Author: Mike Zaporozhtsev (Page 1 of 2)

The presentation itself: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/18DlbN2WCp-fE0N6_tMHdYbhzSt9gW9susLgvGD1Acio/edit?usp=sharing

In class, the professor clarified that “sketches” here are more like work on presentation in-progress. So, I will attach screenshots of what I have for now. It is a part of the presentation:

In this article, Steven Heller talks about… an appropriation of other works in design. Appropriation can be found in different aspects of media. Music, art, design, advertisement. Also, Heller says about the “boom” that the underground can face and become mainstream. He remembers avant-garde and psychedelic movements that were known to low masses at the time but then became more popular and got more and more followers to the point where these trends became a real movement that people study at art or design schools. 

I can remember examples of underground becoming mainstream but in music. Thrash, punk, grunge, alternative rock–all of these sub-genres of rock music were underground, where even not every rocker would listen to or play. However, later bands such as Metallica for thrash-metal, Sex Pistols for punk, Nirvana for grunge, and Linkin Park for alternative rock and rap-core (as well as MANY others) made their music mainstream and so popular that they had and have millions of followers and successors. 

As for appropriation–this is such a thin line between plagiarism and being inspired by others. Even now in the MTA subway, you may find a poster of, if I am not mistaken, some art exhibition, and that poster is clearly made in the style of avant-garde and/or dadaism. Some may say this is an inspiration and show of respect to the movement (which I personally agree with) or pure plagiarism (maybe not for 100%) and the poster-maker could not make something more original. I think, in art, design, and music it is impossible to make something purely original. One way or another the author would be inspired by the works of other people before him or his contemporary who works in the same field. And that is ok! It would be a genius, a person who would create something original, from the concept to the implementation. Every author from every movement was inspired by something or someone one way or another. The same avant-garde and dadaism were the answer to the horrors of World War I. Punk-rock music is the rebellious answer of youth to the times and life laws they did not want to follow anymore. Grunge rock is a successor (in a way) of punk, and alternative rock is linked to grunge. Inspiration is everywhere. Even now, while writing this paper, I am listening to a playlist of a “Classical Music for Writing” (that’s the name of the video), and in this playlist is, of course, “Swan Lake” by Tchaikovsky. So I was listening to it and caught myself thinking that this music reminded me of the main theme of Harry Potter somehow. Maybe not blatantly, but the mood of the music and some notes, some portion of melody looked (or rather was heard) like the Harry Potter movie theme.

Words I don’t know: 

• semiology

• agglutinations
• ineffable
• ontology
• en abyme
• assonance
• insofar
• arbitrary
• quasi-tautological
• anchorage
• polysemous

Did not quite understand: 

1. We know that linguists refuse the status of language to all communication” by analogy-from the “language” of bees to the “language” of gesture – the moment such communications are not doubly articulated, are not founded on a combinatory system of digital units as phonemes are.
2. This last information, however, is co-extensive with the scene; it eludes signification insofar as the advertising nature of the image is essentially functional: to utter something is not necessarily to declare t am speaking, except in a deliberately reflexive system such as literature.

I found an interesting ad for Toyota Camry 2017. They created different ads for the same car for different races: Black, Asian, White, and Hispanic.

McLuhan talks about how technology became somewhat of extension or even substitution of a human. Even at that time, in the 1960s, people already thought about machines, technology will replace people at work. It will influence people’s behavior, or give more opportunities in such fields as politics, family matters, jobs; people will look at themselves from a different angle. A person is no more fully isolated from others in their thoughts, they are alone no more. As the author said, there is a “…tyrannical… surveillance [that] are causing very dilemma between our claim to privacy and the community’s need to know”. The same goes with families: now, there is an influence on parents’ decisions, it is no more about two people, now the whole world is an expert. 

