design process starts broadly with umlimited options. I think there is definitely a “why not?” aspect to design that has value. But, design can address needs within a community and designers can be an asset without creating or looking for problems to solve. Communities can identify and articulate their own problems. A traditional dynamic is interrupted when designer engage directly with communities. It circumvents commercial interests which often lie more in the vein of creating and sustaining needs. I still stand by identifying a problem to solve as a viable strategy for the prompt. I see now that it was not the only strategy.

I would hope my design has a rhetorical stance, that is normally my intent. (perhaps a convention of a successful design) The rhetorical stance comes from either the project/problem/client or the stance is self authored, which was the case in this project. Both the content and the form were intended to move communities members from position to another. Or even just highlighting that their behavior is impacting others.

I have been taught that successful design is about process. A design process is a set of conventions. What does it mean to design without process. To design without convention. Is it still design. It would seem that on occasion moving beyond conventions would have value. It feels difficult to execute on a long term basis. How many instances before a thing becomes a convention. Is it about reinventing the process for each new design. I could argue it seems counter-intuititive to have a plan before you have seen the problem, and yet this is often the nature of our process. The ability to adopt and discard conventions as needed seems optimal.

When evaluating a deliverable I need to think a design is successful. That might be the my first convention, maybe sometimes my only convention. If I don’t like it is unsuccessful. Also Working. A design that operates as intended is successful. I identified as many visual conventions as I could and incorporated almost all of them into my initiation. Some were used as-is, others broken down or reinterpreted. I am confident it would work. It solves the problem I instigated. A problem which has little to do with the prompt. The extent to which the new conventions and/or new visual language I introduced operates and adds anything is disappointing.

What is the motivation to move away from a learned visual convention strategy? Exploration, whim, necessity? Was it necessary to move away from LVCS to engage with this prompt? Introducing new or borrowed conventions is different than introducing a new strategy. The strategies are both assets and handicaps. If a designer (or design in general) is so intractable that they can’t ascertain when or be willing to move beyond the LVCS the strategies obviously become a handicap. There are also many times when these standard conventions are fully capable of providing an acceptable path to a resolution. The challenge lies in recognizing what is happening and having the power to take action. It is not often that designers have the luxury of completely starting over even upon the realization that things are not working. In this academic environment we have both the luxury of starting over and the freedom to abandon what we have learned.

2009: 11/02
CATEGORY: Studio-Projects
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PROJECT 1 – Cultural Probe

Project 1

Prompt: Design a Culture Probe that aims to discover what/how/why ritual exists within the experience.

The location was Starbucks on Peace Street in Raleigh, NC. The first step of this process involved a thick description exercise at the location followed by analysis and speculative cultural probe development.

Speculative Culture Probe: Photograph Retrieval and Curation

I was interested in why people would participate in a probe and how compensation might influence the results. Unless a probe is covert, awareness of the probe, regardless of renumeration invariably skews results. This lead me to decide to generate a solution that created an advantage of this customers cognizance.

The probe is based on the supposition that a relationship exits between the baristas and customers. Specifically customers who frequent the location on a regular basis. This type of relationship was observed during the thick description exercise.

My conceit is to exploit this relationship. The barista is empowered with agency to determine which customers they feel will be appropriate for the probe. This reinforces the trust relationship between the management and employee. The customer is given an item of value, a camera, to take from the location and collect images over the course of a day or two. This act of trust helps builds the relationship with the barista as well as the coffee shop in general. These people know me and like me.

There is no restriction on the content or quantity of photographs the customer is asked to take. Not having a prompt may yield more informative results.

Once the cameras have been returned an analysis of the photographs can be made. Patterns can be discerned from content. What kinds of objects, animals or people are included? How much overlap if any is there between respondents? Following analysis the photographs will be sorted, removing questionable or possibly controversial content and cropped to a square format. The snapshot format has connotations that may affect the second part of the probe.

The second part of the probe takes advantage of the physical layout of Starbucks and the fact that there is a “waiting place.” An empty basket, a basket of customer generated photos, a marker, envelopes, and simple instructions will be at the “waiting place.” The instructions ask customers to curate photographs into an envelope, write a few words of description or title on the envelope and then place it in the empty basket. No other prompts or information is evident. If asked employees will state that the images and stories will be used as decor for this location.

An analysis of the curated envelopes is now done. Again a search for patterns as well as the kinds of stories and information inscribed on the envelopes. Finally the photograph will be used as decorative elements within the store. Format depending on the actual content received.

The intent is that the probe will yield useful information while simultaneously building relationships with the patrons and increasing their sense of ownership and agency with this location.

Analysis of Initial Speculations: Assumptions

I assumed that there would be a reasonable amount of participation during each phase of the probe. This certainly may not be the case. For example the customers could steal all the cameras, which is its own kind of information. I am also assuming their is a relationship betwixt some baristas and customers that extends beyond commerce. While I am still confident it exists there may not be enough instances in one location for the probe to be useful.

