You never saw so much hemming and hawing as me trying to decide whether or not to go see the big Bruce Mau induced design show at the Art Gallery of Ontario, MASSIVE CHANGE. The huge lettering on the outside of the building finally wooed me with their promise of spectacle. Paying the fee to get in proved to be an interesting mistake (the website is comprehensive). I previously had no idea that such totalitarian design concepts had taken hold north of the border. Floor-to-ceiling lettering throughout the exhibition made headline pronouncements such as "We will eradicate poverty....We will build intelligence into materials and liberate form from matter...We will design evolution." The first display is about urbanization. Fast-paced video of high density downtowns and satellite images of the earth is accompanied by a sauve, female voice who makes the unnerving claim that "everywhere is city: We still conceive of cities as discrete objects, separate from their surroundings. This is no longer true. There is no exterior to the global city that connects and sustains us all." The display climaxes with gigantic letters that pronounce:
EVERYWHERE=CITY DESIGN=HOPE
Yike, steady on! Some might still say that DESIGN=DECORATION. Yet for all the obnoxious bluster and posturing of this show, I enjoyed its amibitious attempts at categorization. Like Orbis Sensualium Pictus, Bruce Mau and the Institute Without Boundaries have attempted to depict the entire world. The breakdown (scribbled down from the catalogue table of contents) goes like this:
- Urbanization Economies (eg: density, housing)
- Movement Economies (eg: personal freedom, global movement)
- Energy Economies (eg: clean power)
- Information Economies (eg: Lessig on free culture)
- Image Economies (eg: micro and subatomic photography)
- Market Economies (eg: corporate accountability, ecology)
- Material Economies (eg: super hard, super light, bio mimicry)
- Military Economies (eg: conventional war, virtual war, cyberwar, peace)
- Manufacturing Economies (eg: ecology and equity)
- Living Economies (eg: genome, biomedia, drinking water)
- Wealth & Politics (eg: citizen revolution, digital divide, global poverty, women's health, gender power imbalance)
Unlike the show, the book and website promise some detailed and generative analysis. One clear mandate for the project is optimism. Refreshing, yes, but forced optimism — whether its at a family Christmas, an art gallery outing, or a political rally — is ultimately oppressive and scary. Also, in the end, even the most visionary design is intrinsically bound to product...and optimism is just plain good for business.
Thanks for the bit 'o Latin, Sal, could you post an image with some red in it?
I saw the big sign on the AGO. I panicked. So I went for haircut instead. That was massive too.
It was a good impulse. Helvetica ultra black is a fascist font.
Yes, the 'big, massive sign' makes me yearn for a hasty demolition. Talk about oppression.
Fascism definitely definitely comes to mind. I know that the art and designer types who put on this show aren't completely ignorant ... so I can only assume the reference is intentional. Which is, uh, weird and irritating.
Paraphrase New York Times Style columnist about a month ago: "If I had $10 for every time a designer fixed his/her steely gaze on me and solemnly intoned that: "Design can transform our life..." then I wouldn't have to make my living writing about it".
Based on the descriptions, Mau's show sounds super-duper pretentious. The photographs I have seen seem to evoke Russian Constructivist Propaganda: Bright angular chunks of 'Important!' data anchored in an evangelical sense of portentuous urgency. & of course Stalin came along and crushed the Constructivists like bugs, replacing them with happy peasants gazing resolutely into the sunset.
and here I always thought blackletter type faces were the standard in fascist graphic design.
design does transform our lives, everyday, or do you not consider everything man made in this world to be part of some design? Next time you go for a walk just open you eyes and try not to see something that transforms our environment... and then go write about it.
graphic gift from L.M:
PS. anonymous, I used to be a designer. I know what a power trip it can be if you let yourself get carried away.
I spent some time at the website, and still don't know what they are trying to accomplish. Is that unremarkable internet presence supposed to change the world? If so, how?
