Archive for the 'Political' Category

Tractor Man

Published by Neil McGuire on May 17, 2012 in Design, Inter-discipline, Media, Music, Performance, Political, Society and Theatre. 0 Comments

In There Is Business Like Show Business* on Radio 4, Will Young (yes, I know, bear with me) examines the intriguing world of Industrial Musicals — lavish and complex musical theatre devised in the post-war years by corporations to play as informative, entertaining and supposedly morale-boosting features within trade-conventions — mainly to private audiences comprising of corporation staff. It cites examples such as ‘Tractor Man’ — a whole musical devised around the benefits of productivity enhancing Ford Tractors — as examples of a time when corporate budgets (and optimism in the power of consumerism) were at an all-time high, and provides an interesting insight into a very different way of thinking about brands, design and marketing — one which manages to be simultaneously sinister, nieve, and endearing, in a nostalgic kind of way.

I was interested in this as lately I’ve been reading a bit about Fordism and Post-Fordism — the influence of mechanisation on our way of thinking about the world, and the subsequent paradigm shift to a more ‘flexible’, ‘knowledge’ based economy. If you’re interested in exploring this more, this book is a good starting point (in an art and design context). I’ve also really got into this dictionary of ‘Critical Theory’ lately**, and have found it to be a handy route in to a lot of the phrases, terms and people that crop up in articles, discussions etc, but which I know nothing about. There’s a clear and easy to understand definition of Fordism and Post-Fordism in that.

* Available to listen again till Saturday.

** Realise that for the ‘haters’ out there, it’s going to be difficult to decide whether to ‘disrespect’ me for promoting a Will Young radio-show, or touting a dictionary of Critical Theory.

*** The clip used to illustrate this post is not really from the ‘golden era’ of Industrial Musicals – its from a slightly later period, and therefore lacks the production values (and budget) of some of its predecessors. But it was one of the few clips I could track down online. It was made by Allied Chemicals, and this ‘number’ is ‘The Great American Consumer’, from Seein’ the Light, 1978.

Designing Alternatives: Symposium

Published by Neil McGuire on May 16, 2012 in Design, Events, Political and Society. 0 Comments

Designing Alternatives symposium
Wednesday 13 June 2012, 11.45 – 17.00
Evolution House Boardroom
Edinburgh College of Art

via Designing Alternatives.

Design and Research

Published by Neil McGuire on April 17, 2012 in Design, Learning and Teaching and Political. 0 Comments

Rick Poyner writes on design observer about the weird world* of design academia. I don’t know how much of the RAE and REF (research excellence framework) discussions, or bigger questions of how courses are structured, staffed and operated, filter into the studio environment, but its a pertinent topic which needs airing (to my mind). I thought that the whole article was interesting, and particularly this comment from Gerry Leonides, a tutor at Reading, stood out;

…higher education is undergoing a fairly rapid transition into a world of excessive QA (Quality Assurance), and a brutal breaking up of teaching and learning into tightly measured chunks of contact time, of coursework, and of assessment. This process, driven by a view of education as a massive spreadsheet where all events (and costs) can be prescribed, is having fundamental effects on the students’ experience, and the role of the teacher. On the research side, design suffers especially from QA models developed for disciplines where scholarship is better defined, and where active engagement between researchers and practitioners is a given. Through its impact on funding, the unloved ‘Research Excellence Framework’ you link to is a textbook case of the QA model prescribing practice. Rather than an engine for innovation, it has become an end in itself, jeopardising longer-term planning. In design this has pushed academics to chase publications in journals that barely register on practice. Although there is a recognition that research is an element of some practical work, and practice portfolios are allowed as submissions, we are far from a broad agreement on what constitutes research in design (and the wild range of what passes for a PhD in design testifies to this).

via The Closed Shop of Design Academia: Observatory: Design Observer.

* that’s my attribution of weirdness, not his necessarily.

Perspectives on the City

Published by Neil McGuire on April 12, 2012 in Architecture, Cities, Communication, Political and Society. 0 Comments

News that a group of urban explorers had broken in to and climbed the as-yet unfinished ‘Shard’ in London, got me thinking back to an amazing thread of articles on BldgBlog about explorers of urban tunnels. Finding new perspectives on the city creates some interesting opportunities to push at the definition of what is or isn’t public space, and how our cities are planned, built and run, (and who owns the view). It also raised the question of space vs population, and what if we need to start building down, as well as up?

There’s a further article here, called What it’s like to (illegally) climb London’s tallest building, and John Thackara uses this unusual perspective on urban living as a route in to looking at the bigger picture here.

Savage Messiah

Published by Neil McGuire on March 25, 2012 in Art, Books, Critical Studies, Design, Drawing, Illustration, Political, Publications, Society and Writing. 0 Comments

Rick Poyner’s latest critique for Eye magazine is on the Savage Messiah zine by Laura Oldfield Ford, which may be of interest to those doing the micro-publishing project, and everyone else. Charting the neo-liberal changes in Londons East-end as a result of a partially olympics-related crusade of ‘regeneration’, the zines have been gathered together and republished by Verso. I have ordered a copy if anyone wants a lend.

