Ornament and Orientalism

In Susan’s lecture on Tuesday, she describes her travels to Istanbul as the beginnings for her perspective on ornament and orientalism. Susan began by saying that there are five theories to define ornament as a form of language; grammar, antigram, social speech, deceit, and ornament as a cross cultural conversation. First and foremost, to understand how ornamentation works, objects that have used some sort of ornament can be figurative, narrative, and abstract. Designers who have explored these possibilities have found a way to create or re-discover memories.

Susan’s first defines ornament as another approach to grammar. Grammar, the study of how words and their component parts combine to form sentences, can be seen in the development of textiles and some decorative arts. For example, in this antique ottoman embroidery Turkish rug, the ornamentation works together to complete an entire image within the fabric. Each component of the rose design, along with the colors and techniques, work together to create a finished piece of art. The memory that it evokes is from the western European influence in its colors and naturalistic mode during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Turkish interiors during this time, started to switch gears from orient to occident. Silk embroideries were departing from the mainstream Islamic ornament in response to the power of the Ottoman Turkish Empire control over much of Eastern Europe and the Balkans.

Her second theory is that ornament can also be referred to as an antigram.  This standpoint can most noticeably be seen in architecture.  An antigram, an anagram that means the opposite of the original word or phrase; such as restful is the antigram of fluster, can be seen in the ornamentation through the characteristics of playfully extravagant forms and humor found in buildings during the postmodern period.  The mixture of different ornamentations from different decades can be seen in Charles W. Moore’s Piazza d’Italia in New Orleans.  This building engages many audiences and combines together references from the Marine Theatre of Hadrian, triumphal gateways of Schinkel, archetypical piazzas and fountains, and an acknowledgement of skyscrapers and new technologies in materials.  All of these inspirations are re-worked to create new meanings and new memories for the viewer. It characterizes the various functions, symbolic and practical, with various styles, and takes cues for content and form from the local taste-culture, the Italian community.

The third theory, ornament as a social speech continually crosses race, class, and gender as a way of communicating itself to other cultures.  One example of cross gender   ornamentation can be seen in men’s fashion most recently.  In Paris in 2008, designers such as Dior Homme and Kenzo used masculine silhouettes with feminine details and fabrics to cross the boundaries between menswear and womenswear.  This form of social speech, is communicating that not all ornamentations on clothes should to be considered feminine.  These designers are creating brand new ideas and narratives for a men’s wardrobe.

Alper Boler, our special guest lecture, used ornament as a lie, the fourth theory, in his design, Heated Bench.  From first appearance, the bench appears to be a radiator through its classical ornamentation, but its deceiving characteristics also say that it is a bench to sit and give warmth to the person.  Boler also said that by using ornament as a function, memorize can than find and create new functions.  The everyday use of a radiator was re-worked into the designs of his bench in order to fulfill his creative sense of style.

The last theory, ornament as a cross-cultural conversation, can mostly be described in this weeks reading, “The Turkish ‘Case’”.  Ornament as a cross-cultural conversation can be seen in the designer’s intent and choice.  One example of this would self-orientalism.  In order to self-orientalize, one will focus mainly on the dominant perspectives and ideological biases apparently suited to the orient.  One example found in the reading is the popularity of tourism that started to develop in Turkey.  Turkey discovered that in order to keep tourism alive, image of a more western country would not thrive compared to “images and symbols associated with the Orient.”  “Ottoman and oriental motifs are more and more frequently used in practically every domain of decoration, from shop windows to urban furniture, and from bars and restaurants to interior decoration.”  In a way, this self-orientalism causes the country to focus on stereotypical forms of ornament in order to keep revenue inside the country.

Antique Ottoman Turkish Rug

Charles W. Moore’s Piazza d’Italia

Dior Homme 2008

Alper Boler “Heated Bench”

Turkish City Scape

Portable Light Textile

““Leapfrog” technology is a term used to describe an advance in technology that is so sudden and decisive that it appears to bypass or jump over historical patterns of gradual development.”

