Graphic Language

DESERT PEOPLE

Our annual desert retreat is steadily approaching, the first days of November to be precise.

This means another speaker, another project and lots of "mingling".

I spoke with Michael last week about the project and structure of the events, trying to improve upon an already great experience. We talked about the possibly of doing two projects, one similar to last years(something curatorial), and one a smaller voluntary collaboration. As far as the secong project goes, maybe it could be something context based?, taking into consideration the environment of the desert.

I sent him an email last night with a loose idea for the second project. The loose premise is this. I'll start with the format: a series of still images projected into or within the environment. We have a projector, we have a screen just in case the elements are not cooperative. Each participant will create one frame at a set size/dpi(tbd).

The contents of the frames could be narrative, through text or image. It could be poetic, and not literally. It could be individual, or collaborative. I feel it should be contextual. How do we choose to efffect the environment. Do we consider the graphic language of the region? The 29 Palms Historical Society has great quote at the top which reads:

"What draws us into the desert is the search for something intimate in the remote." ~Edward Abbey

Maybe this is a good place to start. The contradiction seems to sum up a lot of our interests.

Any thoughts?

Other things to do in the desert:

http://www.noahpurifoy.com/foundation/joshuatreeenvironment.html#Top
http://www.zittel.org/
http://www.integratron.com/Welcome.html

A Response

Opening up this week at Deitch Projects is Yes and Not Yes, a solo exhibition by San Francisco artist Tauba Auerbach.

I have mixed feelings about this show, as I find her work visually engaging but find her conceptual musings to be rather redundant and to an extent naive.

Quoting a press release from her last Los Angeles show:

"Tauba Auerbach’s work deals with the shortcomings and possibilities of language. Her work approaches language as a technology, a system of symbols by which the internal complexities of a person’s mind, body and general self are converted into an external, transmittable form. Implied in her work is the notion that this conversion process is inexact. Her focus on language is a focus on the space between individuals, the gap they attempt to cross to meet one another intellectually and emotionally, and the nature of the tools they use to do so. Her analysis includes a substantive examination of words, and a deep formal meditation on individual letters. “I feel as though I know each letter intimately—its shortcomings and its tendencies. I feel close to them.” Overall, her work attempts to present a more complicated and flexible version of reality than language customarily allows."

Maybe I am jaded because I am a designer but this all sounds as if she is trying to imply characteristics of written language that have been established since its invention. The written language is a system of abstraction. We all know this(or maybe we dont and this is intended to be some sort of art epiphany). Of course the "conversion" is inexact, but we all need a system to make sense of it all. The history of the modern world would be a series of assumptions, hearsay and exaggerations were it not for the written word.

At most I see her work as a series of abstractions of abstractions. Mostly formal explorations, their intent seems very self fulfilling, inside jokes, obscure observations, simplistic deconstructions.

Language is a funny thing, I agree, but what is more interesting to me is the evolution of it's formal characteristics, historical, modern to post-modern, current trends. What is influencing current type design today? How does slang infiltrate the written word as it has infiltrated the spoken? What about language barriers, is there a way to simplify the tools for smoother comprehension?

more images:

http://www.newimageartgallery.com/tauba.html

FEEDBACK

WHAT IS YOUR DESIGN WEAKNESS? IN ONE WORD.

Question

Is the worst compliment to give a designer, "That's creative." ?

P, P, F

The Swiss curator Hans Ulrich Obrist recently asked French design duo M/M Paris, "What is the future?". Their response was "the poster".

If the poster is the future then what is the present? The T-shirt?

Fill in the blanks

I recently did a poster for an IM Exhibition called Ordinary Popular Delusions. Initially I set out to design the poster to expose the infrastructure of the environment. In the end I chose a typographic solution, leaving part of the composition open for images, which I eventually left as open gaps of information for the viewer to fill. How much can we assume be left up to the viewer to decide? Will those gaps be identified as public space or will they be left unimagined?