Eye 82 also contains an interesting historical take on the info-graphic and should be available from all good 3/4th year vis-com-des studio magazine racks shortly.

Image: Laura Oldfield Ford

Data is Political

Published by Neil McGuire on March 19, 2012 in Design, Digital, Political and Technology. 0 Comments

It’s been a busy term, lots of interesting things happening, but the blog has been neglected somewhat. An Easter resolution is to get some of the articles I’ve been meaning to post, online. We’ll start with data is political, an interesting looking conference and event which ties in to some of the themes that have been emerging through projects this year.

Whitney, Deutsche Bank and Sotherbys

Published by Neil McGuire on March 10, 2012 in Art, Digital, Events, Exhibitions, Political, Society and Web. 0 Comments

Interesting Parallel Worlds, in relation to corporate sponsorship of arts and culture.

Occupy Design?

Published by Neil McGuire on January 21, 2012 in Cities, Creativity, Design, Events, Fabricating/Making, Hacking, Inter-discipline, Political, Society and Technology. 0 Comments

Folk might be interested in this forthcoming event: I personally have some questions about the idea of ‘occupy design’ but undoubtedly the event will be a melting pot of ideas and proposals and one which could lead to some interesting outcomes.

‘This Space Is Not For Hire’ will take place at the Bank of Ideas, an occupied former bank near Liverpool Street Station.

Running across the afternoons of Saturday the 28 and Sunday 29 January 2012, will be a range of talks on topics such as: radical forms of communication and design activism; the precariousness of design employment; and exposing and reflecting upon the ways design is used to give a friendly veneer to the worst kinds of Corporate behaviour.

via Eye blog » Higher ground. Occupy Design is an opportunity to change design, and design for change..

So Long SOPA

Published by Neil McGuire on January 19, 2012 in Design, Digital, Inter-discipline, Political, Society, Technology and Web. 0 Comments

Obama Says So Long to SOPA, the Controversial Internet Piracy Legislation, as reported by Forbes, and here by the BBC. The question still remains though; in what form might this ‘type’ of legislation next re-appear?

Here’s Clay Shirky talking about the topic at TED. To read more, try Lawrence Lessig, or this piece on copyleft, as a starting point.

“It is clear that copyright is being misdirected from its original intention to that of meeting the needs of corporations desperate to safeguard existing profits and create new markets artificially.” From: Copyleft and copyright / Eye 55

Day to Day Data

Published by Neil McGuire on January 12, 2012 in Design, Digital, Political and Technology. 0 Comments

Data as Documentary – a workshop with Graham Harwood is part of the forthcoming Arika12 programme of events at CCA.

Derrida of the Digital Age

Published by Neil McGuire on December 28, 2011 in Design, Digital, Inter-discipline, Interaction, Media, Political, Society, Technology, Theory, Web and Writing. 1 Comment

Friedrich Kittler has been described by some as the Derrida of the Digital Age – the first philosopher to truly explore and understand our emergent relationship with digital technology. Friedrich Kittlers computer wars is a podcast on the Guardian website which explores this legacy.

Another writer on the ‘digital’ who might be worth looking into is Vilém Flusser, who wrote about networks, but also photography and the ‘technical image’.

Thanks to Gordon Hush for the initial link.

Trading Futures

Published by Neil McGuire on December 21, 2011 in Education, Political and Society. 0 Comments

“In the United States, student debt has outstripped credit card debt, nervously edging toward the one trillion dollar mark and tracked by escalating commentary, protest and defaults.” say Mute magazine. (More here.)

The article above is very worth reading and thinking about, and promise I’ll attempt one less-gloomy post before Christmas. Speaking of which, anyone got any pictures of QuizCom 2011 they’d care to send in?

Design, Democracy and Fairness

Published by Neil McGuire on December 8, 2011 in Design, Events, Exhibitions, Illustration, News, Photography and Political. 0 Comments

Vis Com People Sarah Fishlock (image above) and James Bettney are part of the Design and Democracy Exhibition which is currently running at the Scottish Parliament, and well worth visiting if you can.

In other exhibition news, David Kerr, fellow vis com person, is exhibiting his Tesco University work (see below) in this exhibition at the RCA, inspired by this lecture from the University of Strategic Optimism.

Evolution in Design

Published by Neil McGuire on November 23, 2011 in Design, Political and Society. 3 Comments

“There’s this group we’re interested in, called DSG, or the Deterritorial Support Group. They’re a self-proclaimed ultra-leftist propaganda group, based in London. And someone said on Twitter: DSG made Metahaven look like Adbusters. And I thought this was great, because that’s really how it should be.