I have to go now, and get back to designing a MASSIVE CHANGE IN HOW THE GLOBAL COMMUNITY VIEWS THE WORLD ON THE BOOB TUBE.
Hopefully it'll mean things are no longer filtered through Tim Russert, Tom Brokaw, Ted Koppel, Chris Matthews, Roger Ailes, Bob Schiefer, Jim Lehrer, Larry King and other assorted boobs.
Sadly, I just do pixels, not content. I realize that six times the pixel count doesn't make Meet the Tim any better, but that's the limit of my MASSIVE CHANGE power.
Faster internet technology combined with better video compression may decentralize video communication in the way that the print and still image communication are becoming decentralized. The telcos view fat pipes (~20 Mbps VDSL) as a way for them to move the products of the media giants from broadcast centers to massive numbers of eyeballs. But those same fat pipes will (eventually) be subverted to enable peer-to-peer networking as never seen before.
Pro-sumer video production equipment alreay surpasses in many ways what was generally available to pros only ten years ago. The last lynch pin is the pipe.
Somewhere on the MASSIVE CHANGE site, someone defined design as follows: "Design is creation for reproduction" -- GVA
That's a definition of early 20th century Industrial Design. Some people decided that "if we're going to make massive amounts of this shit, at least it ought to look nice, and work well". Things have changed a bit over the last one hundred years. It's possible to re-examine the premise upon which ID is based.
Communications is an example where "conglomerate-to-many" can and should change to "many-to-many", because putting high definition lipstick on a pig shows that the early 20th century approach to design is running out of steam.
The MASSIVE CHANGE folks don't seem to understand the concept of using the power of conglomerates to undermine the power of conglomerates, as in my VDSL example. It's hard to take them seriously when they want to move the world but don't know where the fulcrum and lever arm are located.
/ramble
There was a bicycle-cart ambulance on display at the show that I found really inspiring. This technology is being used in poor rural areas where people previously had to carry each other to hospital, sometimes hours and hours away. The trailer on display was really pretty, but obviously the decorative aspects of design mean next to nothing in this case. I couldn't find a picture of it, but I did find this website about bicycle ambulances in Nepal. There seem to be different designs for ambulances and campaigns to fund them springing up all over the place. Of course, the plain ordinary bicycle itself can make a huge difference to lives where the daily trek to market and school takes hours by foot.
Hey Sally -
I am so glad you went and wrote about it. It's been hard to miss the MASSIVE CHANGE. I've been tempted to check it
despite my better judgement.
I have been mulling over your optimism is good for business. I just heard an advertisement for Alarm Force Canada. In their ad, the security force company was offering "prioritized" access to police when you install their system. Fear is also good for business.
hah. you are so correct.
power trip with graphic design?? (see post above)
Are we talking about the same kind of design that the massive change show is about? I think Bruce Mau has made it pretty clear that the definition of design he is dealing with in his research is broader than mere graphic design... ie. science, industry, urbanism etc... In these cases there can be power tripping, but in the case of graphic design, where's the power? Where's the trip? Your just a tool for someone else's expression... I've also been there and done that and never felt like I wielded any amount of power to trip over.
Okay there is a difference of scale for sure. But I hold to what I said above about graphic design being a potential power trip. Good design is invisible yet influential. A charismatic product appears and people are drawn to it without really needing to analyse why. Design is marketing and marketing is manipulative. I found that when I was making something I believed in (I was desinging my own magazine) and was successful in creating a compelling look and feel, that there was a tinge of deluded megalomania mixed in with my plain ordinary professional pride. But maybe that's just me, I'm a bit of a control freak.