2 Big Rooms

We have been given a space to fill in late January for a weeks time. 2 spaces to be exact. 2 BIG spaces.

Cameron and I collaborated on 2 proposals. They are very rough but address equally interesting topics. Whats are your thoughts, suggestions?

Topic 1:

There is a delicate line between the functionalism and celebration of Graphic Design. The Graphic Design MFA program would like to present a body of work celebrating the two. We propose a gallery show exhibiting a self-initiated Graphic Design Program collaboration to brand the town of Valencia as only CalArts Can. The name of the show is to be called “Re: Brand”

The work to be displayed will graphic in nature and as such will be hung from the walls of the space. The material presented will range from poster, to formal identity, to large, full-scale signage elements. The work will be original and created especially for the occassion.

“Re:Brand” will be an opportunity for the MFA design community to come together to present their work as well as process while addressing the theoretical redesign graphic pressence of the community of Valencia, whose identity is arguably fractured and inconsistent, in what is to be a unique CalArts experience.

Topic 2:

We propose that the space of the D300 Gallery is divied into 26 units, each assigned a letter. Persons
within the department(both group and individual) will be assigned a letter based on a drawing. The group/individual will then be asked to design the space in appreciation of the letter.

The idea here is SCALE. Going big with graphics, communication, design. The event will be an unveiling
of the currated work and also include a host of events. These will include:
- Alphabet speed reading contests.
- Selected poetry and essays read by guest
designers (a la, Ed Fella)
- etc.

The mission for this installation is to create a massive typographipc experience revolving around the aplphabet and its forms; harnessing the scale of billboards and other such large format signage and bringing it down to eye level.

Hall Monitor

Let's look at the CalArts poster, particularly the recent history. Functional, experimental, vibrant, stolen.

Considering the relatively unchanged context of this school staple, it is sometimes our sole means to communicate with the rest of the student body. It seems a very one sided conversation, sometimes humorous, sometimes glum, sometimes inspirational. Does it end here?

Can we work within this stable context to communicate more about our environment? Can we change the way others percieve their surroundings(Through placement, architecture, repetition)? Can we give as well as recieve?

Do we go unchallenged because of a favorable stereotype?

I think the posters Mike Calvert was doing last year started to play with an internal dialogue, yet the joke was still very much "inside".

Whats next?

Pencilneck

I have been asking myself recently how illustration can influence design practice(and vice versa). I have over the past few years experimented with it as a form of process, to which end I found, only breeds a stylized vernacualr style.

I am esentially in a rut. I am encouraged though by publications like the recently released Varoom which attempts to define the relationship of current hybrids and give historical models from which these have developed.

Perhaps I am most interested in the possibility of illustration as a research tool as opposed to a method of form making. Any ideas how to push thimgs forward?

Sol Lewitt

I have been very interested in the theories of Sol Lewitt and how they apply to art practice. Can these these ideas translate to design?

From www.guggenheim.org (Additional comments in italic):

LeWitt likens his method of creating art to that of an architect. He has stated, “An architect doesn’t go off with a shovel and dig his foundation and lay every brick. He’s still an artist.” Do you agree or disagree with LeWitt’s line of reasoning?

Some of his work was executed, not by Sol LeWitt, but by a team of assistants according to a set of directions written by the artist. It is LeWitt’s premise that the art is in the idea. Do you think that it is important that the artist actually draw or paint the work, or is it equally valid that the artist conceive the work and have others execute it? How does this method of making art change what we mean when we call a work “an original”?

Is it necessary to be maker as well as planner?

This work is drawn directly on the wall, and in many cases will be destroyed at the end of an exhibition. How do you feel about art that is created to exist only for a short time and then destroyed? How does making a drawing that will later be painted over challenge traditional ideas about the importance and value of the art object?

How do we value design objects? Are all design objects timeless?

The fact that this work can be re-created many times in different settings raises a key question: Must a work of art be unique?

Must context be unique, does a displaced design object cause confusion or promote investigation?