Author: Jia Ling Lin Huang (Page 2 of 2)

The lectures “The Founding and Manifesto of Futurism” (Filippo Tommaso Marinetti), “Who We Are: Manifesto of the Constructivist Group” (Aleksandr Rodchenko, Varvara Stepanova, Aleksei Gan), and “Our Book” (El Lissitzky) talk about his point of vision of the irruption of new technology in society and the changes into the art world and design. All three authors romanticize the new technology because they see technology as a tool to make real their ideas, change society, and break with the past rules. 

In the text “Who We Are: Manifesto of the Constructivist Group”, Rodchenko empowers technology and states the new roles of the artist that uses the technology as a tool. He wrote

“We didn’t create technology.

We didn’t create man.

but we,

Artists yesterday

constructors today,

1. we processed

the human being

2. we organize

technology

1. we discovered

2. propagate

3. cleanout

4. merge

previously—Engineers relaxed with art

now—Artists relax with technology”.

Rodchenko says that the world is not the same, therefore the world of art and design is not the same either, it’s becoming more rational, functional, and useful. Everything tends to move forward and leave the old ideas and rules of the past.

El Lissitzky also talks about technology and how this can change the books and our way of communicating. He talks about the dematerialization of our way of communication. He gives as an example the letters that use paper, envelopes, ink, etc., and then comes the telephone to make it easier to communicate with other people. And this happens with the internet and smartphones. I suppose that El Lissitzky would have liked to see the evolution of our form of communication that we have now. At the beginning of this century, everything needed a cable to function, now we have smartphones with long batteries durability (unless you have an old iPhone like mine) and maybe in a possible future, we can communicate with implanted microchips or something similar. And now with the idea of the metaverse, it seems that it is not even necessary to be in body present to be at parties, meetings, etc. I believe that if technology and other factors (such as political events or historical events) are capable of changing society, the rules of art and designers must also change.

The readings “Course in General Linguistics” by Ferdinand de Saussure and “Counting Sheep, A Brief History of Written Numbers” by Lupton Miller talk about the form of communication through written language, sound, meaning, and the difference between countries. It is interesting how humans associate sounds and symbols to communicate something. We connect symbols, sounds, images (sign, meaning, and signifier) with the concept in a very natural, frequent, and fast way without realizing how complex the process is. In addition, it is interesting how language evolves over time and subjectivity between years and countries. For example, Chinese and Japanese characters that initially both civilizations share the same characters to read and write but now both countries have their own language to communicate.
Also, it is interesting how we associate things to tell or represent something. Initially, humans used sticks, fingers, body parts, cows, clay, etc. as a way of counting and evolved certain symbols to represent a quantity. For example, the number five was counted with tangible elements (cows, sticks, stones, etc.), and over time it loses its complexity, becoming a more abstract sign like the V in Roman numerals to the point that this symbol 5, represents the number five in our current number system. We associate a sign with a concept as a visual form of communication. And this happens with all the signs that we can find on a street, airport, restaurant, and even on our smartphones. Emojis, icons on smartphones, visual interfaces, filters, sounds, etc. are new elements of communication that help us to understand and express our ideas, things, or concepts. So, design and designers have an important role in communication and its evolution. We are responsible for creating new forms and changes of visual communication to make it simple, legible, and easy to understand for everyone. Visual communication is like a universal of communication, no matter where you are from, what language you speak or read, visual communication breaks down this barrier and makes people understand what this symbol means. I remember when I travel to Hong Kong, I have a Chinese heritage, but I don’t know how to read and write any Chinese characters, and thanks to the symbols and signs the subway can easily travel around the city.

The articles “Graphic Design Theory” and “Design as Art” talk about design being in everything, the power it has over the masses, and its constant change and evolution. Design and designers play an important role in our society as it transmits ideas, new aesthetic values and promotes popular culture. For example, all the symbols that you can see when you walk on the street are a form of communication made by designers to tell us something without words. The designers have the power to create a language through visuals, transmit ideas and feelings, create concepts and culture. In addition, the design took the place of art for the society (art is considered elitist and eccentric) because the designer creates stuff for them, for the people. And now in such a globalized world, the influence, and the role that designers play are very important. The example that the article used is the Etruscan vase, which is beautifully decorated but behind the decoration, there was a designer who create the concept of the vase and what is that for. In short, being a designer goes beyond creating beautiful things, to be a designer have to be a problem solver, think about functionality, reception for the public, if it is really necessary, aesthetics, form, shapes, color, etc. The article “Design as art” says “The designer is, therefore, the artist of today, too because he is a genius but because he works in such a way as to establish contact between art and public because he has the humility and ability to respond to whatever demand is made of him by the society in which he lives because he knows his job and the ways and means of solving each problem of design.”. In short, the designers are in constant development and evolution to the new changes (like technologies, media, ideas, etc.) to designing and solving things for the people.