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You never saw so much hemming and hawing as me trying to decide whether or not to go see the big Bruce Mau induced design show at the Art Gallery of Ontario, MASSIVE CHANGE. The huge lettering on the outside of the building finally wooed me with their promise of spectacle. Paying the fee to get in proved to be an interesting mistake (the website is comprehensive). I previously had no idea that such totalitarian design concepts had taken hold north of the border. Floor-to-ceiling lettering throughout the exhibition made headline pronouncements such as "We will eradicate poverty....We will build intelligence into materials and liberate form from matter...We will design evolution." The first display is about urbanization. Fast-paced video of high density downtowns and satellite images of the earth is accompanied by a sauve, female voice who makes the unnerving claim that "everywhere is city: We still conceive of cities as discrete objects, separate from their surroundings. This is no longer true. There is no exterior to the global city that connects and sustains us all." The display climaxes with gigantic letters that pronounce:
EVERYWHERE=CITY DESIGN=HOPE
Yike, steady on! Some might still say that DESIGN=DECORATION. Yet for all the obnoxious bluster and posturing of this show, I enjoyed its amibitious attempts at categorization. Like Orbis Sensualium Pictus, Bruce Mau and the Institute Without Boundaries have attempted to depict the entire world. The breakdown (scribbled down from the catalogue table of contents) goes like this:
- Urbanization Economies (eg: density, housing)
- Movement Economies (eg: personal freedom, global movement)
- Energy Economies (eg: clean power)
- Information Economies (eg: Lessig on free culture)
- Image Economies (eg: micro and subatomic photography)
- Market Economies (eg: corporate accountability, ecology)
- Material Economies (eg: super hard, super light, bio mimicry)
- Military Economies (eg: conventional war, virtual war, cyberwar, peace)
- Manufacturing Economies (eg: ecology and equity)
- Living Economies (eg: genome, biomedia, drinking water)
- Wealth & Politics (eg: citizen revolution, digital divide, global poverty, women's health, gender power imbalance)
Unlike the show, the book and website promise some detailed and generative analysis. One clear mandate for the project is optimism. Refreshing, yes, but forced optimism — whether its at a family Christmas, an art gallery outing, or a political rally — is ultimately oppressive and scary. Also, in the end, even the most visionary design is intrinsically bound to product...and optimism is just plain good for business.- sally mckay 4-06-2005 11:20 pm
Thanks for the bit 'o Latin, Sal, could you post an image with some red in it?
- L.M. 4-07-2005 12:06 am
I saw the big sign on the AGO. I panicked. So I went for haircut instead. That was massive too.
- Tino (guest) 4-07-2005 4:07 am
It was a good impulse. Helvetica ultra black is a fascist font.
- L.M. 4-07-2005 4:28 am
Yes, the 'big, massive sign' makes me yearn for a hasty demolition. Talk about oppression.
- thom (guest) 4-07-2005 6:03 am
Fascism definitely definitely comes to mind. I know that the art and designer types who put on this show aren't completely ignorant ... so I can only assume the reference is intentional. Which is, uh, weird and irritating.
- sally mckay 4-07-2005 8:29 am
Paraphrase New York Times Style columnist about a month ago: "If I had $10 for every time a designer fixed his/her steely gaze on me and solemnly intoned that: "Design can transform our life..." then I wouldn't have to make my living writing about it".
Based on the descriptions, Mau's show sounds super-duper pretentious. The photographs I have seen seem to evoke Russian Constructivist Propaganda: Bright angular chunks of 'Important!' data anchored in an evangelical sense of portentuous urgency. & of course Stalin came along and crushed the Constructivists like bugs, replacing them with happy peasants gazing resolutely into the sunset.
- Von Bark (guest) 4-07-2005 7:43 pm
and here I always thought blackletter type faces were the standard in fascist graphic design.
design does transform our lives, everyday, or do you not consider everything man made in this world to be part of some design? Next time you go for a walk just open you eyes and try not to see something that transforms our environment... and then go write about it.
- anonymous (guest) 4-08-2005 4:42 am
graphic gift from L.M:
PS. anonymous, I used to be a designer. I know what a power trip it can be if you let yourself get carried away.
- sally mckay 4-08-2005 5:45 am
I spent some time at the website, and still don't know what they are trying to accomplish. Is that unremarkable internet presence supposed to change the world? If so, how?
