CARROT, CARROT

This break has been a good chance to do some work completely for fun. I spent a bit of time in Lincoln, Nebraska visiting my friend Dave; a fantastic musician. His new side-project is called CARROT, CARROT, and it's certainly worth a listen. This gig poster is inspired by the drone of his music, and the Scandinavian sense of musical space, and simplicity.

MX: Project II Final

In figuring out to how present my work online, my goal was to make the navigation, and the site itself invisible. The emphasis should be on the work, not the vehicle that presents it. Because of this desire to make the site invisible, the navigation and interaction style is incredibly minimal. Full screen images dominate the user's experience, and if they choose to seek more information, it is available through an icon. Navigating with the arrow keys makes the experience more comfortable, and gets the users hand off the mouse & click model, which just like ffffound's 'j' and 'k' functionality, makes the site easier for the user to navigate.

Through this process, I learned that I hate action script. Well, really I learned how little of it I know, and how much more I need to learn. I'm uninterested in pursuing interactive design, but knowing actionscript will make me a more competitive designer, and allow me more creative opportunities. I also learned a lot about the web in general through the readings, and am now able to place it in the context of western art history, specifically through the evolution of the picture to the screen. This kind of critical thinking really informed my process, and was intellectually stimulating.

I'm most proud of the functionality, and the end product. I struggled the most with making the site work, and dealing with actionscript. Lots of help from Ian, who should be given a medal for his helping EVERYONE with their sites. Maybe a golden taco medal?

MX: Reading Response III: The Screen

Considering the history an ubiquitous presence of the screen in contemporary society is helpful in establishing a lens through which we can view this project. The society of the screen is a bizarre phenomena: that somehow our physical reality isn't enough, that we constantly need a representation of this alternate reality in order to be content. This sentiment is palpable in daily life, considering the amount of time we spend in front of rectangular lenses into other worlds. As I was reading the passage I had this weird moment of thinking, I'm looking at a screen as I read this thing about screens, and how omnipresent they are in our culture. Messed up!
In contrast to cinema, the computer screen offers the functionality of visual multi-tasking. I have 7 tabs open in this browser, and 4 windows open in the background. This eclecticism is a distinct advantage of the computer screen, and could perhaps be capitalized on in our interface design. How can different screens be used to establish hierarchy, or separate information?
Furthermore, the idea that since this screen doesn't even exist (since its constantly in a state of flux) carries its own set of implications. Should we be concerned in mirroring reality, when the medium we're designing for doesn't exist? It makes a lot more sense to envision a virtual reality that is free from the limitations of earth-reality.
The idea of interacting with this non-reality through the limitations of our input devices (keyboard, mouse) is another interesting implication of this reading. Ian is devising a system that takes advantage of the camera and sound input options. While I consider this idea revolutionary and understand that it makes sense for his work (since he wants to go into interactive design) the supposed traditionalism of my idea is based more in a desire to have my website be invisible. I think the interaction model I want to design for my user is one that calls as little attention to itself as possible. How can I make the screen invisible? In the same way that the cinema uses a pitch-black room to encourage immersion, I hope that my site exists as a neutral transmitter of my work, being as subtle and invisible as possible, like a very spartan and modest frame. If the frame is too ornate it makes me question the artwork. Unless of course you're a frame designer and an artist, in which case both of your talents should be showcased.
I hope though that my desire for invisibility isn't misconstrued as being uninterested in interaction and technology. To an extent, I'm disenchanted with flash, with web-design. I've been grappling with this for some time, because obviously it is the future of graphic design. As physical designed objects begin to phase out and exist solely on the internet, will this jeopardize my ability to embrace my own time period? When industrialization happened, those who embraced were the ones who were remembered -- because they were pioneers, bravely exploring a new technology that lends its own advantages. Designers like William Morriss opposed these changes, but ended failing in his ambitions from not succumbing to the inevitability of industrial society. I don't want to end up like Morriss! At the same time, pursuing something that makes me want to pull my hair out is not in my interest at all. Dilemmas.
In any case, my site design is not invisible because I hate web-design. This stems from my philosophy about presenting work in general. While the presentation of it should be elegant and expressive of your distinct formal sensibility, I think that glorifying the vehicle too much is concerning, maybe it's like wrapping a piece of shit in gold wrapping paper. It's compensation, and when the function of the thing is to show your work, its kind of like the function is being informed by something totally different than it's purpose. Form and function should be married! Duh. Which, I dno... I don't intend to criticize this project, but I think if the website was about presenting something else, or had a different function, the implications for interaction design could have been more exciting. Because a portfolio site's function is to show the work, being innovative about the way this happens is very limiting. I'm not interested in creating hypothetical things, I want my work to have real-world implications. I want to be able to use this site for my portfolio site, not throw this aside as an exercise and redesign it when I create my real site. Hmm. Things to think about.

