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February 11, 2006
Bad Design (Unbeliever)
Last week I went to an expensive Manhattan 'Design Store' (Moss in Soho) with Ange. It was interesting because I mean I'm a 'Designer', and I'm in a design store, and I absolutely cannot fucking stand it! I'm sorry if this reads a bit teen-angsty, obviously I'm too old for that, but there's nothing I like about it... the products, the store, the staff's uniforms... nothing. Of course I thought about how I've said, usually as a joke, that my research is about 'Bad Design'... and about how, being there in that space I felt like a monster. I thought about something I'd written when I first got here (for an article I was going to write about innovation for The National Grid)...
"Last night I went to see Bruce Mau talk . I assumed it'd be a portfolio show, a chronological 'how I got to be where I am now' kind of thing, but it wasn't, thankfully, and he mainly talked about his latest project 'Massive Change'. I'd seen the book around and I'd flicked through it a couple of times but it hadn't engaged me, either in its content or its design, and I'd left it on the shelf. In the book, and on the stage, Bruce makes it very clear; he wants to save the world. Not surprisingly 'innovation' is what designers have to offer in the race to save the world, and the term was thrown around in relation to all sorts of things from new, more open and collaborative business models for design studios, to the problem of New York's yellow cabs, urban planning, international economies, and - of course - the multi-gazillion dollar question in America right now, New Orleans and the Mississippi Delta. While these are certainly prescient issues - problems to be solved - I was struck by the same feeling I'd had when I was leafing through the book. Boredom. But boredom offset by some kind of anxiety, guilt I guess, that I should care. Sitting in an auditorium with maybe a couple of hundred other designers who, for all intents and purposes did seem to care, I began to feel like a phoney, and I wondered if people could tell. It felt a lot like the couple of times I've been dragged along to a church service and become paranoid that everyone there knew just by looking at me that I was an unbeliever."
I tried to relate this back into my topic...
Posted by Luke Wood at February 11, 2006 04:53 AM
Comments
This makes a lot of sense to me. It seems you're exploring an 'alternative' design (in the same meaning as for example alternative music is in contrast /tension with pop music). I think that you now have the bigger picture and you can justify just exploring the monstrous aspect of it for your master, or?
Did you read Camus’ Stranger?
Posted by: E. at February 14, 2006 05:46 AM
Hi E, yeah I think I have... I think it's "The Outsider" in English? Is it the same one? I read it when I was quite young and really engaged with the way the guy doesn't really mind people dying, made me feel better about not being able to cry at funerals.
Posted by: Luke Wood at February 14, 2006 07:25 AM
Was just thinking about that word 'alternative'. So hard for me to divorce it from that moment when "Smells Like Teen Spirit" came out, and every fucking guy at school who'd previously wanted to beat you up every lunchtime cause you had long hair and looked weird/gay, all of a sudden became 'Alternative'. Of course you're quite right though, I am trying to explore alternatives... in the hope that I can find stuff about Design that I like. And it's happened already... which is kinda something I was trying to point out in the outline I wrote. I just didn't say how/why exactly... thing is I don't know exactly, but I figure I can write my way through it (find out by writing).
Anyway what I was gonna write here was just that the term 'peripheral' has come up a lot lately. Why does that sound so much nicer than 'alternative'? I guess that's fairly obvious, but it makes me realise how important the words you use are in terms of them being leading and stuff. I think 'peripheral' references point-of-view, perspective, etc... whereas 'alternative', because of it's association of having being so rapidly co-opted by the mainstream, kind of doesn't. Does that make sense? I want to say it's not a dominant-culture/sub-culture kind of thing... it's not inclusive/exclusive, more like, well anyone could look in the gutter as they go down the street... but that's not it either, I'm nnot talking about the vernacular. I'm not talking about aesthetics or even visual language. I'm trying to talk about the way we see ourselves, how we engage with ourselves, and how that affects what we do... fuck, somebody shoot me!
Posted by: Luke Wood at February 14, 2006 08:12 AM
I take your point about 'alternative' and I really can't find anything better than 'peripheral'... damned, English is such a limited language. I think you should do it French style: make up a word and define it. If you repeat it often enough it becomes a technical term. Make it hard to spell so you can treat the others as ignorants. :-)
Posted by: E. at February 14, 2006 05:00 PM
To be fair to Bruce, I found this quote that I really liked and thought it related to my recent reflections on The National Grid project...
"For me the studio is the project. It's an eco-system that is very sensitive. We are very careful about what we introduce -- in terms of people and projects -- into that system. Projects, for example, are the sustenance of the studio. The studio is the EXCITING thing. The projects are the NECESSARY thing.
With the people who come in to be part of the studio," he continues, "it's like adding a plant to a garden. If it's the wrong kind, it'll destroy the garden. Always remember: every person, every project represents an INFINITELY COMPLEX SET OF RELATIONSHIPS. Finding the exact balance between the right people and the right projects is the key to sustaining a flourishing studio."
I really liked that... the complextity of the relationships and the recognition that it's the peripheral that creates a rich generative and imaginative space for the central.
(the quote is here... http://www.portfolios.com/close-ups/mau.html... for some reason I can't link to it?)
Posted by: Luke Wood at February 18, 2006 03:24 AM