Acts of Graphic Design

            1
            In a recent review of Jan van Toorn’s Design’s Delight, Max Bruinsma paraphrases van Toorn and says: “A design should show where it came from. The designer should reveal who’s talking, and which interests guide the message.”1 Almost 40 years prior, Anthony Froshaug wrote in his review of Pioneers of Modern Typography by Herbert Spencer: “Why celebrate people in books if you cannot say what they did, and why, for what (and for how much)? I should not like to celebrate my death, laid out on a coffee-table”.2
            Implied in these statements from two quite different – but ideologically aligned – designers is a call for a broad, quasi-sociological attitude towards design, symptomatic of a modernist perspective at its height during Froshaug’s day. Although I sympathize a great deal with the idealism of this approach and its emphasis on the importance of context and accountability – notions that somehow seem almost quaint today – I hesitate to describe myself as consciously neo-modernist.
            Nevertheless I am drawn to the idea of an expansive, socially engaged view of graphic design. By this I mean one that views design in relation to, and informed by, ideas and processes from other disciplines such as fine art, film, architecture and cultural studies. To quote another English iconoclast, Norman Potter, in What is a Designer: “It is well enough understood that design is a socially negotiated discipline, and there are telling respects in which design questions are political questions”.3 Potter wrote this book amid the great social unrest in Europe of the late 60s, and this context no doubt contributed to the heightened sense of social awareness that pervaded his career.
            Adopting the attitude that design questions are social questions requires the acknowledgement that designers operate within a larger social fabric and, as such, should not be passive conduits of visual information. Rather, they have a responsibility to actively shape, and in certain respects author, visual information and ideas. To refer to terms defined by Potter in his book, I see my role as a ‘cultural generator’ as well a ‘cultural diffuser’, or rather, I'm aware that ‘culture diffusion’ is a form of ‘culture generation’, and should be considered accordingly.
            This perspective has a number of inspiring historical precedents – each with a socio-political agenda that responded to issues of their times — in the Arts & Crafts movement, Russian Constructivism, De Stijl and the Bauhaus to name a few. Locating my design practice within this larger cultural narrative is a primary concern for me, and as much as I admire many of the ideas and forms that these movements embodied, today’s world provides a new context that requires new ideas and new means for their expression.
            Surveying these historical precedents is useful in defining my practice in other ways. Amidst the general hybridization of roles and disciplines that increasingly defines our working environment, I'm interested in probing the boundaries of what constitutes graphic design today – or perhaps ignoring them altogether. We forget that disciplines evolve, and taking a historical perspective reveals their fluid and disparate definitions over time. I find it imperative to look beyond currently accepted notions of design and develop a sense of autonomous agency, crossing disciplinary boundaries and assuming different roles as necessary.
            In the essay Exhaustion & Exuberance: Ways to Defy the Pressure to Perform , the art critic Jan Verwoert suggests possible strategies for creating this type of agency. He calls on artists to continually re-negotiate existing socio-economic conditions on their own terms and resist the status-quo. This is something many great artists, designers, filmmakers and architects have been able to do. Figures such as Kurt Schwitters, Max Bill, Jean-Luc Godard and Werner Herzog, Charles & Ray Eames, Rem Koolhaas, Peter Saville, and more recently Stuart Bailey, to name some personal favorites, all achieved a kind of subsidized independence and disciplinary agnosticism. In the process, they redefined typical artist-patron or designer-client relationships.
            To return to issues of design and social context, in the seminal book Ways of Seeing first published in 1972, John Berger describes how the meaning of images is continuously in flux, shaped by the socio-economic context of their time:

“The art of the past no longer exists as it once did. Its authority is lost. In its place there is a language of images. What matters now is who uses that language for what purpose... A people or class which is cut off from its own past is far less free to choose and to act as a people or class than one that has been able to situate itself in history. This is why – and this is the only reason why – the entire art of the past has now become a political issue.”4

            Just as the meaning of images changes with context, so, too, does the meaning of human interactions. In the sociological perspective ‘dramaturgy’ developed by the sociologist Erving Goffman in The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, humans are seen as actors whose social interactions can be equated with a kind of performance on the stage of everyday life. Moreover, Goffman describes how the meaning of human interactions in these situations is not fixed but always determined by consensus among a social group. When the social situation (or stage) changes, the meaning also changes, the two perpetually in flux.
            Goffman’s perspective relates to ideas I have sought in my work – both as a means of exploring issues relating to the rubric of context, and as a visual metaphor rich in its formal and conceptual possibilities – which is the notion of ‘staging’. I'm interested in harnessing this notion as an axis of creative investigation and exploration.

