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February 10, 2006
Exegesis outline/plan #1 ("Generative Practice")
I've spent the last few days trying to write an outline/plan for my exegesis (which I think is what you call a text that responds to a project-based research program? Not officially a 'thesis'... clear that up for me if you can?). Anyway I wanted to start with the image above - this was the first thing I did within this Masters, an eclectic and disparate collection of photocopied pictures on the wall that I struggled to try and connect - I wanted to talk about how looking back at what I was doing then, a lot of it seems really pertinent or relevant to what I'm doing now.
I talked about how this image reminded me that a couple of years ago I was pretty negative about graphic design, and I'd been trying to get into other things; architecture, music, art, teaching... that basically I was bored, and looking for other things. In hindsight (and specifically in relation to recent projects) what I see here is a map... that looks back at where my practice (as a designer) had come from, and been. I remembered that I'd had high hopes for a Masters... it was a kind of last ditch effort, you know?
In my mind I saw that I could succinctly write my way through it, from 'then' to 'now'... based on the premise that the underlying thread to all my projects/seminars etc was this ongoing attempt to reinvent/reinvigorate my practice. I called it "Generative Practice"... two words that have always had a kind of resonance for me since the early stages of this research. Everything I've done can be bundled nicely into this I thought... the manifestoes, the maps, and the monsters... all by products of the search for richer ground on which to re-establish myself.
Hmmm, that sounds ok to me now? But, as I wrote the outline/plan over the last few days (and maybe I should have planned it first), it just kind of swelled... and I spent hours yesterday editing it down until I became confused and pissed off, because what I thought was fairly clear had turned into a large quicksand of vagueness... I don't really want to put the file on here because I don't think it'd help. Perhaps this 'generative practice' thing is simply too big... a PHD, not a Masters? Maybe I should narrow it down to one particular thread... 'Monstrosity' seems the obvious answer? But it's hard to divorce it from that bigger picture...
...which reminds me, one thing I learnt from attempting to write the outline/plan was that I was interested in how I, as a practitioner, was able to better engage with my practice. There seems to be a lot of talk about how designers engage audiences, but very little about how we engage with our own work... maybe this is something I think about a lot because of my close relationship with students, or the fact we teach design within a fine art school... it's certainly something Aaron and I talk about/around a lot.
Posted by Luke Wood at February 10, 2006 02:23 AM
Comments
hi luke
i finally got to reading 'the plan' and i know it has caused you a fair bit of angst but beyond that this seems to be the way in which you work, i don't think that there is any need to.
there is some great stuff in here and you are working towards making sense of this.
from my own work i love the fact that you are back where you started but not quite...
perhaps it would be useful to go back to Schon and engage in his swamp for a while thinking about how reflective practice really turns up in practice and how it can change what you do, and how you think about what you have done. [see section 2.2 of your text]
as i read your work - the critiques and applications of plastic surgery came to mind - the more we stare in the mirror the more we see is imperfect - what ever that means...
it seems that what you are engaging in is design beyond artefact - you have been delving into the impetus for design actions and design process. perhaps this relates to your next post about bruce mau and the design shop?
'design process as a design narrative' seems to be coming through as a thread in your work. narrative as method, narrative as design?
your questions about your interests and the things that have been central to and have emerged in this project are big... but that is ok. you don't have to have THE answer to them rather you can talk about how you have engaged with and been informed by your interests in these fields.
after reading this i was left wondering 'What/how has the space of doing the master's enabled you to return to design?'
and yes you can discuss and reflect on the personal as you bring this work together. as an exploration through practice i can't see how you can't??
laurene
Posted by: laurene at February 13, 2006 08:45 AM
Re looking more closely at Schon – yeah will do. I haven't ever really got into him, just read what other people have said he said. I guess my natural cynicism kept me away... that reflective practitioner stuff is so icky, but of course now I see that I'm simultaneously doing it and critiquing it. And I like that you called it a "swamp"... maybe links it back to Rosenberg's "reservoir"?
Like the plastic surgery observation too... funny cause I've just been buying face-putty to turn myself into a werewolf (photos coming soon)... yeah mirrors and imperfection, I'll think about it.
This bit, "what you are engaging in is design beyond artefact"... yeah that's what I realised over the course of last year. I know I'm very artefact oriented... why I still buy records when I know I could get them off through Limewire for free... but I realised that learning to make new artefacts, or just looking at the way I engage with the artefacts of my own practice wasn't going to project me out of this process in the way that I wanted. What do I want? To feel like I'm on a trajectory into new stuff. I think that's why I've skirted around trying to talk about 'discourse'? My enjoyment in writing... it's new, hard, and fun, but also it's lead me to navigate and understand Design differently. Which leads into, "'What/how has the space of doing the master's enabled you to return to design?"
This is why I was attempting to put The National Grid project on the end. I mean it never was a project 'within' my masters, but looking back it's very obviously a by-product of having done it... even my meeting up with Jonty again after not having seen him for a while. There's a number of things in this that I'd like to try and write about in the exegesis... one important thing being meeting other people and how this project has enabled me to patch into a network of practitioners who I, more-or-less, engage with. Something that was missing from my practice before. Actually I just thought graphic designers were generally idiots...
Which kinda relates to the next thing I wanted to try and write about here, 'bad design', and something about (as a new post I think)... the periphery, the marginal, etc.
Posted by: Luke Wood at February 14, 2006 07:49 AM