It is about designing a way forward, to imagine the future or where the frog is going to leap and what is going to happen and “form and understanding of it”. In this case it is about thinking ahead for the other 90% of people in the world who don’t have the same privileges.

Sheila Kennedy gives the example of the Portable Light. It was an “intersection between design research and social action.” As a result it was discovered that there was a need for a self-contained infrastructure that could give useful amount of light to a great number of people.

“It had to be independent or work on its own, and simple enough to be reliable.”

“One of the inspirations came from nature: the LED devices they are developing are inspired by the behaviour of fireflies, that cloud together to create a bright light source from many many small units.” (Pli)

The Portable Light Textile engaged the participation of women because women often perform the labor in rural communities.

Portable light technology provides enough light for this Huichol girl to do her homework at night, even though there is no electricity in her village.

Portable light, developed by University Michigan and Kennedy & Violich Architecture, is a series of prototypes which integrate flexible solar cells and super bright LEDs into lighting solutions for the large number of people (over 2 billions) who do not have access to electric light or power.

Portable light is adapted differently in each country in
United States/Brazil, Mexico, Nicaragua, Venezuelan and
Brazilian Amazonas, South Africa

Las Guyabas with hand bags
Africa with blankets.
Bangladesh with roof system
Soft houses: solar panel with curtains

A Portable Light weighs less than a pound and can withstand abuse because textiles are strong for their weight. Kennedy has dropped Portable Light units from as high as 30 feet off the ground without damaging them.

Week 12 – Uta Staiger, “Visualizing the Citizenship Gap: EU Borders and Migration in Cultural Productions”

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Uta Staiger talks extensively about society, particularly about the European Union and its problems with its borders. Staiger starts out by discussing what borders are and how they affect the world we live in.

“The border, as a territorial and political boundary, is the site where tensions between sovereignty and post national pressures, citizen alien, universal rights and exclusive membership, become poignantly visible” (Staiger, 1).

Uta Stiager is directing her essay towards the opposition of borders and their implied meanings. The significance of borders in Staigers eyes is divided up into two categories, imaginary borders and national borders. There are stigmas behind borders, and that they are “over saturated” with nationalistic ideals. Staiger brings up also a great point in regards to how a country responds to the loss of their borders.

“The less boarders seem to matter; the more is invested physically, politically and symbolically in their maintenance” (Stiager, 2).

This primarily talks about how the country tries to retain its nationality, but increases the amount of xenophobia. This cause for alarm is brought on by the migrants, asylum seekers and refugees.

Stiager talks about how these border issues are discussed in the video essays of Ursula Bieman’s, Contained Mobility (2004). Primarily she talks about the Citizenship Gap and how human rights and citizens rights are conflicting. The citizenship gap is defined as “the legal discrepancy between citizen and human rights, made particularly evident at and through borders” (Staiger, 5). This is where the issues of human rights come into conflict with the rights that is granted to citizens of that country. With migrants coming across borders simple human rights often get lost in turn for citzenship.  Human rights are being neglected because borders are strained too much. The country tries to uphold its nationalistic values and it intern denies it people from other countries.  Simply put human rights should be a global institution and not playing favoritism to their own kind.

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Contained Mobility (2004)

In this film there are two separate videos running next to each other. The left is surveillance footage from the docks on England.  The right video shows a refugee being moved through checkpoints in the surveillance video, while living in makeshift living quarters inside a shipping container.  Biemann is outwitting the increasingly strict border control in through the Schengen area of the European Union.  In a post-9/11 climate, the borders of this area have been increased dramatically making it harder for immigrants to travel without a Schengen Visa or to seek asylum.

