Vilém Flusser

ABOUTDESIGN

THE WORD

ABOUTTHE

WORD DESIGN

‘About the Word Design’, from ‘The Shape of Things’ written by Vilum Flusser

Published 2013 Camberwell College of Arts, Peckham Road,CamberwellSE5

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10Digitally printed LCC 2013Edited by Colleen Burns, Amy HaighDocumentation by Myrddin WoodingPrint Management Kellie MarshIllustration by Jalil Poplazi, Dorian JamesExhibition Curation by Hollie Smith

The Shape of Things

CONTENTS

INDEX

GLOSSARY

1 DESIGN

2 TEKTON

3 MECHOS

4 AGILITY

5 CULTURE

6 ORBIT

7 PENS

8 ARTIFACTS

9 CONFESSION

20-25

6-11

12-15

16-19

26-29

30-35

36-39

40-43

44-49

51-52

50

1DESIGN

DE

SIG

N8

In English, the word design is both a noun and a verb (which tells one a lot about the nature of the English language).

As a noun, it means – among other things – ‘intention’, ‘plan’, ‘intent’, ‘aim’, ‘scheme’, ‘plot’, ‘motif’, ‘basic structure’, all these (and other meanings) being connected with ‘cunning’ and ‘deception’. As a verb (‘to design’), meanings include ‘to concoct something’, ‘to simulate’, ‘to draft’, ‘to sketch’, ‘to fashion’, ‘to have designs on something’.

The word is derived from the Latin signum, meaning ‘sign’, and shares the same ancient root. Thus, etymologically, design means ‘de-sign’. This raises the question: How has the word design come to achieve its present-day significance throughout the world?

THE WORD DESIGN

DE

SIG

N

9

This question is not a historical one, in the sense of sending one off to examine texts for evidence of when and where the word came to be established in its present-day meaning.

+

_

DE

SIG

N10

DE

SIG

N

11

It is a semantic question, in the sense of causing one to consider precisely why this word has such significance attached to it in contemporary discourse about culture.

SEMANTIC

2MECHOS

ME

CH

OS

14

1

2

4

ME

CH

OS

15

The word occurs in contexts associated with cunning and deceit. A designer is a cunning plotter laying his traps. Falling into the same category are other very significant words: in particular, mechanics and machine. The Greek mechos means a device designed to deceive – i.e. a trap – and the Trojan Horse is one example of this.

Ulysses is called polymechanikos, which schoolchildren translate as ‘the crafty one’. The word mechos itself derives from the ancient MAGH, which we recognize in the German Macht and mögen, the English ‘might; and ‘may’. Consequently, a machine is a device designed to deceive; a lever, for example, cheats gravity, and ‘mechanics’ is the trick of fooling heavy bodies.

THE CRAFTY ONE

3TEKTON

TEK

TON

18

Another word used in the same context is ‘technology’. The Greek techne means ‘art’ and is related to tekton, a ‘carpenter’. The basic idea here is that wood (hyle in Greek) is a shapeless material to which the artist, the technician, gives form, thereby causing the form to appear in the first place.

Plato’s basic objection to art and technology was that they betray and distort theoretically intelligible forms (‘ideas’) when they transfer these into the material world. For him, artists and technicians were traitors to Ideas and tricksters because they cunningly seduced people into perceiving distorted ideas.

MATERIAL WORLDTECH·NE - artTEK·TON - carpenterHYLE - wood

TEK

TON

19

4AGILITY

AG

ILIT

Y22

The Latin equivalent of the Greek techne is ars, which in fact suggests a metaphor similar to the English rogue’s ‘sleight of hand’.

AG

ILIT

Y

23

ars - Latin equivalent of the Greek techne, similar to the English rouge’s ‘sleight of hand’

tour de main - indicates something is turned round by hand

artifex - ‘artist’ means trickster above all

Kunst - German word for art, derives from the noun

konnen - to be able to

The diminutive of ars is articulum – i.e. little art – and indicates that something is turned around the hand (as in the French tour de main). Hence ars means something ‘agility’ or the ‘ability to turn something to one’s advantage’, and artifex – i.e. ‘artist’ – means a ‘trickster’ above all. That the original artist was a conjurer can be seen from words such as ‘artifice’, ‘artificial’ and even ‘artillery’. In German, an artist is of course one who is ‘able to do something’, the German word art, Kunst, being the noun from können, ‘to be able’ or ‘can’, but there again the word for ‘artificial’, gekünstelt, comes from the same root (as does the English ‘cunning’).

ARTICULUM

AG

ILIT

Y24

2

AG

ILIT

Y

25

1

5CULTURE

CU

LTU

RE

28

Such considerations in themselves constitute a sufficient explanation of why the word design occupies the position it does in contemporary discourse.

INTERNAL CONNECTIONS

CU

LTU

RE

29

The words design, machine, technology, ars and art are closely related to one another, one term being unthinkable without the others, and they all derive from the same existential view of the world.

However, this internal connection has been denied for centuries (at least since the Renaissance). Modern bourgeois culture made a sharp division between the world of the arts and that of technology and machines; hence culture was split into two mutually exclusive branches: one scientific, quantifiable and ‘hard’, the other aesthetic, evaluative and ‘soft’.