            2
            Of the many interpretations that one can evoke when considering the notion ‘to stage’ (the stage as a noun, staging as a verb, staging as metaphor), I want to focus on three that are most relevant to my current interests, while briefly outlining a fourth that may point to future goals. These are the notions of staging as theatrical gesture, typically involving simulation; staging as formal gesture such as in the grouping of objects for a desired effect; staging as a form of situating such as an attempt to contextualize an image or text; and staging as social activity such as the staging of an event, the curating of an exhibition, or the organizing of a panel discussion. I'll discuss these in the context of examples that I think articulate them in interesting ways.
            In staging as theatrical gesture lies an implicit tension between reality and its depiction – its simulation. In the simple yet beautifully conceived film The Girl Chewing Gum made by John Smith in 1972 [Smith was a Master’s student at the Royal College of Art at the time], we observe what appears to be a movie set and a director, somewhere off screen, directing his actors from afar. Men, women, and children cross the street, cars, busses and a trailer come and go in a prototypical street scene, all precisely responding to the director’s command, or so we are led to believe. As time passes and the scene becomes increasingly absurd and improbable (birds are directed to fly across the frame), we slowly realize the conceit of the film. It is in fact documentary footage of an everyday street scene in London but the would-be director is merely describing and not prescribing the action taking place, his voice post-recorded and added at a later date. The effect is both humorous and jarring. More importantly, it draws our attention to the artificial constructs of filmmaking, and in this particular case, the power of words and sound over images. The playful ambiguity between what is real and what is staged becomes an effective tool for challenging the viewer to question the veracity of what he or she sees, and in a sense for democratizing its interpretation.
            Exploring the theatrical within the everyday but through different means, the recently made Real-time Movie by Polish Artist Pawel Althamer features the actor Jude Law (with a cast of supporting characters) simulating an everyday situation in Borough Market, London, as he walks around and buys some fish, all the while reflecting on life's mysteries. It was made in 2007 for the exhibition aptly named The World as a Stage at the Tate Modern, and consists of a short movie trailer created, not for a forth-coming film (which doesn't exist), but to advertise an up-coming live performance at Borough market – essentially a re-enactment of the trailer. Of the live performance Pawel Althamer says: “we designed it as half an hour of acting situations made by the group of actors, and the image of that should be nothing special happens, we are mixed with reality”5. Who is the audience and who are the performers? Is Jude Law being himself or playing a caricature of himself? Wherein lie the boundaries between high art, entertainment, and pure spectacle? These are all interesting and complex questions that this piece raises in a powerful and evocative manner.
            From fine art to popular culture, and from simulations of direct experience to simulations of simulations, the music video zZz is playing: Grip by the Dutch designer Roel Wouters [the video was recorded in one take in front of a live audience at the Stedilijlk museum in Amsterdam] generates yet more creative opportunities and layers of meaning for subsequent decoding. This self-reflexive music-video comprises a cast of 3 gymnasts who simulate computer software processes [ubiquitous in the production of music videos] by acrobatically acting them out in various ways, sometimes faithfully articulating an effect while at other times taking more creative liberty. The video is in some ways an update of the music video Let Forever Be directed by Michel Gondry almost 10 years earlier in 1999, which simulates popular video effects rather than digital ones.

            In thinking of staging as formal gesture, I see a panoply of interpretations as possible, and I run the risk of the idea being too abstract, broad and vague to be useful, but what I mean by it is actually fairly simple and defined. I’m thinking of staging as a formal activity or gesture akin to the convention of the still-life (the staging of objects), with particular attention on the abstract aesthetic qualities of the objects and their composition rather than on their symbolic meaning. The formal studies or Concrete Art that developed out of the Bauhaus come to mind, but I’m particularly interested in a playful expression of this idea embodied in the video The Way Things Go made by the Swiss artists Fischli & Weiss in 1987. In the 30 minute video a huge assortment of everyday objects (from car tires to tea kettles to sugar cubes) is configured in surprisingly creative ways which, when triggered, cause one long chain reaction that lasts the entire duration of the film. Reminiscent of a Rube Golderg machine that performs a practical task in an overly complex way, The Ways Things Go takes this premise to the extreme, save for the fact that no conclusive or practical task is ever performed. The video is in many ways a process of discovery that celebrates the physical and aesthetic qualities of common objects and the fragile relationships created between them.
            Much of the work of the Swedish directorial partnership RBG6 [Swedish designers Joel Nordstöm & Lars Ohlin] resembles the spirit and playfulness of The Way Things Go but in a more abstract and hyper-stylized form. A beautifully shot promotional film entitled Konstfack film by RBG6 [made for Konstfack, University College of Arts, Crafts & Design] shows a cluster of objects (wooden blocks, apples, balls of string, a slice of bread and drops of paint) falling in slow motion against a blue background and then colliding as they bounce off the ground. The poetically evocative imagery brings to mind, albeit on a much more intimate scale, the final sequence of Antonioni’s 1970 film Zabriskie Point wherein a house in the desert is blown-up while being filmed in extreme slow-motion [the cameras shot 3000 images per second, a technical feat at the time], set against a Pink Floyd soundtrack. The explosion, shot from multiple angles and distances (lasting over 4 minutes), becomes a dazzling indulgence in abstract aesthetic wonderment.

