Designer pain
Sep. 15th, 2004 07:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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.
Re: Messy Essay
Date: 2004-09-16 01:34 pm (UTC)Your honesty here, is at times astonishing. The freedoms afforded by your current work may seem a little empty, but I think they are essential for you to evolve and find new things that make you tick. Like cyclical design trends I am sure you will return to subverting pop idioms like you did prior to 2003. The pop demon within in you will always want to comment and combat with the memes of pop music, although that world is a little stagnant and fragmented right now. Seeing that you created a few of the trends that are now in the mainstream, an experimental sabbatical is imperative . However we still need a transgressive Momus with his mastery of seductive melody, and lyrical perversity to keep us on our toes, and also to break a few now and again.
On that other theme, I definitely think there is a Momus brand and would be curious as to how it could be defined ? I think the whole brand thing is definitely a subject you could write about. In pop music terms most of the pop brands have become homogenised milk. "Got pop ? " (to paraphrase a recent milk campaign).
Richard G