Sahara Chronicle (2006-2007)

Sahara Chronicle is a collection of shorts that document a hub for travelers that migrate across the Sahara towards Libya and eventually onto Spain from Morocco.  It explores the idea of desire and containment.  The Libyan borders are closed off to any crossing by the caravans and are turned back.  The video shows how each person in the area of Agadez sustains the next in a ‘nowhere’ part of land on the edge of the desert.  Its pre-colonial significance was the capital of the Tuareg, the inhabitants of the Saharan area of North Africa.  Now they are mainly nomadic.  Biemann’s style of filming allows for every viewpoint of the area to speak for itself.

X-Mission (2008)

This piece looks at the Palestinian refugee camps, which is one of the oldest of its kind.  X-Mission places Palestine in context as a microcosm of a homeland placed outside of their homeland.  X-Mission also looks at the difference between making art and a humanitarian mission.  This relates to Staiger’s conclusion when she talks about placing videos like this in an institution of “cultural privilege”.  A video essay about Palestine, where does it really belong, in a gallery or in an avenue of accessibility?

Staiger talks about the place of Biemann’s video essays.  Do they belong with the subjects or in a gallery to be on display for the culturally enlightened?

We found several venues for actual refugees to venture forward with their art.

Dis/place: Making Work in Exile

Dis/place was an exhibition featuring eight artists from across the globe who live and work in exile in Australia. The artists selected tough on the experiences of being the ‘other’, and fears of being displaced.

One particular artist that stuck out was Sardar Sinjawi. He talks about his experiences after fleeing Iraq from the 1st Gulf War into Turkey.

The Southwark Refugee Artists Network

The Southwark Refugee Artists Network supports the artistic development of refugees and immigrants in London.

Mentor Chico is an Equadorian artist, who lives in London. His work touches on many aspects of British-Latino culture.  He has even had many shows back in Equador.

Week 10 – Another Country, by Homi Bhabha

 

 

                                                                            

                                                                                                Shirin Neshat, “Untitled”

 In Homi Bhabha’s article, Another Country, he explores the different artists that were apart of the show, Without Boundary: 17 Ways of Looking.

The artists showcased in Without Boundary and selected for study in Another Country create their work through the slower traditions of manufacture, such as painting, portraiture, calligraphy, and weaving. Some of these artists also combine contemporary processes with these traditional forms, specifically cartoons, animation and video. The blending of these two forms allows the artists to reinvent tradition and at the same time change the cultural history of the present moment.

I feel that the purpose of this exhibition and article was to incorporate different artists that somehow have a connection to Islamic art.

None of these artists like to be confined to Islam and Islamic art because not all of the work done is traditional and they also bring different cultures to the design scene.

Fereshteh Daftari came in to lecture about the art she curated for the show, one of them being the above picture, Shirin Neshat’s, Untitled. She said that this piece was made to show how women are seen in their country, and instead of writing a passage on the hand, she wrote a quote over and over.

The sole purpose of Fereshteh Daftari and Homi Bhabha’s vision and words were to contribute to the artists statements in that they don’t want to be confined to just one type of culture. All of the work represents a wide range of issues- Rethinking culture, political themes, and reflects diversity.

 

Week 8- Vattimo/Transparent Society

Constantin Boym

Vattimo introduces modernity as ending because essentially, “human history is seen as an ongoing process of emancipation, as if it were the perfection of the human ideal” (Vattimo,2). Understanding this idea of history, it’s progressive and with time acquires value, so in theory that which is at the end or more ‘modern’ is more ‘advanced’. Vattimo states that progressive realization, required that history be seen as unilinear, however this concept is not applicable anymore with the end of modernity. History used to be thought as being centered around one point in time, and according to many that is the birth of Christ, and from then on did progression and development begin. Unilinear history represents a constructed past, mainly by dominant social groups. Thus the question that Vattimo poses: if history is not unilinear, then how are we proceeding towards an end?
According to Vattimo modernity is passé, and postmodernity, the ‘transparent society’ is decided by the mass media, which makes it more complex and chaotic, but within this chaos is where emancipation lies. Because of mass communication like radio, television and the broadcasting of news across the world, there was this birth of postmodernism. “The freedom given by the mass media to so many cultures has belied the ideal of a transparent society” (Vattimo, 6).

