August 31, 2006
carpet-notes
a collection of re-ordered, re-organised, cut-up and marked-up writings and notes made in the lead-up to the last masters presentation... some more coherant than others, but there seems to be something here...
Posted by Neal Haslem at 05:30 PM
July 18, 2005
Ivan Illich
Jeremy suggested that it might be worth looking at my work as an educator...in the light of my response when he asked me what I was doing..."looking at ways design and designers can work with people and communities, can promote and facilitate communities and communication, might create systems or objects or spaces or zones which allow greater levels of interconnectedness and connection...." I was trailing off..."When you work with students do you feel like a designer or a teacher? ...hmmm...
It's a good comment, and one that has sunk in over the last couple of days. I think I need to look at a few projects I have done with students and think and write about it. I remember this brief bio on Ivan Illich, and how much I connect with the ideas, particularly his ideas about the creation of educative, social life within society. His ideas connect and support my own leanings towards an opening-up of connections, a path of non-specialisation, and a valuing of the incidental interchange.
Jeremy also spoke about ethnography and I spoke of my knee-jerk reaction against it...what little I have read I felt was closing-down relationships and seemed patronising...it still seems to in it's foundations: "the PNG tribesmen smear goats blood on their foreheads to promote courage and stealth..."... However, I do realise how important it is to situate myself and not dismiss...I wonder whether education theory, and particularly some of Illich's work might provide some foundation for me....there's something about it that I can't quite put my finger on, something that connects....It connects with the DIY and the "facilitator of system" approach, it connects with my belief that my teaching work is really "the facilitation of an educative environment"...and it makes me feel like I am still playing with buckets in the sand...I have got no-where, if anything I might now be able to see how far my work with this MA has got to go...
Posted by Neal Haslem at 11:16 AM
April 12, 2005
Not Masters work?
it's come up time and again in the Masters course that it is often useful to work on projects that don't initially seem connected to the MA, these projects (take Dear John for example) seem to allow the ideas we have been discussing as a group, and our own individual topics to reveal themselves as living ideas...
I recently worked on a project with some artist friends, they are exhibiting/performing at the Melbourne Town Hall, the show is called "Lost and Found" (on until April 24). I designed a catalogue and invite for the show... we discussed the job at length; the format, the text, images, cost, the satirical "Fashion" theme running through the publication (the exhibition/performance was on during both the Fashion and comedy festivals). We discussed the desire for Neil and Katy (the artists) being able to re-purpose and re-configure the catalogue to become part of their performance, and a part of the narratives they weave through all their Museum of Modern Oddities work...
The catalogue ended up taking the form of a series of 12 double-sided postcard-sized cards which people could read any way they wanted to, the stories on the cards (10 - 20 words) were sometimes nonsensical, sometimes playful and sometimes totally unrelated.. the imagery had no explanation...though at first glance the stories seemed to explain the images...
(click to zoom)
For me, the show and the catalogue was all about the reader/viewer; their own personal connections, narratives and links, the catalogue and the show were in a sense "user-centred" (though not in the conventional "how do we communicate our statement to the user better" reading of the term) - the work didn't necessarily have anything to say, yet both the show and the catalogue provided "ways in" to multiple readings...the source for these readings and the depth and layering of meaning came from the viewer...
(click to see the space)
In this sense the way the design system worked was very similar to the poster series Keith and I created up in Brisbane last year (which I still have to write an entry up for)
One element of the catalogue was a Lost/Found form which people could fill out and post in (or fill out while they attended the show)...a lot of these Lost/Found forms have been completed and are on display at the Lost and Found show... people have engaged with this writing of stories to each-other / no-one / everyone, some stories are fiction, some are Oprah-esque, some say nothing and others a lot...my work continues as co-author of the catalogue (and the Lost/Found form) when I sit down and read the entries, I'm still thinking about the guy who lost his father and the girl who lost her bunny...
(click to zoom)
So, it's interesting how the work on this catalogue ended up communicating a lot back to me; stuff about audience, intention, authorship, meaning, communication forms, creating space for communication, creating/enabling community, egalitarianism...and design amongst other things. I could write about this work for almost as long as it took to do it (60.5hrs)....I will think about it some more and put up another entry about it...
Posted by Neal Haslem at 05:05 PM
May 07, 2004
GRC Abstract
Investigating the contribution and possibilities of Communication Design
within Public Space
What is the current role of communication design in creating and defining
public space? What are the implications of marketing-driven communication
design in terms of mental environment? Beyond the barrage of calls for
consumer action, what contribution can communication design offer virtual
and physical public spaces?
Commencing with an analysis of the visual language of a streetscape, this
research project will investigate the impact of marketing communications in
public space. A series of project based outcomes will propose alternative
visual forms and/or languages which communication designers might deploy in
their role as citizen designers.
Posted by Neal Haslem at 04:51 PM
April 08, 2004
Public Space
title:
The role, responsibilities and future of CD in public space.
triggers:
communication / design / public space
abstract:
The role of Communication Design in creating public space (whether virtual or real). What responsibilities does CD have to accept in taking part in public space? Does CD show an awareness of public space? How might CD help to better achieve its aims of effective communication, adequate transferral of meaning, aiding and augmenting discourse, creating more interesting and creative spaces, reducing mental strain in highly urbanised spaces, reducing antagonistic marketing practices (eg fear, body image, self-image, pecking order, bullying, teasing, ordering, commanding, insulting, marginalisation, ideology pushing, racial stereotyping, gender stereotyping, promotes monoculture, supporting dominant paradigm, anti-democratic, didactic, religious stereotyping, individualism, divide and conquer, etc), helping to develop new practices/languages in line with utopian future directions. Are there possibilities of new CD languages and forms that might perhaps help to empower greater human connectivity and communication?
Posted by Neal Haslem at 01:45 PM