The hazards that the technological process, or rather, evolution may bring is that many workplaces are replaced by machines, robots. They are afraid that many people will lose their jobs, and since they cannot do anything else besides their specialty in a field, there will be a high percentage of unemployment. Yes, that could be the case even in the last century, but not anymore. Now, thanks to the same technology, one can learn some new skills at home, and if something happens in his old work, like being fired, he can easily switch the fields. I do not think, that it is a big problem anymore. If a construction worker will be replaced by androids, I guess he can be now a supervisor of these androids, because supervising requires not only a physical ability to build, or bring the plates/bricks, but also one needs to be a good manager. I don’t think, robots can do that. On other hand, the same used-to-be construction worker now could do whatever he wants, he dreamed about; or go to a similar field, where his skills are still required.

After reading, I think that designers should be able to design in a way that they can express themselves and do not hold themselves to the rules of old typography. Designers have to be flexible with their work, creating many variations of design. However, the designers in these readings, say that there is a need to create something for everyone with clarity and an understandable message. 

Tschichold studied the old typography but after visiting the Bauhaus exhibition, he was mesmerized by it and understood that it holds a sense of beauty and clarity. Tschichold wanted to get rid of the boring symmetry of the old typography and embrace the new typography with a predominantly asymmetrical style. He believed that an advantage of asymmetry was in its appearance which is optically more effective than symmetry.

As of Gerstner, he was a designer who worked on a combination of art and science. Gerstner came up with “the morphological box of the typogram”, containing a variety of design solutions. This is a “box” of solutions to design problems with a description of what can be combined or can not. Gerstner also used grids as a solution to flexibility and creativity with the design. I think this was the first step towards the grid system we know today–the Swiss-style.

Muller-Brockmann also used grids to help create space, order, and clarity in design. As he said, “the designer’s work should have the clearly intelligible, objective, functional, and aesthetic quality of mathematical thinking.” Designer should really be able to communicate the message of his design clearly, make that design successful if he can.

Reading these writings, especially the one of Moholy-Nagy, it seems that these people of Bauhaus also were looking onto the future and technology, like futurists. However, they saw it as a way to create, be creative, inspire one invention from another. Nagy was saying that while people still fighting each other, TV was invented. Also, I think even back at that time, he kind of predicted our future with technologies: “tomorrow we shall be able to look into the heart of our fellow man, be everywhere and yet be alone; illustrated books, newspapers, magazines are printed—in millions.” 

Nagy paid great attention to photography, typography, and their mixture–typephoto. He called it the “visually most exact rendering of communication”. Just typography was two-dimensional, as he said, but photos brought a new dimension to our life, I guess. I think he refers to that now (that time “now”) you not only could tye and see the type, but see it through the lens of photo and TV/cinema. All these new technologies and techniques brought new opportunities, creativity, and effectiveness. New art, or design, was not only beautiful but economical and provided some service, and artists must adapt themselves to new inventions.

I read “Who we are: Manifesto of the constructivist group”. Basically, this document was the first one where the ideas of constructivism were briefly formed (a deeper explanation of the constructivism theory was given two years later in a book by Alexei Gan called “Constructivism”). In his work, Gan proposes a complete break with the art of the past, which had bygone historical eras (primitive culture, handcraft, and capitalism) to come to a culture of labor and intelligence – the era of high technology. 

This idea mirrors with rows of the manifesto: ”previously—Engineers relaxed with art now—Artists relax with technology”. 

In general, constructivists positioned themselves as dreamers, artists, and engineers of the future. They were a beginning of a new era, it is they who created elevators, aeroradiostations, boots, a catalog. They are everyone – and yet, they are no one. I think, by these words they meant that every person can join a constructivist community. Constructivists are kind of scattered among the people. Constructivists thought that people before they were creating some junk–poetry, paintings, novels, or imagined themselves as geniuses while creating elevators or radio posters. However, Constructivists wanted to be concentrated on new elements, routs, things, they should experiment. So, I think, their focus was on functionality, rationality rather than beauty and esthetics.