The liberation of differences for example is explained according to Nietzsche as ‘continuing to dream knowing one is dreaming’ . Vattimo uses dialect in this same sense, even though you speak your own in a world of others, you are conscious and accepting of the others and know that your own is not the only one. Also when looking at art, one can apply this same concept. We can experience it in other ways, different from our everyday. Multiplicities, pluralities and ‘other’ possibilities of existence are open—“we experience freedom as a continual oscillation between belonging and disorientation” (Vattimo, 10).

According to Vattimo, there was a transition from Utopias to Heterotopias and it was radical, beginning in the late 60’s. Usually when we think of Utopias, we think of totalitarian states, or the George Orwell story, 1984. Essentially the idea of a Utopia is that of a perfect society, one in which there is purity and unification of experience. Vattimo said in a Utopia the Avant-garde plays a role;

there is a ‘synthesis’ of other important aspects of the avant-garde such as the general transformation of relations between aesthetic experience and everyday existence instigated by surrealism and situationism” (Vattimo, 68).

This is an image from an exhibit at the MoMA in 2007. It was done by a studio of architects called Superstudio, and the title is Twelve Ideal Cities. It is an interpretation on a twentieth century modernist Utopias. This block shows cubic cells that are stacked on top one another to create one continuous building. The idea is that each cell contains anything and everything that a human needs. According to this interpretation all humans are equal, however if the inhabitants rebel, the cell will collapse, making way for the new ‘perfect citizen’.

To understand aesthetic, we must understand beauty. According to Gadamer,“the experience of beauty is characterized by mutual recognition within a community of those who appreciate similar, natural objects and artworks of beauty” (Vattimo, 66).By this he interprets if you are experiencing beauty, then you are experiencing community.

This Vietnamese woman with blackened teeth from chewing on a certain type of nut is considered beautiful to her community.
Mass culture in relation to beauty, according to Vattimo, has brought to light the proliferation of beauty not only to one community, but to humanity as a whole. But when

the beautiful is the experience of community, however community becomes universal and is multiplied and pluralized” (Vattimo, 68).

Then there is a problem of redefining the nature of aesthetics, which leaves, according to Vattimo, a sort of distorted Utopia, which is called a Heterotopia, which is in turn more plural that a Utopia. It encompasses many communities and experiences. “A communities recognition in a model must explicitly recall the multiplicity of models, when the beautiful is experienced, presented and recognized by the community as and absolute value” (Vattimo, 70).

Russian designer, Constantine Boym gives meaning to beauty in a heterotopic society. He explores, gathers and brings new life to old, ‘lifeless’ things, collecting them and assembling them in innovative ways. He also highlights the relativity, blending and acceptance of other and societies in one common space: New York City on the subway, post office and on the streets. Juxtaposing one another at points they all work together to create plurality of communities.

Week 7, Anthony Appiah, Cosmopolitanism

A group of young boys, in Düsseldorf, wearing American street clothes, celebrate as Ghana makes it into the World Cup (soccer.)

Generally, Appiah is discussing the cultural differences of humans as simply circumstantial outcomes of the actions of humans, who maintain universal human traits that tie cultures together. He defends the contamination of culture as a legitimate act, as culture has never been static, and argues against the concept of cultural purity. Finally, he argues against Cultural Imperialism, as he outlines evidence that those within a culture are not passive, but chose the cultural aspects they maintain or change to suit them; that a culture cannot be maintained, only subsidized, without the willingness its members.

Chapter 6: Imaginary Stranger

Appiah opens chapter six by talking about people being from multiple “worlds,” different cultures, but maintaining some ability to understand each other. The people in Kumasi where Appiah grew up, people in New Jersey where Appiah lives, and people world wide are same, or similar, creatures. Biologically, they are not different so much as they have different solutions to similar problems. Different “Stuff” Tonkinwise might say; we’re different only in the different Things we have to address Universal Human Issues. Human difference is not beyond the grasp of larger human understanding, merely the chance solution to a similar problem.