            Staging as an attempt to situate any given image or text within a larger context perhaps most easily lends itself to traditional notions of graphic design. By this I don't mean to suggest that it is any less interesting – this interpretation in fact ties most directly to my greater interest in matters of context.
            In this essay I've used a typographic convention directly inspired by Karel Martens’ monograph printed matter [originally published in 1996], whereby annotations are directly integrated into the text, a faux hyperlink of sorts. It is a small but significant gesture of staging, and I have elaborated on it by providing full-size images of the original source material throughout this book (see the bracketed page numbers). These visual reference pages act as a secondary narrative through the book, attempting to provide greater insight into my working process and influences.
            In the 2004 Vitra catalog conceived and designed by the Swiss designer Cornel Windlin, furniture is imaginatively contextualized/staged through a series of photo-essays by individual photographers. Each photographer was asked to imagine a different scenario for a particular piece of furniture. As a collection, the photo essays represent the furniture in a variety of different uses, different social settings, and under different environmental conditions, giving the would-be buyer a much greater sense of the furniture than would otherwise be achieved by conventional studio photography. In a different but not dissimilar way it adds insight into the philosophy and culture of the company, something every brand is required to do as it tries to form an emotional bond with its customer base.
            To return to the socio-political sphere, a poster made by Jan van Toorn leverages the idea of contextualization for a more critical purpose. Made for the Van Abbe Museum in Eindhoven in 1971, the poster features, quite improbably, a list of recent acquisitions complete with their total monetary value, a shopping list of sorts. That this poster could even have been made is a testament to the open-mindedness of Dutch culture in general, and since most Dutch museums are heavily subsidized by the government, one can infer that the question put to the public is; did we spend the money wisely? It could be argued that because the museum is a public institution and accountable to that same public, van Toorn was able to argue the validity of this rather radical approach.

            Staging as a literal social act interests me in the way that it complements a set of circular and mutually beneficial activities, namely designing, teaching, writing, and organizing (curating). Each informs and enriches the other and offers a greater possibility for objective reasoning and critical reflection. The deliberately self-conscious 2006 exhibition Graphic Design in the White Cube curated by the Slovak designer Peter Bil’ak provides an interesting case in point. A kind of anti-exhibition, it displayed posters commissioned by 19 designers from around the world (the number and criteria for selection was unclear). Their brief consisted of announcing that very same exhibition. Furthermore the posters were posted around the city to announce the exhibit, so in effect the exhibition took place simultaneously within the confines of the gallery and out in the public realm. In the catalog Bil’ak described it in this way: “Instead of bringing work from the outside to the gallery, the work is made for the gallery. Instead of recreating the context for the exhibition, gallery conditions are the context for the work.”6 If all graphic design exhibitions took this premise, it would spell the end of exhibitions of graphic design, something Bil’ak acknowledges. But the implication is that we should give greater consideration to highlighting the process and illustrating the context within which work is made.

            3
            In this essay I’ve devoted quite a lot of consideration to the problem of ‘situating my practice’. I have done so partly because I think it is a very important primary gesture – the conditions of work (where, for who, how often, and for how much?) define the creative parameters of the designer, and even though they are never fixed, once established, they are difficult to change. But these structures and professional hierarchies also constitute a subject that I am especially interested in and that I see as central to issues of context.
            Of the examples that I’ve cited in my attempts to elucidate the potential of these ideas, I'm conscious that some venture much farther afield with respect to traditional notions of what graphic design is or can be, while others sit squarely at its center. I have done this partly because the notion of ‘staging’ naturally encompasses a broad range of disciplines, but partly also with the intention of laying claim to new territories, the same way that art has so successfully done in the 20th century.
            In this book, the reader can see examples of my own work and how these examples relate to the ideas expressed here. Max Bruinsma says of van Toorn’s philosophy: “every image is rooted in another one, and this process of amalgamation produces cultural meaning”.7 In a similar spirit, by invoking the notions of context and staging, I have tried to invest my work with social and cultural meaning.

            April 26, 2008
            New Haven, Connecticut

1 Bruinsma, Max. Je ne cherche pas, je trouve, maxbruinsma.nl. March 2007. Retrieved April 2008 from http://www.maxbruinsma.nl/index1.html

2 Froshaug, Anthony. Typography & texts: Documents of a Life, London: Hyphen Press, 2000. p.4

3 Potter, Norman. What is a designer, London: Hyphen Press, 2002. p.7

4 Berger, John. Ways of Seeing, London: Penguin Books, 1977. p.33

5 Althamer, Pawel. Tateshots: Jude Law stars in a film that doesn’t exist, tate.org.uk. December 2007. Retrieved April 2008 from http://feeds.tate.org.uk/tateshots

6 Bil’ak, Peter. Graphic Design in the White Cube, peterb.sk. June 2006. Retrieved April 2008 from http://www.peterb.sk/graphic_design_in_the_white_cube/concept.html

7 Bruinsma, Max. Je ne cherche pas, je trouve, maxbruinsma.nl. March 2007. Retrieved April 2008 from http://www.maxbruinsma.nl/index1.html