imomus | Design Rockism

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My latest article for AIGA Voice magazine is Design Rockism. Trace design's topsy-turvy path from Josef Muller-Brockmann's 'Grid Systems' to the Groovisions Brockmann doll!

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From:

lord-whimsy.livejournal.com

Yes, I'd read that article. I remember earnest indie rockers with tastefully weathered clothing espousing a similar creed at one time. But it makes one wonder: is newness just as much a canard as authenticity?

I was lucky to come of age as a designer just before everything went digital, so I too retain 'traditional' paste-up/mechanical skills, and I still use them when the need arises. I don't view it as a principled stance so much as a means to keep my visual palette fresh. If I need an interesting background or element, I search for interesting objects and bring them into the computer, or take something from the computer, drag it around the yard or put it in the shower, then stuff it back in the Mac. The gent who made your recent Otto Spooky packaging, like most good designers, works this way as well.

Unfortunately, many rank-and-file designers limit themselves by merely using a PhotoShop filter of some kind. That's my only objection to a lot of exclusively digital work: one can spot a canned effect or filter a mile away. It's banal, and a little depressing. Same old sandbox.

In contrast, Mr. Oliver's early work was entirely paste-up, and this work still maintains a powerful presence, in part because one can see that the components of his final designs were a part of our world. I found that very exciting as a young designer. The illustrator Christoph Neimann works like this, but in an observational, conceptual way rather than a physical way. His work is overtly digital: squeaky clean and immaculate, but the concepts are humanistic, elegant and well-thought out, almost organic. He's a sweet fellow, too. I can see you employing him for a sleeve design.

(I was an abject failure as a punk; it felt too 'obvious'. I got a bigger thrill out of a flash of quality jacket lining than I ever did liberty spikes.)

I enjoy both the Count Five and Anne Laplantine. Does that make me a 'mockist'?

W

From:

stanleylieber.livejournal.com

Momus would seem to be suggesting that 'mockism' is something no one living after Duchamp can avoid participating in.

From:

lord-whimsy.livejournal.com

I'm merely speaking from personal experience--I've been at it for 15 years now. I'm fortunate to be one of the privileged few who can afford to address in their work the issues brought forth by Nick in his article, since most people in the graphic design and illustration business toil daily on less-than-heady projects like casino bus ads, instruction manuals for fax machines or direct mail brochures for credit card companies.

But since you bring it up, one wonders how universally and wholly such Duchampian ideas are received. I've seen places that seem to be sidestepping modernism altogether; the technology is embraced, but the culture remains largely premodern (I wouldn't advise a miniskirt in Swaziland). Middle Eastern intellectuals are using the term 'Transmodernism' to describe this. Which begs the following questions: are such concepts universal if not everyone buys into them? What if someone started a meme, and nobody came?

W

From:

stanleylieber.livejournal.com

I think the subtle schism here may be a simple difference of opinion over whether or not such "primitive," "pre-modern" cultures have really persisted unaffected by the prevelance of post-modern ideas we must navigate here in the West. This apparently untainted outlook may mask a deeper, conscious rejection of the ideas in question, though perhaps the vast majority of the actual people would be unaware that the conflict was playing out (just as the vast majority of Westerners are probably unaware of the issues we're discussing here; yet still participiate in propagating the post-modern philosophies they are unaware of embodying).

This is not to say I fully agree with Momus. I think there are gradations that reward consideration. While post-modernism may indeed be a poisonous toolset, the awareness of which no philosophy can long survive unaltered, that does not necessitate that merely existing in a world where others have explored an idea means one must find themselves irretreivably beholden to it. It seems that the human mind's primary facility is editing out that which it doesn't wish to consider consciously. As was demonstrated by the invention, loss, and independent rediscovery of the mechanical clock in China, this can even happen completely by accident. Or is it posited that the collective unconscious, once knowledge is gained, preserves it for eternity? The fact that certain humans leveraged an understanding of the principles of physics into the manufacture of aeroplanes did not prevent the "cargo cults" from completely missing the point of the airstrips and aircraft they built non-functional replicas of. Sometimes, simply making contact with a meme is not enough to develop a full-blown infection.

Ultimately I think the rejection of ideologically pure, "non post-modern" thought is akin to those who objected to deconstructionism on the grounds that it was merely wonton destruction for its own sake. The cultural "clean slate" has been sought and exported both downwards and upwards through the class hierarchy at different points in history, this much is documented. Whether or not the complete eradication of the offending memes was successful or not would not seem to be a pre-requisite for statistical, functional success in purifying "common knowledge."

All that said, it seems to me that the distinction itself (between pre-modern and post-modern perspectives) is entirely reliant upon the current rhetorical devices utilized to describe them. We may be simply tying ourselves up with our own conceits. When one truly takes the long view, all communication consists of recontextualizing pre-existing symbols. Cognitively, the process is the same whether we use the Greek alphabet or clippings from Time magazine. The fact that the English language is comprised of symbols from antiquity, while Marcel Duchamp's Next Work consisted of Genesis P. Orridge and an orchestra of participants plucking out musical notes on bicycle spokes with playing cards does not represent a fundamental difference in what each grammar "means" in terms of the awareness and mindset of the person utilizing them. Each are abstract rulesets, whose existence are independent of meaning in and of themselves. With this in mind, we can trace "post-modernism" back to the Phoenecians. (This is not to disregard the importance of reviving an awareness of just what using language entails from time to time, which I think is the process Momus has developed a visceral attachment to.)

It would seem that novelty of these new grammars has much to do with how closely they are studied, and how highly they are regarded. As time goes by, and useage becomes more widespread, they tend to melt into the background.

But it's still the same thing.