Author: seth balloqui

I put all of my missing assignments (INCLUDING ASSIGNMENT 11) in this document because I’m not going to be that asshole who spams the class with every single assignment I was missing. Assignment 10’s paper is going to be a different post though!!

NOTE: I originally had reference photos at the end of the paper but Openlab said they were too big so I put them on my twitter so you can click here to see those images. pls don’t stalk my twitter. THANKS.

El Lissitsky, aka one of my art daddies besides Warhol and Bacon, starts his manifesto with “Every invention in art is a single event in time, has no evolution. With the passage of time different variations of the same theme are composed around the invention, sometimes more sharpened, sometimes more flattened, but seldom is the original power attained”, which I believe is super relevant and important to art, design, and the relationship we have to it. The meanings of certain pieces can get distorted over time by people who interpret the piece a different way. He also discusses hieroglyphs (ideas) and letters (sounds) which I thought was pretty interesting as well!

Rodchenko and pals took a different approach and decided to write their manifesto as a poem(?) which was really fun! They see technology as the enemy of art, which, while I see their point, I actually think Technology has improved art, and how we create art, with things like Photoshop. BUT I understand the context of what they were saying in their time period. They see themselves as the ones who started the creation in a world in technology but also regret the advances it has made.

Marinetti was on Flight 420 when writing his Manifesto. I know what Futurism is about and I appreciated the list that was given but the first page and a half was written like a bad Clockwork Orange sequel. Centaurs and breasts and mosques??? He was a little confused but he had the spirit. “We want to sing the love of danger, the habit of energy and rashness” is actually something I LOVE because I also take it to mean that they wanted to embrace rebellion and what the future had for them. I was a little bit on board with them before number 9, where they said they wanted to glorify war, and then they lost me. The idea of “When we are forty let younger and stronger men than we throw us in the waste paper basket like useless manuscripts!” is great though (not because it’s profane but because it’s HILARIOUS). Marinetti is that drunk uncle you see for the holidays and you put up with the rambling just to get the $20 he’s going to give you at the end of the night.

Language is literally just how we communicate to each other, verbally or otherwise. That’s literally it. You can use body language, verbal language, the fucking langauge Tolkien made up for Lord of the Rings- it is simply just a way to express an idea in some way or form. Now that might not be the LITERAL definition but who cares? It gets the point across. “The linguistic sign unites, not a thing and a name, but a concept and a sound image” says Wade Baskin, and yeah he’s right it’s not fucking rocket science (at least, for me, looking at this from an artistic perspective). It’s putting images there and associating them with words/ideas/people/whatever. Some examples include hieroglyphs from ancient Egypt and emojis from today’s world.

We HAVE to, however, also recognize that different symbols mean different things for different people, and that over time, different symbols have evolved their meanings. A great example of this is the Swastika- in Buddhism it represents well being, but Hitler made it a hate symbol back in The Holocaust, so now it’s probably not a good idea to wear one, even if you mean well.

The three essays expand on the idea of words representing images, as well as taking us back to sesame street in the first page and teaching us that numbers can be spelled with letters as well (holy fuck bert and ernie forgot to teach me that). I read the essays but honestly I don’t remember a DAMN thing other than it was backing up the idea of images and words. The essay layout looked like a damn child scribbled all over it and that was too distracting for me. But I don’t feel like I’m missing much out of those essays anyway.

At the end of it, These readings had a lot more to say about how images and words can match up, but I didn’t get much out of it because I was already aware of that and I’m a slut for logos so!!!

DISCLAIMER: I have literally said this multiple times but I DON’T CARE ABOUT COMMUNICATION DESIGN OK I’m more of a fine arts person so please spare me I’m trying my best.

“Today it has become necessary to demolish the myth of the ‘star’ artist who only produces masterpieces for a small group of ultra-intelligent people. […] Culture today is becoming a mass affair, and the artist must step down from his pedestal and be prepared to make a sign for a butcher’s shop (if he knows how to do it)” is part of some writing some asshole named Bruno Munari starts off with and already I’m gagging. This is my problem with designers- they think they’re better than everyone else because they’re “useful” for everyday jobs whereas fine artists can only appeal to “high society”. Saying that artists need to “step down” and be prepared to do simple tasks honestly sounds like he’s insulting the intelligence of fine artists and what can be accomplished through fine art- in my opinion, anyone can be a designer, it’s not that fucking hard, but it takes a special person to be able to channel feelings and emotions and complexity into fine art that can be consumed by EVERYONE, not just ultra intelligent people. This is my problem with communication design- The self importance that most designers hold because their work is “accessible” to the public. I’m confused when they say “The designer of today reestablishes the long lost contact between art and the public” because to me, that contact has never been lost. It’s only lost to stupid people who need to dumb it down for the audience. When reading the section of “What is a Designer?”, he just basically proves my point/issue- designers want to make everything in the world of art more complicated. They want to make themselves feel more important because they can connect to an audience easier. I have never screamed “shut the fuck up” more times at a piece of paper reading Bruno Munari.s bullshit since the last time I read American Psycho. I basically read 8 pages of self indulgent fuckery. 

While Helen Armstrong didn’t make me wanna slit my wrists, I still disagree with a lot of her points. Ellen Lupton says that “design is a social activity”, and while I understand that she means that everyone can partake in it as they go along the day, I think it’s a little bit of a stretch- I feel like the phrasing of “social activity implies ACTIVE participation, and I highly doubt many people are actively looking at the design around them and wondering why and how. Ellen even says this with “Design is visible everywhere yet also invisible” which just makes my point more valid- I personally feel someone cannot be socially active with something they are unaware of. Helen then goes on to name drop El Lissitzky, Rodchenko, and the Bauhaus movement (as well as others) and while those artists and the Bauhaus movement are fantastic, to me they are fantastic because of the artistic movements they are involved in and artistic expression they provide- I don’t think it’s fair to lump together the Bauhaus movement and all of it’s beautiful aesthetic value to something like Helvetica. Calling graphic design “the avant-garde of the new millennium” makes no sense to me, because there is nothing avant-garde about communication design!!!!!!!!!!! You’re not different or ground breaking for making posters!!!!!!!! 

Let’s put it this way- do I understand why and how my classmates came to the conclusions they did in their assignments? Yes, I do. Do I get how designers feel like they are helping to solve problems? Yeah, sure. But do I believe that designers are more thoughtful than regular artists and that their work appeals to more people because they are trying to bridge the gap between art and society? No. In my opinion, they’re not special for connecting to people, because even the “ultra-intelligent” art can connect to people.

Maybe I’m jaded because I personally don’t give a shit about communication design. I don’t look at advertisements and wonder how and why they work. I don’t care about design and how it can appeal to the public. I give a shit about art. I care about how a Francis Bacon painting speaks to me. I care about creating my own works of art that speak on my experience as a person. I look at collages by Jesse Draxler and I’m comforted by the distortion of the image. I have favorite designers, but they are my favorite designers because their aesthetic speaks to me on a level that goes beyond the basic necessity that design needs. A lot of designers feel as if they are better than fine artists because their work can speak to a broader audience, but the truth is that art can speak to everyone who seeks out the art that can speak to them. Maybe in the past it was harder to do, but these days everything can be seen easily, and there’s no need for designers to be pretentious fucks who wet their pants over the “accessibility” of their work.

Hey everyone! I’m Steph, and this is my intro video! looking forward to getting to know you all! :3