All of the three authors were enthusiastic about the new possibilities for their immediate futures. Out of three of them, Filippo Marinetti had the most extremist ideas and therefore, was more eager for change and a newer future. His philosophy Futurism was indeed all about the new beginnings in Italy where the history did not matter and the horizon offered more aggression, speed, militarism, anti-feminism and recklessness.

They all shared somewhat similar views on the love for technological advancements. Rodchenko was interested in grids, lines and because he was one of the pioneers in Constructivism movement, he adored any change within the society that would promote logic, theory, experimentation and artistic analysis. He was an artistic engineer for whom technology was the only mean for all the desired experimentation.

El Lissitzky mentioned an interesting idea about the art and design that would follow and his idea was “dematerialization”. He believed that the society was experiencing “dematerialization” caused by technological advancements. This is especially true now, after almost 100 years!!! We have gotten rid of almost all physical properties of our lives. Everything is digital, existing on servers, clouds and then on our screens.

I believe that all these three designers rebelled through history and paved the way for the design that we know today and without their revolutionary ideas, things might have either not advanced enough or might have advanced in various different ways. Their experimental attitude is beyond inspiring given the background of the times these people were living in but the ideas that I find problematic for today’s world and for society in general is Filippo Marinetti’s obsession for war, destruction, aggression and toxic masculinity. Perhaps, other artists thought the same way too but the fact that Futurism was based on these radical ideas, would certainly remain problematic for today’s world.

The possibilities these authors envision for their immediate futures is a future that consists of moving forward and not backwards. They believed that technology is, or in the case of designing art that isn’t traditional, can lead to social change and purposeful change.

The role the authors imagine technology would play in shaping the futures is the social changes it will case. In Rodchenko’s Constructivism it was a movement that consisted of political, cultural and social changes. As for the Futurism manifesto, Marinetti spoke on how technology will change society because of its originality.

These artists anticipated that art and design would follow a movement of change and innovation in culture and society. The common views these authors share is letting go of the classic traditional bourgeois art and instead moving forward to change. What they may disagree on is that in the Manifesto, Marinetti talks highly of violence and conflict. As for Rodchenko ’s constructivism he wanted to rebuild a society that was destroyed because of the war. 

Elements from the text that remain relevant for the present is the consist changes that are occurring because of technology and the originality of ideas that can help a society. Elements that are problematic is the concept of destroying Museums and Libraries, it would be destructive because it is history and without history how can one learn to create a better future. Another, was Marinetti’s manifesto exalting violence.

The avant-garde manifestos of Marinetti, Rodchenko and Lissitzky spoke about the balance of language and technology in relation to society.

The Marinetti reading was hardest for me to understand. At first I thought it was describing a party or a war. But overall I grasped the concept of “time and space, died yesterday”. Marinetti says we created a language that’s omnipresent, everywhere at the same time. Believing that artists put dreams into reality using media of choice. But then he describes the juxtaposition between museums as cemeteries, and how we are only the prolonged version of our ancestors. I took this as, we will follow the same patterns if we do not create our own language.

Rodchenko felt technology was the mortal enemy of art. He also mentioned how art was yesterday, and constructors are today. Referring to the merging of engineers and artists. How artists should be relaxed with technology.

Lissitzky envisions a new language. He believes they are formed by different relationships with the world, space, shape and color. The relationships allow for new books to be made. We should not be satisfied with just a jacket, we need the whole book to take shape. Lissitzky refers to the significance of the daguerreotypes and how they were at the forefront of their time. He describes this as “the machine itself supporting manual processes by mechanical ones’ ‘. Today as a graphic designer one of our tools is adobe, which comprises language, shape, and color. I related this to previous classes when we spoke about prosumer. Lissitzky also mentions the dematerialization of the digital world. If anything we have become more materialistic and we constantly change our opinions and or repurpose technology. However it might just be me, most things don’t feel original anymore. Almost, if not all ideas are inspired by another artist. Although they are all connected through adaptation in the responsibility of knowing the message and understanding multiple ways of sharing the information. The way a book or theater show is created in a picture frame style of theatrics but then watching from different seats changes how the living movement develops into telling a story that’s new each time. 