It should be like in music. Maybe there’s a band. And then there’s another band, and they’re doing something even more extreme and heavy. The band that came before is labeled ‘sort of okay’, people say ‘but now you’re like Bon Jovi’ and that’s no longer interesting. That sort of evolution going in design is an absolute dream for me.”

via That New Design Smell (interview with Daniel Van Der Velden).

The Occupied Times of London

Published by Neil McGuire on October 29, 2011 in Cities, Design, Political, Print, Printing and Society. 0 Comments

Creative Review surveys The Occupied Times of London. Obviously, whether the protest and occupation are ‘nicely designed’ is missing the point, but nevertheless, its interesting to see something that is in someways more imaginative than the standard fare of left-of-centre graphic clichés, I think. And also good, regardless of what you think of the aesthetic/ethics, to see people deploying their design skills in a hands-on way, rather than the obscure and meaningless distant quest for a logo of this approach.

For more information on Occupy Glasgow, click this.

Every Movement Needs a Logo?

Published by Neil McGuire on October 11, 2011 in Cities, Design, Identity, Political and Society. 1 Comment

Comment on the design politics of Occupy Wall Street. (Originally) from the NY times.

Whose Legacy?

Published by David Kerr on October 6, 2011 in Cities, Communication, Design, Education, Environment, Inspiration, Interviews, Media, Political, Society and Talks. 0 Comments
Friday 21st October, 2-30-4.30. Clubroom, Upstairs at The Centre for Contemporary Arts (CCA), 350 Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow G2 3JD

The Commonwealth Games 2014: Whose Legacy?

Short introductory talk by Dr Libby Porter (Urban Planner and Researcher, Glasgow Uni) and Neil Gray (Writer and Researcher, Glasgow Uni) about the Legacy of Mega-Events,  and large-scale urban regeneration plans in the UK and worldwide.

A discussion will follow with a series of live accounts by residents – including carers from the Save the Accord centre, who are campaigning to retain a day care centre for people with learning disabilities, and Margaret Jaconelli, who has recently been evicted from her home. The residents will talk about about the impact the Commonwealth Games development is having upon their lives.

This discussion, focusing on media portrayal and the right of residents to ‘stay put’ in the face of large-scale urban transformation and displacement, will be interspersed with a series of short films that highlight recent  experiences on, and nearby, the site of the Commonwealth Games Village

Includes special screening of a short film about Margaret Jaconelli and the forthcoming Commonwealth Games  by Glasgow documentary photographer and filmmaker, Chris Leslie. (14 mins) www.chrisleslie.com

First things last

Published by Neil McGuire on September 22, 2011 in Design, Political, Society and Working Life. 0 Comments

Metahaven co-edit Print’s October 2011 Issue;

‘For designers dissatisfied with the present conditions, the discourse around design is stagnant. Why are design institutions still wheeling out Ken Garland and Milton Glaser every time we want to talk about our collective conscience? If we make “critical design” what is it criticising? And of what relevance in an ethical appeal of selective client-rejection and humane capitalist social relations when most of us can’t get paid work in the first place? We all know professional institutions such as AIGA and D&AD exist for a conception of the designer – subject as a free agent, in a position of autonomy in relation to clients and coworkers, and with full control over the direction and content of a given job: a conception which is at best rooted in select circumstances and at worst in pure fantasy. We suspect this discourse of ethics and selective refusal of work will, in the face of austerity, be replaced with TOTAL REFUSAL.’ —DSG

Thanks to TtLA,TtR for the tip-off.

Value for Money

Published by Neil McGuire on September 15, 2011 in Design, Education, Political and Society. 3 Comments

News that Glasgow School of Art has set UK fees at £27,000 prompts me to dig out a couple of other recent references to funding, art schools and education, that I’d been meaning to post up for a while.

The first is a detailed interrogation of the recent White Paper for Higher Education in England, on Afterall: Ten things everyone working in or studying art should know about the White Paper for Higher Education in England. The second is a recent edition of the recently relaunched Grafik magazine (no 190) which carries a (less detailed) education special — a large portion of which is dedicated to enquiring about whether a design degree is worth £27,000, and asking designers who aren’t (design) degree educated what their view of design higher education is. There are a range of opinions, but in that annoying way, I’ve chosen to ignore the quotes that go against what I think, and picked out one from Joost Grootens, that I think sums things up nicely (and cosily reinforces my world-view):

“Students seem to be worried about the near-future … My advice always is: study for as long as you can afford, there is plenty of time for work later. If you worry too much about the near future you want assignments that make sense, that are practical, down-to-earth, and ‘real’. But this is so stupid. A school is an artificial environment, outside, but next to, reality … It should be unreal in order to be good.”

That’s a slightly truncated version of the quote, but good starting point for a discussion.

911

Published by Neil McGuire on September 11, 2011 in Architecture, Cities, Design, Political and Society. 0 Comments

On 911, identity and architecture. Also, an interesting take on this from the perspective of the pervasive influence of the vivid visual image.