Despite Appiah’s belief in humans to understand each other because they are biologically similar, have similar brains, he argues that human traits aren’t universal to every human; Appiah is wary of Universals. He cites autism, colorblindness, tetrachromats, and those that do not excel in mathematics and music as examples of humans who have different “machines” and do not grasp something that seems universal to humans; a human that couldn’t connect with another human in that aspect no matter how much it was explained to them, because they do not have a certain mental facility. So that, Appiah counters what is universal isn’t that every human has all human traits, but that in every large enough group, you find all human traits; that these human traits are the norm among humans. Appiah goes further and states that the traits humans have in common when entering into a cross cultural conversation don’t even have to be universal, but merely shared between those select humans.

Appiah ends chapter six with another small counterargument, that humans inherently need an out-group to be part of an in-group and have an identity. So that, they cannot possibly seek to care about all humans, but can only care about humans who have a shared identity; humanity at large cannot be an identity because it would leave nothing to be contrasted against. Appiah counters, “… engagement with strangers is always going to be engagement with particular strangers; and the warmth that comes from shared identity will often be available.(98)” In essence, Appiah is stating that every human has something they share with another human, something they can identify with in another human.

Chapter 7: Cosmopolitan Contamination

“People who complain about the homogeneity produced by globalization often fail to notice that globalization is, equally, a threat to homogeneity.(101)”

What Appiah is saying is that globalization, in a way, isn’t homogeneous as can be seen in Kumasi where a multitude of languages are spoken; so that, as a place becomes globalized, it actually becomes more diverse. If you leave Kumasi for the country side, everyone begins to dress the same, eat the same, and speak the same language. In the face of globalization, these people might move away, or switch languages, or adjust the foods they eat, and become different. However, Appiah doesn’t see this as negative.

Appiah explains that the world around an individual, a villager maybe, in a Homogenous Pocket, may become threatened or unsettled by change. Yet this does not prevent change, often for the good, such as his examples of medicines or clean drinking water. Where this change creates homogeny with another group, the first group is quick to make new differences, or reinterpret cultural artifacts, such as new slang or hairstyles, that reinforce their inner homogeny and outer difference from the second culture.

Within these little pockets of homogeny there are individuals that long to be different or escape, and to incorporate aspects of another culture into their lives. By allowing contamination within a Homogeneous Pocket, and not attempting to prevent it, you allow individuals to shape their own lives instead of being oppressed into cultural homogeneity. To maintain a Homogeneous Pocket, or a “community of difference (from another homogenous pocket)” you must have the “free allegiance of (its) members.(105)” It becomes one thing to willingly and freely preserve an aspect of your culture, it becomes another thing to preserve cultures; Cultural Preservationists forcing people to or expecting people to maintain a homogenous pocket, even at the risk of becoming inauthentic.

Cultural Preservationists might argue that the contamination of one culture with another is an act of force onto an unwilling recipient, and not the liberation of an individual from a Homogenous Pocket. Appiah would generally agree with Cultural Preservationists that if people could afford native costume, they’d wear it and prefer it to western clothes, but only from time to time. He states that, were these people to become rich, and still wear western clothes (say, a suit and tie) than it doesn’t become a matter of western, or global, culture imposing on this homogenous pocket.

In fact, Appiah uses the argument of ethnic dress as segue into the argument that one cannot actually find an authentic culture. The Kente cloth is not native to Ghana, in that the prints arrived as Javanese batik, and were once milled by the Dutch. His point being, that if one were going to preserve an authentic culture, you’d have to find a culture that has not been shaped by contamination from outsiders in the ancient world, as it is today. Ultimately, cultural preservationists are attempting to halt the process that created the culture they’re trying to preserve.