I have to go now, and get back to designing a MASSIVE CHANGE IN HOW THE GLOBAL COMMUNITY VIEWS THE WORLD ON THE BOOB TUBE.
- mark 4-08-2005 7:58 am
Hopefully it'll mean things are no longer filtered through Tim Russert, Tom Brokaw, Ted Koppel, Chris Matthews, Roger Ailes, Bob Schiefer, Jim Lehrer, Larry King and other assorted boobs.
- tom moody 4-08-2005 8:42 am
Sadly, I just do pixels, not content. I realize that six times the pixel count doesn't make Meet the Tim any better, but that's the limit of my MASSIVE CHANGE power.
Faster internet technology combined with better video compression may decentralize video communication in the way that the print and still image communication are becoming decentralized. The telcos view fat pipes (~20 Mbps VDSL) as a way for them to move the products of the media giants from broadcast centers to massive numbers of eyeballs. But those same fat pipes will (eventually) be subverted to enable peer-to-peer networking as never seen before.
Pro-sumer video production equipment alreay surpasses in many ways what was generally available to pros only ten years ago. The last lynch pin is the pipe.
Somewhere on the MASSIVE CHANGE site, someone defined design as follows: "Design is creation for reproduction" -- GVA
That's a definition of early 20th century Industrial Design. Some people decided that "if we're going to make massive amounts of this shit, at least it ought to look nice, and work well". Things have changed a bit over the last one hundred years. It's possible to re-examine the premise upon which ID is based.
Communications is an example where "conglomerate-to-many" can and should change to "many-to-many", because putting high definition lipstick on a pig shows that the early 20th century approach to design is running out of steam.
The MASSIVE CHANGE folks don't seem to understand the concept of using the power of conglomerates to undermine the power of conglomerates, as in my VDSL example. It's hard to take them seriously when they want to move the world but don't know where the fulcrum and lever arm are located.
/ramble
- mark 4-08-2005 9:56 am
There was a bicycle-cart ambulance on display at the show that I found really inspiring. This technology is being used in poor rural areas where people previously had to carry each other to hospital, sometimes hours and hours away. The trailer on display was really pretty, but obviously the decorative aspects of design mean next to nothing in this case. I couldn't find a picture of it, but I did find this website about bicycle ambulances in Nepal. There seem to be different designs for ambulances and campaigns to fund them springing up all over the place. Of course, the plain ordinary bicycle itself can make a huge difference to lives where the daily trek to market and school takes hours by foot.
- sally mckay 4-08-2005 5:27 pm
Hey Sally -
I am so glad you went and wrote about it. It's been hard to miss the MASSIVE CHANGE. I've been tempted to check it
despite my better judgement.
I have been mulling over your optimism is good for business. I just heard an advertisement for Alarm Force Canada. In their ad, the security force company was offering "prioritized" access to police when you install their system. Fear is also good for business.
- nanmac (guest) 4-08-2005 8:02 pm
hah. you are so correct.
- sally mckay 4-08-2005 10:16 pm
power trip with graphic design?? (see post above)
Are we talking about the same kind of design that the massive change show is about? I think Bruce Mau has made it pretty clear that the definition of design he is dealing with in his research is broader than mere graphic design... ie. science, industry, urbanism etc... In these cases there can be power tripping, but in the case of graphic design, where's the power? Where's the trip? Your just a tool for someone else's expression... I've also been there and done that and never felt like I wielded any amount of power to trip over.
- anonymous (guest) 4-09-2005 3:50 am
Okay there is a difference of scale for sure. But I hold to what I said above about graphic design being a potential power trip. Good design is invisible yet influential. A charismatic product appears and people are drawn to it without really needing to analyse why. Design is marketing and marketing is manipulative. I found that when I was making something I believed in (I was desinging my own magazine) and was successful in creating a compelling look and feel, that there was a tinge of deluded megalomania mixed in with my plain ordinary professional pride. But maybe that's just me, I'm a bit of a control freak.
- sally mckay 4-11-2005 10:28 pm