Designer pain

[imomus]

Graphic Masochism is my latest piece for Voice: American Institute of Graphic Arts Journal. It seems to be provoking a few comments, which is more than the last one did. If you find the theme (more to do with things like ambivalence, negotiation and collaboration than actual sexual masochism) interesting you might want to read Metaphysical Masochism of the Capitalist Creative, the 2000 essay where I first broached this theme. Earlier this year I re-wrote that original essay for Amsterdam-based design magazine Dot Dot Dot. Issue 8 will appear shortly; you can check out the contents here. (I'm looking forward to reading 'The English Breakfast as a Modular System'!)

We decided to illustrate the AIGA Voice piece with the sleeve for Etienne de Crecy's Superdiscount album (1996), designed by H5 (Antoine Bardou-Jacquet and Ludovic Houplain). Which is funny, because I've just turned in a 1000 word piece for the November issue of Index magazine casting Paris musicians like o.lamm and Hypo as dragon-slaying knights -- the dragons being such 90s figures as Mirwais, Air, Phoenix, Cassius and... Etienne de Crecy.

Comments

[imomus.livejournal.com]

From what I've seen of Art Chantry's work (http://www.gigposters.com/designers.php?designer=3275&s=19), the reason he might not feel the article's theme is that, although he has a strong relationship with power in the form of a 'megavisual tradition', it's a dead tradition, a lapsed power; his work affectionately parodies 1950s Hollywood b-movies. Because the power of 1950s Hollywood threatens no-one these days, there isn't likely to be much ambivalence, much capitulation involved in pastiching this stuff. It's very different from Peter Saville pastiching contemporary Hollywood in his New Order 'Republic' sleeve. And for me, because it takes fewer risks and fails to engage with power in its current forms, Chantry's work is less interesting than Saville's.

But there may also be something cultural in all this: Chantry is an American, and 'power' in these examples is American power. I'm always going to identify with the ambivalence of Europeans and Japanese about American power. I'm going to understand Richard Hamilton better than I understand Andy Warhol, for instance, or Cornelius better than Beck. It's a question of distance, physical and cultural distance. And perhaps we Europeans feel better about ambivalence in general -- we have less mixed feelings about our mixed feelings -- than Americans do.

[lord-whimsy.livejournal.com]

While I'll agree that much of the so-called 'underground rock' aesthetic merely pretends to take chances, in Chantry's defense I'll say that his design approach works for the subject matter presented to him by his clients (labels like Estrus or In The Red who specialize in charged up traditional garage rock). He uses a vocabulary that the lovers of that particular musical genre understand, just like the labels who are home to Japanese pop bands or Euro glitch-meisters use twee or naive imagery. It's a subcultural shorthand that says 'this is for you'. Within its Europop context, the New Order Republic sleeve wasn't unsettling or shocking like Warhol's Electric Chair prints; it was just wry visual commentary.

As to dead, non-threatening traditions: I would imagine that a gaggle of thick-necked SoCal retro hotrod folk replete with ducktails, tatoos and goatees would elicit a few raised eyebrows and nervous laughs at a laptop festival in Berlin. Perhaps the genre is dead but it still manages to make others nervous, eh?

I think that the choice of assignments we designers or illustrators make often matters as much as how we choose to approach them.

W

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I think anybody with a thick neck would upset laptoppers in Berlin, actually. If you have a thick neck you're already making a reference to power -- your own brute strength. I find Henry Rollins hilarious, but a gaggle of Henry Rollinses would make me stifle my giggles, at least until they were out of earshot.

[lord-whimsy.livejournal.com]

Ha hah. Years ago, I saw the improbable Mr. Rollins (anyone with a neck circumference greater than 20 inches qualifies as a 'Mr.') walking the streets of New York once, oblivious to all about him, looking up intently at a skyscraper, grinning to himself. I wondered to myself if he was planning on bench-pressing it. Not wishing to meet the same fate as Fay Wray, I made for the subway.

Met 'Mr'. Chantry a few years back. His neck, too, commanded my deference--but then, I look like a 12 year old boy.

W

[imomus.livejournal.com]

But, to address your argument, it seems you're saying that the critical element of any style is inherent in its context, and that society is a pluralistic range of subgroups all capable of being shocked by something outside their ken. While I like this picture of society, I don't think it reflects reality as I see it, which is that there is always a dominant centre, a powerful elite defining and affecting the terms of discourse, signification, communication. Call it 'power', call it 'the mega-visual tradition', call it 'Hollywood' or 'advertising'... we know power when we see it. As communicators, we aren't compelled to play by its rules, of course, but we have to take its presence, and dominance, into account. Me choosing to attack 'power' is quite different, morally, from me making fun of thick-necked surfers or some other whacky subculture.

[lord-whimsy.livejournal.com]

Context is a major factor, and subcultures are often as defined by what they are not, but I agree that there are other considerations.

I don't think anyone has to play by 'power's' (whatever that abstraction might really mean) rules. Like most people, I ignore or reject the aspects of the culture which I don't care for--unless of course someone tries to make it law. How much ignoring or rejecting determines how much you surrender to 'power'.

I'm not sure society is as Manichean as you seem to suggest. I'd propose that there are nodes, centers and clusters of power that are constantly in flux, congealing and dispersing, and perhaps from a distance look to be a centralized whole, but upon closer inspection the gaps appear. Furthermore, I'd suspect that people probably map out their own networks of territory within the borders of whatever 'mainstream culture' prevails in their society (be it Yossou N'Dour, Kahimi Karie or Jimmy Buffett), each according to taste, history, politics or personal agenda, and ignoring the strains of mainstream culture for which they have no use--or better yet, reinterpreting them, 'getting them wrong'. Some things are culled from the ascendent power, but other things are ignored or rejected. There is no clear delineation; it's just a question as to what degree do you connect your dots within it's provinces. This may explain why mainstream culture is so vast and over time proves to be decentralized--its centrality is an illusion which is eventually dispelled by indifference. Don't fight it--that gives it strength. Ignore it and replace it with something better.

These grapes are awful...should've went with the plum...

W

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I'd suspect that people probably map out their own networks of territory within the borders of whatever 'mainstream culture' prevails in their society (be it Yossou N'Dour, Kahimi Karie or Jimmy Buffett), each according to taste, history, politics or personal agenda, and ignoring the strains of mainstream culture for which they have no use--or better yet, reinterpreting them, 'getting them wrong'. Some things are culled from the ascendent power, but other things are ignored or rejected.

This is sympathetic, Whimsy. But I can't help trying out a concrete example. I admire your dedication to bicycling, especially the penny farthing. Yet you cannot ignore the fact that we live in an age dominated by cars, and that the world has been organised, alas, for their convenience. I personally have little use for cars, yet if I ignore them -- or 'get them wrong' -- I will no doubt be struck by one and thrown into a ditch, like Toad of Toad Hall.

[lord-whimsy.livejournal.com]

I was referring mainly to cultural matters (on that point I can come up with plenty of examples), but you are right that concessions are made regarding basic things like infrastructure (This was made painfully clear to me this summer when, like our poor Mr. Toad, my highwheel and I were driven off the road by a passing truck, tossing me to the winds and bending my velocipede's rear wheel. Poot poot indeed.)

W