A man sits weaving Kente cloth, fine silk, with patterns derivative of Javanese batik, on a loom, technology from the Dutch, as an example of Ghana culture.

Appiah also argues against the concept of “Cultural Imperialism” by preservationists, by citing researchers who explore responses to foreign TV shows by local populations. They discovered, one, that each group preferred a local product, in this case a local show that they could discuss with almost anyone in their Homogenous Pocket, and secondly how people responded to the products, in this case shows, depended on their cultural circumstances. It seemed these groups were finding in the shows reflections of themselves, or ideas/morals that don’t seem to work out well and so aren’t wanted in their culture. Ultimately Appiah is stating that individuals who incorporate aspects of another culture, cultural consumers, are thinking critically about what they’re coming into contact with, and are retaining what suits them. He states, the talk of Cultural Imperialism “… is deeply condescending. And it isn’t true. (111)”

A frame from the film The Gods Must be Crazy where a bushman decides that the gift of a coke bottle, seeming to fall from the heavens, is bad for his tribe and attempts to return it.

Appiah ultimately praises Cultural Contamination of the Homogenous Pocket. He cites Terence, an African slave who was brought to Ancient Rome and incorporated Greek plays into Latin drama, as one example of solitary migration (as opposed to mass migration.) These solitary migrations of the ancient world are the origins of Cosmopolitanism, of Contamination, and thus the foundation of cultures we seek to preserve today. It becomes evident then that cultural purity is an oxymoron.

Tying all his concepts together: Cultural consumers are critical consumers, and the cultural artifacts that they consume are often reinterpreted by the new culture as an act of re-solidifying one culture’s difference from another and ultimately maintaining their Homogenous Pocket. He then incorporates the previous chapter by quoting Terence, as having written the golden rule of Cosmopolitanism: “I am human: nothing human is Alien to me.” You see then, that if an aspect of someone’s culture is lost, what is lost is only one solution, for another, while the epitome of that human remains; And the ease at which cultures are contaminated is testament to universal human traits and human’s ability to understand and connect to each other.

Sources Cited:

Appiah, Anthony. Cosmopolitanism. New Jersy: Princeton University Press, 2006, pp. 87-113.

Tonkinwise, Cameron. “Thingly Cosmopolitanism: Caring for the other by Design,” The Radical Designist, Issue 0, July 14, 2006. <http://www.iade.pt/designist/issues/000_10.html&gt;

Week 4: A Culture of Choice-less Consumption

The reading and lecture this week suggest that while it may be more difficult than originally imagined to shift our culture away from its habits of excessive consumption, it is definitely possibly — but only through a multi-disciplinary approach.

We can look at the world in two ways: our genealogy or our history.  While genealogy leads inward into the examination of specific cultues, history leads outward, having the ability to compare multiple cultures in a big-picture sort of way.  Both are valuable for different reasons, and oftentimes, both play off of each other.  And because of the importance of time in both  concepts, whereas the general concept in both history and genealogy is that time is equivalent to progression, this same view of time continues to influence the way in which we live our lives.  Time is, as Susan Yelavich points out, engrained into ever fiber of our DNA.

We have developed an aesthetic of ephemerality that is paradoxically linked to the past:

“Rummaging through history has become a standard technique of advertising, especially of visual and electronic ads, as a way to draw on the genuine nostalgia of age-groups for pasts they actually know through other experiences, but also as a way to underline the inherent ephemerality of the present”  (Appadurai, 78).

Our society puts indexes the value of objects through their patina, a way of determining an object’s status through its age.   But to complicate the matter, as much as the present is about “Out with the old and in with the new,” we also derive a lot of the same patterns, ideas and objects from things that were considered outdated 10 years ago. In her lecture, Susan Yelavich shows this through examples in fashion, including Gucci’s 1960’s resurgance in 2007, as well as Ralph Lauren’s seemingly nostalgic and All American roots.

