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February 23, 2006
Another manifesto: The Monstrous Practitioner
Yesterday I tried to do something I've been saying I was going to do since the last talk I gave in Melbourne... rewrite the monstrous manifesto around a broader conception of practice rather than product. I think I left it so long though that this doesn't feel right now.... I've been thinking about what Dave said about leaving the monster behind... maybe I'm beginning to see that now (in the exegesis outline I wrote)... the monster is a skin you shed, a transitional process (39 - 50)...
1. The monster is our alter-ego
2. The monster resides in us all
3. A manifestation of our anxieties
4. A sense of impending doom.
5. The monster is primarily concerned with itself.
6. Self preservation.
7. Feeding it's own needs
8. It has no interest in saving the world.
9. In fact it believes that the world must be undone/destroyed to be saved.
10. And that this can only ever really be done on a personal level.
11. So you could say it's concerned with 'self-improvement'.
12. The monster is certainly self-obsessed.
13. It is not narcissistic though, as it's reflective foci are primarily it's flaws.
14. The monster is a 'getting-worse' so things can get better.
15. A bad dream
16. The monster is transitional
17. We can all become monstrous in moments of transformation and change
18. The monster is marginal, but we prefer the term 'peripheral'.
19. Of course you can't focus on the peripheral, and the monster can only be seen, or documented, in hindsight.
20. Often accidentally (you only see it when the film's developed for instance)
21. It 'becomes' through an intense process of reflection
22. Too long spent in front of the mirror
23. It is there all the time in the things we don't normally notice.
24. It is seeing ourselves in places we wouldn't normally think to look
25. In the shadows, in the wardrobe, under the bed.
26. The edge of everyday.
27. The monster is all loose-ends and bad connections
28. You don't know what to do with it/yourself at the time
29. It is all questions and no answers
30. The monster can never be satiated
31. It is extremely frustrated
32. The cause of it's anger and destructive impulses
33. But it is rich with complexity and possibility
34. Which can never be adequately articulated
35. Never finished, whole, or complete
36. It is always on the move
37. Travelling
38. El Dorado
39. The monster, like the werewolf, will come and go.
40. To remain monstrous too long is to risk death
45. On awakening we can begin to try to understand our monstrous selves.
46. Attempting to articulate that which we have destroyed
47. To begin to negotiate our newly disrupted, and more complex world
48. The monster leaves us with a sense of the peripheral
49. Dwelling in the borderlands of the place we knew too well
50. We are reinvented, reinvigorated,and we have work to do.
I guess I feel like I haven't really cleared anything up with this.
... just stated things I already know. Actually Lisa keeps pointing out to me though that I always hate what I've done, but am able to come back to it in a couple of months and appreciate it... realise, in hindsight, that I did get something from it. Which I actually reference in the manifesto... hmmm...
I guess I worry that calling your research 'monstrous' of course becomes a good excuse for not having to clear anything up... but I have to find something to say. And if I keep going down this road I'm going to need to be able to articulate much more precisely how and why the monstrous metaphor has been, or is, generative. I think 'if' I approach the manifesto again I need to write it differently... rather than a series of short statements, maybe choose particular terms and try and explain them. (Jonty and I are trying to do the editorial for The National Grid like that, so that could be an interesting crossover perhaps?)
Also designing it felt unnecessary, now that it's not really about formal outcomes in particular... which I kind of felt good about. One thing I think I've figured out recently is that my masters should never have been so focused on 'making' (process/artefact), because that wasn't really my problem... my 'problem' was everything else that was going on around the making (peripheral interactions)... that meant that I wasn't finding the making very interesting.
Having said all that though I have played around with designing this manifesto this morning...
I was thinking about turning it into another poster I could stick up around Brooklyn, but I'm not sure now? I don't like the way it looks... but I didn't spend much time on it... all I really wanted to do was try putting the photos with it. I do like the fact that in the bottom image you can see that I've just been putting on the make-up...
I don't know, this feels like something else now... and like I say, maybe it is a skin you shed? Or is it just me hating everything I make? And yeah I see that that is somehow relevant, but I still feel sick in my stomach...
Any feedback on this very much appreciated!
Posted by Luke Wood at February 23, 2006 02:46 AM
Comments
I have to say that I'm not sure I agree with your new manifesto. It is more about the practitioner than the practice. It seems to me in your previous manifesto the artefact was the monster and now the practitioner is the monster, when it should be the practice that is monstrous. Some people can dance but they're no dancers, some people can kill but they're no killers, some people can cook but they're no cooks. You can create monsters without beeing one. Shouldn't your manifesto focus on the process rather than the practitioner? Maybe I just don't understand. As for the visual aspect of your manifesto I think it's important you make it visual. A lot of manifestoes talk primarily in visual terms and then use the words... Think about your add for finding a drummer and the gap between the visual and the message and how the visual took over the written word... Time to go to bed, too much wine already...