The readings were somehow difficult for me to understand. What the three articles had in common is talking about technology, and how it affected us as artists. In order to develop and advance, artists/ designers must realize their responsibilities in society. Artists must collaborate, examine, and not take everything as granted but think about how to take what we have and make it better based on society. 

When an invention becomes part of everyday life, it is time for a designer to think how to improve. Books back then were only for the rich and educated. However, over time more and more people learned to read and the market  for books increased. Yet, some designers understood the difference between having just words, or having words and illustrations. 

Designers understood that when you have just words in a book, it may not be understood by everyone, where if you add illustrations, colors, shapes, even people who don’t necessarily speak the language may understand what it is about. This way of thinking led designers to understand marketing better. Automobiles became an inseparable part of society, and the demand to read fast grew. Meaning, posters, or billboards, didn’t have to have paragraphs on paragraphs explaining the product or the services, Posters meant to be seeing fast while in motion, therefore with the way technology advanced, it required printing, marketing, illustration, copywriting, or even engineering to step forward. 

With that in my, the Lissitsky_OurBook, reminded me of an issue i’ve heard not too long ago. Many people in the U.S are not reading proficient, as a matter of fact the statistics show the way less 50% of the population is on their reading level/ grade. Millions of dollars are being poured into the education system with no lack. Long story short, a designer noticed that some books have certain typefaces, with specific leading and kerning, which affect reading, especially among the younger generation who’s just learning how to read. 

With a collaboration of engineers, and designers a research was conducted among 20 students, and the results prove what they all suspected. Similar to eyeglasses prescription, students needed their own reading prescription, meaning ‘typeface’, ‘leading’, ‘kerning’, etc. Thanks to the technology we have today, setting a typeface that would be customized to the reader is not as a big deal as it used to be. Now, er can adjust the text so reading proficiency would increase, which only happened thanks to a designer who didn’t take books as what they are, but thought about their responsibility in society, and wanted to improve the product itself based on demand. 

Reading the articles I noticed that each artist had a similar point of view regarding technology and the era they were living in. Rodchenko expressed that technology was the mortal enemy of art in a proud manner. El Lissitky rejoiced at media and technology and Marinetti wanted a technological reform for Italy. They envisioned how great design was going to be with the evolution of technology and tools that could open countless possibilities. Technology was a must in order to achieve these visions that the hands of man alone couldn’t. El Lissitky analyses different aspects remarking the fact that technology didn’t evolve much from the printing press until the invention of photography for designers. They completely disagree on technology not evolving since time keeps changing and what meant something for them is not what is going to mean for the next generation. This is something relevant to the present because time keeps changing rapidly and new mediums of communications and technological tools keep getting invented. Along with visual communication and design, not adapting to the current wave could be problematic as it wouldn’t make communication and creativity easier. That’s what technology is for.

According to the articles that I have read, designs are something with shapes, words, colors, and ideas. By the meaning of the design, it’s not randomly poured in elements. Designers have to learn tricks, techniques, and concepts before working on designs. But in different platforms or the medium of design stand, the design will act differently. The differences of mediums are constantly changing by generation. According to “Our Book ”, we don’t know what will be the next as medium or the trend of design will happen. For example, wheels to animal-drawn wheels, animal-drawn wheels to motors, and motors to airplanes. There’s a trend of what the world is making or inventing. In the text, they listed letterpress and they put question marks. And what they wrote below, they have a sense of what’s coming next, which is books and posters. They also know that there will be systems of how books and posters are going to be photomontage and type montage.

Not only that they know books, posters, and newspapers in our future. They also know that there will be technologies that help designers to produce their artworks. After they predict that they are going to have technologies in their future, they have different opinions toward how technologies will turn into the design in the future. In “Who We Are”, the author said that people would be turned lazy when more technologies are being developed. Since we have used our hands to create artworks before. Technology is an enemy to design because we can’t create something that is in our dreams or something random in our minds with technology. It’s because of this it will cause designers to have less creativity when they are using technology.

I think what they are saying is true. They said that art has stagnated. But I’m not sure if it’s caused by our technologies or not. Here are some of the words that the author said “The invention of easel pictures produced great works of art, but their effectiveness has been lost.” and “Yet in this present day and age we still have no new shape for the book as a body”. I agree with what they said, our books today aren’t changing as much as before. Before we changed books from full text into mixed text with pictures, changing it from animal skins to paper, handwritten text to print, and we also changed the fonts and placement of text throughout the generation. But today books aren’t changing as much as before. I’m not sure if that’s the technical problem or that the finished development of books or actual design is moving toward the end?

