Hot Rod Biology

I found Burdick's text really helpful in terms of it's legitimizing style. She talks about "style's function as a cultural communicator", and discusses the Modernist notion that 'intrinsic' style (style developed from within) is inherently superior to 'applied' style (style applied from without), which is considered to "corrupt the marriage of content and from".

Previously Lisa had asked me if I was more interested in process or form, and felt like I should answer without hesitation ñ process, of course . . . but didn't feel totally comfortable with that ñ although I also felt uncomfortable saying that I was more interested in form!

I found this contradiction(?) really interesting. I think I am more interested in form . . . in the artefact, in the surface? This would seem to be apparent in the 100 images I took to Melbourne at the very beginning of this project! It's definitely apparent in the music I'm currently practicing ñ it's about forms and surfaces, and the references that reside in those (cultural memory).

So why do I feel uncomfortable admitting this about my design practice? My previous undergrad education was a strict Modernist one, but I've certainly moved on from that by now (I think?) . . . there's something more here ñ a larger shadow . . . and Burdick's essay touches on this. She highlights that we, as designers, "take pleasure in style. We thrive on form" . . . but that we tend to keep that to ourselves and instead we talk up the processes we go through to get the 'solution' to the 'problem', so that the client feels they can justify the few thousand dollars they've just handed over! I'm being cynical, but "to confess that we revel in expressive artifice might be considered self-defeating when attempting to justify design's relevance to industry".

Towards the end Burdick takes a shot at design annuals for fostering "an environment of superficiality", which I'd have tended to agree with (actually I've just written a bad review for the latest TDC annual for this very reason), but now I'm wondering . . . and didn't she start out pro-superficiality? Is being interested in surface, form, artefact, the same as being superficial?

Can you be motivated by form in a way that is not superficial? I think so. I don't really believe in any such thing as an empty vessel . . . form can be more or less loaded, but there's always something there (though that something will often shift and change as the form/artefact 'travels').

If you are motivated by FORM must you always be seeking NEW FORM? That's a good question . . . and is one that underlies Burdick's text (hence her title 'Neomania' ñ from Barthes) . . . she's interested in the "affliction that makes graphic designers crave perpetual stylistic (r)evolution". To what end though? She mentions things like enriching the "visual vocabulary of the profession", and that "invigorating new voices are necessary" but that the current rate at which styles are being consumed and regurgitated is more about consumer culture than it is about "growth within the profession".

But hang on. What's graphic design about if not consumer culture?

That question ñ if you are motivated by FORM must you always be seeking NEW FORM? ñ isn't really unpacked here. Perhaps this is something I'd like to look at through my topic?

An aspect of this text which had real resonance with the work I've been making lately were her references to style's consumption and regurgitation ñ to monsters, descendant mutations, being eaten alive . . . I've been thinking about cannibalism (Situationists), Pop Will Eat Itself . . . etc, especially in regard to Elvis, Johnny Rotten, Ian Curtis, Kurt Cobain . . . Monsters to be tamed, or destroyed!

Graphic designers?