I assumed that some kind of useful information could be gleaned from one if not both of the probe phases. This is highly speculative, especially in light of the photographic nature of the probe. Photographs are inherently subjective. The photographs culled by customers may be indecipherable and of limited interpretive value. The second phase of the probe was an attempt to mitigate this subjectivity by filtering the photographs through the lens of the customers.

I assumed I could present the intent of the probe in an engaging and understandable format. The earlier assumptions are speculative but I did actually execute this step. Feedback I received suggests that this assumption was false and more care may have been taken in the presentation to ensure everyone new exactly what I was intending.

Expectations

I expect that lots of really cool customers will take really cool photographs and that lots of patterns and overlap will be evident as well as some interesting surprises. Ex: lots of Starbuck customers wear bunny slippers. I also expect that the curation phase will yield interesting insights into how these patrons see the world and the kinds of words and stories they describe.

The probe is lacking in several areas. But, I believe the conceit of building off of a nascent trust is intriguing. The customer has agency the barista has agency. Win, win. I am also attached to what kind of amazing and weird photographs might be produced, and the total open-endness of it all. So if I am digging in heels there, how to tighten up the rest?

Issue One—Compared to Nothing

Even in a best case scenario where everything works the probe is living in a vacuum. One solution might be to give the barista a quick survey when they hand out each camera. A quick, informal, one page form that gleans at least some basic information about the customer. Bonus: this will also give us insight into baristas. Thus when the photos return they can be placed within this loose context. It provides the opportunity for the “familiar to made strange” which Barbara Savedoff talks about in Transforming Images, in a slightly different context but I think the idea is still compelling here. You can’t have a perspective change without an initial perspective.

Issue Two—Compared to Only Itself

Issue one compared the photos within their own context. I think a valuable avenue of exploration would be to execute the probe in other non-Starbuck locations for contrast. I think this step is what might actually make the photos the most revealing. How are Starbucks photos different from Global Village photos? The probe could be easily adapted to some other locations but might not be possible in Dunkin Donuts like locations where quicker exchanges, and less lingering tend to be prevalent.

Issue Three—Where’s the Design?

One of the questions proposed for analysis was “How are you using Design to motivate, provoke, inspire, represent, deliver?” I am not using graphic design do any of those things. At the resolution, when the results are displayed, that will be a graphic design solution that may inspire or provoke or represent. On the other hand the whole process is definitely a designed system that will hopefully motivate and inspire. I am content to limit the amount of tangible design at this point and am hopeful that meaningful results would drive more corporeal design directions.

Issue Four—System for Analysis

I have no formal plan or structure to analyze the photos beyond just an intuitive pattern recognition. It would seem prudent to borrow a system rather than develop one. In Arranging Things: A Rhetoric of Object Placement, Leonard Koren describes the kind of system I am interested in. He initially breaks his rhetoric into three parts physicality, abstraction and integration and goes on to flesh out those general areas. While not perfect for this application this idea of the photos all being analyzed with identical criteria would limit some of the subjectivity and yield more meaningful results.

Issue Five—Photographic Mediation

The subjectivity of the photography may be mediated by including a prompt when the camera is given to the customer. As suggested perhaps something like “photograph your ritual”. If photographs are about “form and content, how and what” as Victor Burgin speaks to in Thinking Photography, what happens when we start to limit the “what.” It seems that the more specific you make the instructions the more you are consciously making the customer a “Photographer.” To paraphrase a paraphrase “photography depends on the moment we press the release …your a photographer if you know exactly when to press the release”* The prompt starts to talk about knowing when to press the release will create different results. More useful? More actionable for design purposes? I don’t know.

Sources

Burgin, V. (1982). Thinking photography. London: Macmillan Education.

Koren, L., & Du Pasquier, N. (2003). Arranging things :
A rhetoric of object placement. Berkeley, Calif.: Stone Bridge Press.

Savedoff, B. E. (2000). Transforming images : How photography complicates the picture. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

Scott, C. (1999). The spoken image : Photography and language.
London: Reaktion.

2009: 11/02
CATEGORY: Studio-Projects
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“If you can design one thing, you can design everything.”
— Massimo Vignelli

I find the power in these words are in the intent to activate the designer. Possibilities not only in process, but more importantly in how process is applied. Limitations are constantly being imposed on designers; by clients, society, budgets, deadlines, ourselves. I love that there was a time when the idea of endless possibilities was not absurd. A space and place where people were not afraid to stand up and say “over here, me! I have the answers, or at the very least know how to find them.” What is the wrong notion here? That designers need to think beyond one discipline or that we live in a designed world or that design is often decoration, but just as often much more or that design can move mountains. A wee bit of bombast, naivete even, to be fair, but still a stimulating and romantic notion. In the end I am happier defending it than refuting or dismissing it.

-D

2009: 11/02
CATEGORY: Uncategorized
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Project 3

ITERATIONS 2

Stealing is hard.

It is difficult to blatantly appropriate an image without it feeling like a satire or a parody. These iterations go beyond borrowing just GD images and include the appropriation of fine art images. I feel like another layer of content may be necessary.

dsr

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