Posted by: E. at February 23, 2006 07:19 PM
Yeah I see what you mean that it's "more about the practitioner than the practice"... I guess maybe this why this one is too vague? I definitely wanted to pull my focus out from the artefacts and the making though. What "process" are you refering to exactly? I think I can rewrite it and make it more about practice. What I've realised (via The National Grid project especially) is that I'm more interested in the stuff that happens 'around' the making... the peripheral interactions. That's why I thought I could just leave it in text form...
Actually this is interesting because issue #1 of the national grid has my manifestoes from last year in it and I haven't 'designed' them... well, of course everything's designed, but... I'm literally just outputting the word file as a PDF and then running it page for page. Something about 'not designing it' is monstrous perhaps? Hmmm not sure about that... more to the point I felt like the monstrous has a lot to do with perspective/point-of-view, and that if I designed it in a particular way then everyone thinks "oh right this is a manifesto that encourages/supports work that looks like that"... do you know what I mean?
Getting back to the practitioner/practice thing, I just wanted to point out that this manifesto was actually written around the idea of actually 'feeling monstrous'... in response to the stuff here about Bruce Mau, and 'save-the-world' type design talk.
Which reminds me I had a conversation with a graphic designer lastnight who liked Bruce and thought that graphic designers should be engaged in helping to save the world... I think she found my attitude and ideas relatively offensive... I came home and thought that being provocative is an important trait of monstrosity... one that I haven't really talked about much. The monster must provoke!
Oh and I met Michael Worthington lastnight. I had tried to get a werewolf head before going to his talk, but couldn't find one I liked. Being there and meeting him made me realise that it would only really work with designers I didn't really like... more specifically, designers who made me feel monstrous. Then of course it would be REALLY interesting to try and force myself to visit designers like Bruce Mau to do this 'Wolf Visit'... would make me very uncomfortable!
Posted by: Design Wolf at February 24, 2006 02:37 AM
I'm emailing you my answer (it's too long to post)
Posted by: E. at February 24, 2006 07:59 AM
What I really liked about the first manifesto is how it was written through different kinds of monsters. I find it more interesting the various monsters that can appear (practitioner as monster, artefact as monster, practice as monster) as they can continue on their own. Frankenstein is the (designed) result of an obsessive practitioner. To his maker he is not a monster, and at first he does not realise he is a monster. He breaks away from his makers control as a monster.
The werewolf is a man that transforms into a monster and (atleast in alot of stories) tries to deal and control being a monster until he transforms back. It's usually a secret too.
The vampire at glance is not a monster, he is only seen as a monster when he is caught in the act.
I guess I like that different monsters can appear at different times at differnt places. And why the monster is in action. Intentional or unintentional. etc
I was also wondering why there is no colour in the work? Monsters usually make an emotional response, colour also generates emotion. Where are the Blood Reds, Toxic Yellows and Mutant Greens? Monsters are also alot more exagerated than this current werewolf. He needs to be really hairy, long claws, large paws, canine fangs, and ripped clothes from the 'painful' transformation.
Posted by: Max at February 25, 2006 09:34 AM
Yeah I know what you mean, in a way it was more fun writing through the exisiting conventions of certain monstrous 'types' too. But I am doing (trying to do) something quite different here... this more reflective declaration than manifesto exactly perhaps? I mean that in the sense that I was responding to the idea of feeling monstrous within a discipline, marginal within the 'domain' of design.
You're right though Max, these locatable and familiar types are really useful in terms of figuring things out... and in that respect I've definitely been feeling more wolfish than anything else lately. I used to feel more hybrid, like Frankenstein's monster, but now I am... Design Wolf.
There's no colour in the work because I was working towards these being large b/w photocopied posters... so partly budget, but also because my first experiences with horror were in b/w, and all my favourite monster flicks are still the old camp 50s ones... Micheal Landon as a teenage werewolf! I can tell you're an 80s kid... we didn't get a colour tv until about 85 or 85.
I know I don't look wolfish enough, and I mentioned that I was concerned that I looked too demonic. One thing I want to mention though is that I'm also concerned I'm perhaps moving towards being far too literal with this 'thing'. In some ways maybe I could just be myself? But that wouldn't be as much fun... and possibly not as provocative... and I like how dressing up and fooling around allows you to try out being different.
One thing I think you've picked up on that I do agree is really important is the 'painful transformation'! I think I might do a new post just on that? I've been considering writing up the monster (me) as an inevitable result of the kind of highly-reflective practice that RMIT has kind of pushed me into... and that I do indeed find it painful... I guess it seems obvious that this kind of study (where I've been in the industry for years and then I go back to school to re-learn) is going to induce some painful transformation...
Yeah that's important, good spotting lad!
Posted by: Design Wolf at February 26, 2006 03:41 AM