Thanksgiving in Canada

No turkey, but celebrated Eid, Arabic thanksgiving. Did some personal work as well:

MX: Reading Response II: Cinema

The language of cinema is inherently embedded in the language of the interface. Even comparing the two raises many important considerations for web designers, and how they should think about the worlds that they're giving life to. Thinking about a website in terms of cinematic space made me realize in a more concrete way (that now, thanks to the reading, I can articulate), that websites are constructed realities, that they are "windows" (as the reading purports) into worlds that we've constructed for our audiences, in the same way that movie sets and the language of cinematography serve as structural and narrative elements. Considering this, web designers should then ask themselves "What kind of experience am I creating for my user?" "What environment do I want them to feel as though they're suspended in?" and specifically for the design of portfolio sites: "What cinematic backdrop do I want to create for my work? How do I want users to interact with my work, what environment is best suited to the interpretation of my work?" On a more subjective level, this reading synced really nicely with my Constructivism and the Bauhaus class, referencing many Constructivist artists, and specifically Vertov's Kinoeye, a fantastic exploration of the semantics and expressive possibilities of the semiotic language of cinema and perception.

In any case, these are all important questions that I'm working to solve. In my interaction model, Im encouraging a kind of quilt of imagery that users are navigating through in the same way one would navigate a more dynamic slide-projector. To me, the website is transparent. The interface, hopefully is transparent. The work is the emphasis. However, in doing so I'm now wondering what the grid has to do with my work in general. I'm also wondering how the connotations of the quilt will affect the perception of my work. Is this interaction congruous with my design? In some ways yes. I'm enchanted with simplicity, logic, rationality, and order. The grid is an obvious component of this. What I'm wondering more about, perhaps, is the transition from one piece of the grid to the next. Is the space divided between the two frames? Does it merely wipe? Or is there a more poetic or appropriate way of transitioning? In the language of cinema, I'm simply moving a fixed-perspective camera through a checkerboard, flat environment. Is dimension appropriate? Is perspective important? Is grounding it in a more physical reality more important? Or is this abstraction pertinent to my work?

So this reading did for me what any good class related reading should do. It raised more questions than I'm comfortable with.
Back to the drawing board!

MX: Reading Response

Thinking about the web in the context of the history of media and the transmission of ideas was important in establishing its purpose, as well as its implications. The realization that anything created on the web (and perhaps this is true for anything created, period) carries inherent vestiges of the past was more or less an invitation and an encouragement to think about the ways that the web could potentially break through the nature of its origins and find a way to exist or be structured that is more in line with the its actuality, and not its traditions. Even down to the rotating hourglass of the original Mac OS, or the icons used in standard OS systems (which are generally metaphors for their use, that mirror real-world objects EX: trash can / recycling bin), it is easy to see how prevalent these traditions exist. However, it is perhaps impossible to create something without these vestiges, as tradition has to be used in order to create something understandable to our modern semiotic vocabulary. A website then can exist as a mirror of the physical world we live in (mimicking or referencing a real-world object that has its own modes of functionality), or it can invent its own, that are inspired by the unique advantages of the internet, and of the screen. I hope to accomplish this with my website, creating an environment that is decidedly virtual, not a metaphor or vestige of the past, but something that is inherent to the internet. However, as the function of the website is to clearly and beautifully present my work (as a VEHICLE for content), I don't want to trip out this car too much. If it is too experimental, gimmicky, or web-designer-masturbationey, then it has failed what it has set out to do. However, these things are important to think about, and perhaps harness subtly, without attempting to break the mold completely.

The abstraction of the page is another concept that I hope to explore more in my project. The Language of New Media details how the structuring of information has evolved from the stone tablet to the codex, to the internet, and how the internet in specific has rearranged traditional informational hierarchies in new ways. Also, the Language of New Media did a good job of explaining how the information conventions of the past (table of contents, paragraphs, etc) can now be combined and recombined in ways that have been media-specific in the past. These essentially exist as palettes that web designers can abstract in their creation of a 'new reality', or webspace. This notion of the web as other-reality was something that captured my attention in the reading as well. The book, cinema, and the internet all present to us an abstraction of the physical world, and to an extent, they are escapist. They are outlets to a constructed reality that we've created for ourselves. Weird, right? But what's interesting about these outlets is their inability to escape the way that they mirror reality, no matter how unrealistic or bizarre they get. Again, this stems from the fact that they wouldn't be able to be understood without utilizing the perceptual symbols that currently exist, but had the internet been around since the codex, I can only imagine how its evolution might have created a new reality, one based around the language and possibilities of the internet, instead of a mirror of literal reality.