” Rather than expecting the consumer to supply memories while the merchandiser supplies the lubricant of nostalgia, now the viewer need only bring the faculty of nostalgia to an image that will supply the memory of a loss he or she has never suffered” (Appadurai, 78).

Norman Rockwell illustrates this well, with his highly idealistic and Americanized paintings, including the one below.

 

Las Vegas is an example of an entire city that was built upon fantasy and imagined nostalgia, a place where you can be every place in the world and at every time period — all at the same time:

The concept of ersatz nostalgia — nostalgia without memory — reminded me of a book that I read a couple years ago by Marianne Hirsch, Family Frames: Photography, Narrative, and Postmemory.    Hirsch analyzes the relationships between family photographs and the families themselves.  She introduces the idea of “post-memory”, and stipulates that most of our memories come not from the individual consciousness, but rather a bank of collective cultural memories that are often derived from visual records such as photographs.  She notes that the family photographs that she examines are always an idealized portrait of the family, one where everybody is smiling for the camera without a care in the world.   When she talks with her subjects about their family photographs taken decades prior, almost all of them seem to have this idealized image of their families stored in their actual memories – even if in reality, they were far from ideal. “Evidently a different nature opens itself to the camera than opens to the naked eye, if only because an unconsciously penetrated space is substituted for a space consciously explored by man” (Hirsch, 117).   The concerning thing about photographs is that they emulate the false notion that they are artifacts of reality.  So, if our perception of reality and history is based on these visual artifacts recorded by another’s individual’s subconsciousness of the past, then who is to say that we are even grounded in the slightest bit of reality at this point?  How many of your memories actually come from experience itself, as opposed to how you process this experience.

As John Wood pointed out in his lecture, the American Dream is designed around the three principles of liberty, equality and brotherhood.  These humanistic qualities give no thought to nature, and lead to a huge disconnection between the economy and the economy.  So in effect, our society has been designed to encourage mass consumption: speed, mobility, comfort, freedom, accessibility and rights-oriented design.  Not included?  Responsibility. The American Dream has transformed into an American Coma, at least as far as our sense of reality goes.  Perpetual optimism has been the cornerstone of America’s institution of thought and design since World War II.  The never-ending search for utopia has been a constant archetype throughout history—a fruitless endeavor, yet one that is consistently rejuvenated by human nature’s insatiable search for something better. As Americans flocked to the suburbs in unprecedented numbers during the 20th century, new burdens were placed on the industrialized world through an increased demand for highways, housing, raw materials and privatization, which was directly supported by the American government.  The golden age of the 1950s seemed to blind suburbanites and politicians alike, as foolhardy idealism—and its resultant oversights—left no room for sustainability in 20th century community planning: why do today what you can put off until tomorrow?

“So, how can designers save the world?” asks John Wood.  His answer?  Meta-design.  He outline’s the characteristics of meta-design below:

1. Auspiscious
2. Fractal
3. Holistic / Holarchic
4. Indescribable
5. Opportunity-Making
6. Paradigm-Shifting
7. Reflexively Innovating
8. Self-Steering
9. Synergistic
10. Synergy-Seeking

It is impossible to continue to sustain the current rate of consumption that we are currently accustomed to, because before long, there will simply be nothing left to consume.  As designers, it is our responsibily to redesign not only green objects, but also the way we see the world.  We need to figure out how to break the mold and to discover ways to find pleasure from long-lasting objects and ideas.   As John Woods points out, this is not a task for individual designers to take on… in order to transcend into a new way of thinking, we have to collectively work with many different discipliines to design ways of living that break through this vicious cycle of choice-less consumption.

Presentation | Appadurai Reading | Tenazas lecture

Appadurai | Modernity at Large

Appadurai talks of his origins in India and how he has learned about Western culture through the media/print. This equipped sense of self, as he describes it, has led to his discovery & start to the modernization of himself and an anthropological/cultural study of modernity in a global context. He talks of his influences from residues of the British rule, books and such to a more Americanized mediated form of thinking. Tenazas, however, was born in the Phillipines and was rules under the Americans, so you can see how the culture of this rule has affected her and her understanding of modernization.