What stood out to me the most is the idea that society is dematerializing. When I think of today’s society currently, I think we are the most materialistic we could possibly be. From what I see we seem to value items and object more than anything. However, according to El Lissitzky’s manifesto, it turns out that we are dematerializing.

In Lissitzky’s manifesto it states, “Present indications are that this basic invention can be expected from the neighboring field of collotype. This process involves a machine that transfers the composed type-matter onto a film, and a printing machine that copies the negative onto sensitive paper. Thus the enormous weight of type and the bucket of ink disappear, and so here again we also have dematerialization.” What this example is explaining is how one task that used to take multiple steps and objects has now lessened due to society evolving, and new technology forming that removes an extra step. A modern day example would be like 2 in 1 shampoo where instead of two different bottles, one shampoo and one conditioner, now you have one bottle that contains both. This idea related to an early statement made in the same manifesto, “The amount of material used is decreasing, we are dematerializing, cumbersome masses of material are being supplanted by release energies.”

This idea of dematerializing reminds me about a part of the reading from Assignment 1b. How it was discussed that designers are now prosumers. This term means that they are both producer and consumer. This makes another 2 in 1 scenario where society seems to be trying to make things easier for themselves and lessen the steps of any task possible. In the case of this week’s reading, using advancements in technology to simplify every day task by dematerializing the old routine. 

it seems that during th 20th century graphic design or design was not as advanced with technology compared to the modern world we live in today. many fonts such as caslon were used and also being used in media internet or sometimes restaurant menus. technology can make things efficient compared when printing news paper using labor the old fashioned way.” thenthere follow a few centuries that produced no fundamental inventions in ourfield (up to the invention of photography). What we find, more or less, in theart of printing are masterly variations accompanied by technical improvementin the production of the instruments. The same thing happened with a secondinvention in the visual field—with photography”. it sounds that camera will revolutionize the way photos are taken and also how make photography easier. common disagreements were formats of books such as templates. elements such as photos and objects remain vital cause it shows oragnization and hierarchy and the interpertation when viewers see it. technology in art is a tool that can help design to do more work efficiently in the field.

Looking back to the early 1900s, many great designers such as El Lissitzky, Aleksandr Rodchenko, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti and more had their own important task of design and art. They knew that reading from books or literature itself would adapt for the future which today we have posters, newspapers, magazines, etc. Technology has its own benefits for today’s designers and it has changed the way for how design and artwork are being produced. Compared today and the early 1920s, printers are advanced hardware that we can all have our hands on and produce our work in an instant. Compared to the early 1920s, you would have to go to a press printing facility to have your artwork printed for you by hand. Fare to say that “Engineers relaxed with art now—Artists relax with technology” stated by Aleksandr Rodchenko’s article, this emphasizes today’s workflow for designers adapting and accepting technology’s ability to produce and deliver their design to today’s society. I think towards the advantage of technology, today many books are being converted digitally and it can come to a point that books may not be able to reach to the nearest future if this keeps on going. This is a point where most designers like El Lissitzky, Ilya Ehrenburg and the others would disagree or disprove this process because books took an important role in society back in the early 1900s. Its production gave a unique form and function for how books are meant to be read. It had a cover with an essential design, a spine to merge the pages, and its manufacture was appreciated and successful at that time. One of the elements that remains relevant in the present is the template of a book or design posters in the early 1900s that applies to some platforms such as magazines, newspapers, etc. We see text that emphasizes its aspects, objects (shape) to organize or categorize information and color to visualize moods and variations. Looking at Aleksandr Rodchenko’s article, “Who We Are, Manifesto of the Constructivist Group ”, he mentions the distinction between working with technology and working with design. These two element may work well together but there are many artist that rely too much on technology that is becomes a problematic element, “This is—today—Technology is—the mortal enemy of art”, as Rodchenko stated in his article, technology can oppose art, limits creativity, leading to complexity, and more. We as artists have yet to learn how to properly use technology without conflict with art and to reassure that we only use it towards our advantage to complete our design.