VA: Degree Project Thoughts [ again ]

I've had some feedback, some more time to think about this, and I feel a bit more confused now.

I chose graphic design because I want to make art that relates to everyday people. Things that are functional, that solve problems, that educate, inform, inspire. I chose not to exclusively be a fine artist because I wasn't interested in the esoteric gallery setting, in making work that one had to have an education to understand, or relate to, in aesthetic masturbation.
And I believe that, to an extent, the way that I've phrased my potential degree project so far is in that context.

I feel like I should clarify my motivations a little bit. I don't believe in the line between art and design. I think good artists dabble in design, and good designers dabble in art. I'm really not even sure why they're divided in the first place. Both serve the same function: to "make special". To take the ordinary and make it transcendental, to transform the mundane everydayness into sublime experiences. So called "good" art and "good" design both serve this function. The only difference is design's utility.

In my work I'm interested in the gray spaces between different movements, arts, and disciplines. The tension. I think that nomenclature is a harmful activity that oversimplifies the world, and categorizes it into easy to understand chunks of information, that I believe never come close to fully explaining the nature of what is actually named. In other words, the name for "art" or "design" oversimplifies the fields. Yes, it makes them tangible. Yes, it makes them manageable, and people can categorize things neatly into neat piles for each, but what purpose does that serve? Work that lives in-between hard-defined terms has a life of its own, due to the way it borrows from many things.

I know I talk about Modernism and Primitivism a lot, but perhaps I haven't detailed why I'm interested in both, why the tension between the two informs my degree project, and why I think they exist in the same vein. It may even seem hypocritical to talk about these movements in a divisive way, but how else am I to explain myself? Ah! The other side of the argument.

In any case, Modernism can be defined as the tradition of design that looks to rationality, abstraction, and 'cleanliness'. Primitivism can be defined as a movement in art that looks to so-called "primitive" cultures for their unique aesthetic expressions, and their inherent "humanity". The underlying similarity between the two movements is their use of the "transcendental". The purpose of art and design to primitive cultures was to transcend normality, and scratch at the notion of the other-worldly. Obviously, things like abstraction lent themselves to this kind of aesthetic motivation. African masks are a great example of how abstraction was used to create a transformative exoskeleton for performers in ceremonies whose purpose was to channel a higher spirit, or evoke a sense of wonder or amazement. To go beyond everyday life, and create a more spiritual, transcendental environment.

Modernism's purpose is the same, but for different reasons. It was born out of a want for unity, for universalism, and for common understanding. But I think that Modernism is much more rooted in rationality, reason, simplicity, logic, and order. Ironically, in creating a formal language that could universally communicate, anything that exists outside of this rigid paradigm, including the aesthetic musings of less advanced cultures, is discounted as savage. Modernism has this undeserved arrogant air to it, that it is obviously the most evolved art movement. For example, most Modernist designers never step outside their rigid modes of expression. And in that lies this strange conservatism, this dogmatic approach to ways that people can express themselves, the 'appropriate' manner for them to create. For example, Massimo Vignelli went as far as designing a book for the average non-designer to create objects of design according to the tenets of Modernism.
[ I know I'm name-dropping a lot but it has a purpose, trust me :-/ I'm not trying to be elitist ]
Despite Modernism's idyllic perception of itself as allowing all people to come together and understand each-other, it is arguably cold, rational, and rigid. Even though it attempts to be human, it is so un-human that it becomes unattractive, esoteric, and doesn't relate to everyday people. Why would anyone want to live in a Mies van der Rohe building?
[I promise this is going somewhere. Stay focused!]
Geometry is simultaneously human and inhuman. It is democratic in the way that it can be understood. It is pure, rational, clean. It is also other-worldly, perfect, transcendental, mathematical. The universe is arranged in complex geometric patterns. From the leaves on trees, to fractals, to the microscopic molecules that are arranged to create our bodies, everything is neatly arranged into complex mathematical geometric patterns. God isn't a man in the sky. God is math. In Pocahontas' words, God is in everything. And as horribly kitschy and cheesy as that sounds, it's true. The order and reason of the universe is mind-numbingly sublime.
Perhaps this is why Geometry is the common denominator between these two movements. Modernism's focus on rational, clean communication relies on geometry for its cleanliness and ease of expression, while Primitivism channels its universality. The common ground is the use of the three most basic shapes: the circle, the square, and the triangle to conjure a new reality.
[ I understand the connotations the above remarks may have, and vouch for my sobriety ]

OKAY.
So now that I've loosely outlined my thinking, I'll get into why this is relevant to my work and to my degree project, whatever form that might take.