He talks about how the imagination now is playing an important role in society, and is less understood as a more avant-garde, out-of-reach concept & is now practiced and understood by the masses. He constantly uses Benedict Anderson’s term “print capitalism” to describe how people are understanding and empathizing in other cultures through the works of media & print. More individual voices are heard through this medium and this leads a lot of designers (Stefan Sagmeister – graphic designer) / authors (Salman Rushdie) and other people working in this field to dedicate their work to a expressing more of a “personal voice and aesthetic freedom”. This is a more postmodern idea that is becoming more resonant in the works of modern designers. Tenazas describes how travelling and discovering the world provides a person with the identity of a cultural nomad. The nomad, she describes, is a person who moves from place to place, and wonders around instead of sticking to one place; and is permeable and open to experience and is changed by it. Does this move from place to culture really envelop a deeper understanding of how your work is being seen, what you produce, how everything around you affects what you produce, or how other people can communicate to it?

However, not everyone can be connected to your work, if everyone is dedicated to showing their personal voice, every voice is different and therefore this can provide many different results. Essentially what Appadurai and Tenazas have both noticed is how being raised in the East provides them with a different knowledge of how modernity comes to play in their life. What they both are trying to discover, through anthropology and communication design respectively, is how can communication be understood and reached out through whatever you are doing/studying. Maintaining that personal voice, but also understanding and empathizing wih others. Combining the both, having fun and learning how to combine two opposites at the same time. Achieving purposefulness, or purposelessness, or purposeful purposelessness, as Tenazas described, a sort of order to disorder.

Bibliography generator site

hi guys,

this is the website that generates bibliographies, it’s really helpful although i guess the course has specifications already about how to write one.

http://www.easybib.com

you just have to register and it has a function that exports it to microsoft word, and more features.

hope it helps.

ninze

Globalization Histories

Susan Yelavich’s Tuesday lecture made it clear that globalization is not a new phenomenon. While new communication and transportation technologies might lend city living opportunities for unprecidented global intimacy, the earth has perhaps forever been populated by varieties of cultures. Yelavich demonstrated how notions of globalization  have been repeatedly reconsidered since Ptolemy and on.

Following sociologist Zygmunt Bauman’s (1973) Concepts of Culture: 1) the hierarchical, 2) the differential, and 3) the generic, Yelavich showed how Western European thinking has distinguished between 1) a singular, ideal (modern, or progressive culture); those that are 2) plural and multiplying (or comparative cultural constructions); and 3) what may be univeral (while persistently humanist) understandings of culture.

While a diversity of human customs (and an equally diverse means for thinking about them), have probably always been floating around, it’s interesting to consider how these concepts are employed by the world of design. Seen together, the cafes above may describe the pan-cultural need for gathering spaces, a generic human tendency to create spaces filled with chairs and tables arranged for public discussions and the consumption of warm beverages. On closer analysis, we might choose to highlight the cultural ascriptions encapsulated by each space. Rather than generally human locales, the cafes become examples of Russian, Iraqi, and American culture. Another perspective would describe the class distinctions, very clearly marked here through materials and forms ranked according to hierarchical value-systems.

From Left to Right above:

The Russian Tea Room, New York

Shabandar Café, Baghdad (see: It Is What It Is: Conversations About Iraq, A Project by Jeremy Deller, presented by the New Museum and Creative Time for the Three M Project)

Untitled, William Eggleston, 1976

 

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The only problem with the hierarchical notion, is how to determine what is ideal? Do we top our hierarchies with elements that have the most monetary value? those that are the most beneficial to the most human beings? those that are the most funny? original? odd? comfortable? ….describe “comfortable”…

Posted by Sarah Butler