I've explained how Modernism and Primitivism exist as two polarities on a pendulum, swinging between order / human messiness and forward-looking / backward-looking. The common formal language between these movements is a tool, I believe, to show everyday people, even people who don't understand or appreciate art, that (again, as cheesy as it sounds) we're all brothers. That difference is beautiful. That people are people, and even though we collectively exist as diverse permutations of the species HUMAN, we are all in this together. ( cheese cheese cheese cheese. but true )

How? Because our chemical makeup is the same. We experience the same earth, we share the same emotions, we all want the same things. And, somewhere back in history we all arose from one common origin. Be it an ape that stood up, or the garden of Eden, it doesn't really matter -- believe what you want. The truth of the matter is that we all share the same past, and the same future.

I'm incredibly interested in ancient means of expression because of their honesty. They served a real purpose to their creators. Otherwise, why would these art-objects be made? The prehistoric man, the ancient Egyptian, the ancient Babylonian didn't have the luxuries of modernity. Their time was spent creating things that would better themselves and society. I know this is a generalization, but my point is simply that to ancient societies, art had to have a function, because their main concern was survival and procreation, things that were much more dire at that time than now.

In that lies an interesting distinction. Are these created artifacts art or design? They are created with a function. Canopic jars were designed to hold the organs of a person that had been mummified, but we consider them art today. Were they considered art back then? My intuition tells me that ancient societies didn't have the same definitive pretentions that modern-man does.

The Mayan calendar served the function of telling time, as did many ancient pieces of art. The cave paintings at Lascaux were perhaps didactic, or religious, the Venus of Willendorf was a fertility amulet. The pyramids were objects of propoganda, and massive tombs. FUNCTION! REASON!

These pieces of "art" exist in the same way that Modernism attempts to divine reason from chaos. They all collectively strive for the betterment of man. They attempt to apply control over the natural world. The process of mummification stemmed from a belief that man could have some level of control over the afterlife. This mode of thinking bred the kind of art-experience that is mummification, and all the art-objects that comprise its practice. Today we see them as art. In ancient times, people used them as transcendental tools. Even language, a collection of abstract symbols, is an example of this kind of thinking -- of taking the natural world and harnessing, even domesticating it, so that it can be easily understood. Is language art, or design? Or both?

But should the world be domesticated? Should it be systematized? Should it be named?

Alright. I'm rambling perhaps? Back on track.
The modes of thinking of ancient times lend themselves to this distinction between art and design, but in their universal use of abstraction, show the interconnectedness of the human race. It's no coincidence that the pyramids are a triangular prism. The Egyptians were interested in durability, in eternity, and chose the pyramid form for its absolute strength. The Parthenon uses the golden mean in its construction, and is primarily created from rectangles and squares. Arabic geometry uses the three pure geometric forms to create complex and inter-connected patterns that transcend reality, and connote the divine. This use of geometry underlies everything and everyone, and I hope to explore why in-depth.

_________


I'm not sure how this will be translated and what function it will have. I am interested in writing, in books, but also in print design. I'm not out to create a website. I'm not interested in motion. I don't want the things that I'm not interested in to limit my thinking, but at the same time, I want to graduate with a degree project that articulates my strengths, and demonstrates the kind of work I want to do in the future.

I do want whatever I do to serve a real purpose to people, and for them to confused as to what it is, in terms of the division between art and design. Although my work is very formal-centric [makin' up words!] , I am not interested in experimenting in form for the sake of it. I want to create some kind of transcendental experience for my audience. I want to educate them. I want for my work to serve a real purpose in their lives that betters them in some way. This stems from a philosophy I have about design's purpose: that it is the art of improving. I also want it to use space and materials responsibly, to not be wasteful, and hopefully to not be esoteric, because that's why I divorced fine-art.

So! I know I'm being vague at this point as far as what the end product will be. But I think being too specific is dangerous. This is a large problem I'm trying to tackle, and I think I will need to research it much more before making any serious decisions.

End.