This unfortunate split started to become irreversible towards the end of the nineteenth century. In the gap the word design formed a bridge between the two. It could do this since it is an expression of the internal connection between art and technology. Hence in contemporary life, design more or less indicates the site where art and technology (along with their respective evaluative and scientific ways of thinking) come together as equals, making a new form of culture possible.

6ORBIT

OR

BIT

32

Although this is good explanation, it is not satisfactory on its own. After all, what links the terms mentioned above is that they all have connotations of (among other things) deception and trickery. The new form of culture which Design was to make possible would be a culture that was aware of the fact that it was deceptive.

So the question is: Who and what are we deceiving when we become involved with culture (with art, with technology – in short, with Design)? To take one example: The lever is a simple machine. Its design copies the human arm; it is an artificial arm. Its technology is probably as old as the species homo sapiens, perhaps even older. And this machine, this design, this art, this technology is intended to cheat gravity, to fool the laws of nature and, by means of deception, to escape our natural circumstances through the strategic exploitation of a law of nature.

CONNOTATIONS

TRICK·ER·Y - trickeryGRAV-IT-TY - gravityNA-TURE - nature

OR

BIT

33

By means of the lever – despite our body weight – we ought to be able to raise ourselves up to touch the stars if we have to, and – thanks to the lever – if we are given the leverage, we might be able to lever the world out of its orbit.

This is the design that is the basis of all culture: to deceive nature by means of technology, to replace what is natural with what is artificial and build a machine out of which there comes a god who is ourselves. In short: The design behind a, culture has to be deceptive (artful?) enough to turn mere mammals conditioned by nature into free artists.

ARTFUL

OR

BIT

34

OR

BIT

35

7PENS

PE

NS

38

UNCERTAIN GROUND

KEY WORDS

human, design, idea, nature, value

This is a great explanation, is it not? The word design has come to occupy the position it has in contemporary discourse through our awareness that being a human being is a design against nature. Unfortunately, this explanation will not satisfy us. If in fact design increasingly becomes the centre of attention, with the question of Design replacing that of the Idea, we will find ourselves on uncertain ground.

PE

NS

39

TECH·NOL·O·GY

noun. [tek-nol-o-gee]The application of scientific knowledge for practical purposes. technics - engineering - technique

I·DE·A

noun. [eye-dear]A thought or suggestion as to a possible course of action. notion - thought - conception - concept - opinion - view

VAL·UE

noun. [val-yoo]Relative worth, merit or importance. worth - price - cost - merit - rate

MA·CHINE

noun. [ma-sh-een]An apparatus using or applying mechanical power to perform a particular task. engine - machinery - device - mechanism - motor

To take one example: Plastic pens are getting cheaper and cheaper and tend to be given away for nothing. The material they are made of has practically no value, and work (according to Marx, the source of all value) is accomplished thanks to smart technology by fully automatic machines.

The only thing that gives plastic pens any value is their design, which is the reason that they write. This design represents a coming together of great ideas, which – being derived from art and science – have cross-fertilized and creatively complemented one another.

Yet this is a design we don’t notice, so such pens tend to be given away free – as advertising, for example. The great ideas behind them are treated with the same contempt as the material and work behind them.

5

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8ARTEFACTS

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TEFA

CTS

42

How can we explain this devaluation of all values? By the fact that the word design makes us aware that all culture is trickery,

that we are tricksters tricked, and that any involvement with culture is the same thing as self-deception. True, once the barrier between art and technology had been broken down, a new perspective opened up within which one could create more and more perfect designs, escape one’s circumstances more and more, live more and more artistically (beautifully).

TRICKERY

AR

TEFA

CTS

43

DEATH-BEDBut the price we pay for this is the loss of truth and authenticity. In fact, the lever is about to lever all that is true and authentic out of out orbit and replace it mechanically with perfectly designed artefacts. And so all the artefacts become as valuable as plastic pens, become disposable gadgets.

This becomes clear when we die, it not before. Because despite all the technological and artistic arrangements we make (despite hospital architecture and death-bed design), we do die, just as other mammals die.

The word design has managed to retain its key position in everyday discourse because we are starting (perhaps rightly) to lose faith in art and technology as sources of value. Because we are starting to wise up to the design behind them.

GADG-ET

noun. [gad-et]Small tool such as a machine that has a particular function, but is often thought of as a novelty. Gadgets are sometimes referred to as gizmos

MAM-MAL

noun. [mam-mal]Mammals (class Mammalia) are a clade of warm-blooded amniotes

9CONFESSION

CO

NFE

SS

ION

46

CO

NFE

SS

ION

47

This is a sobering explanation. But it is also an unavoidable one. A confession is called for here. This essay has had a specific design in mind: It set out to expose the cunning and deceptive aspects of the word design. This it did because they are normally concealed.

If it had pursued another design, it might, for example, have insisted on the fact that ‘design’ is related to ‘sign’: a sign if the times, a sign of things to come, a sign of membership. In that case, it would have given a different, but equally plausible, explanation of the word’s contemporary situation.

REALISATION

KEY WORDS

cunnung, deceptive,concealed, sign

CO

NFE

SS

ION

48

CO

NFE

SS

ION

49

THAT’S THE

ANSWER THEN:

EVERYTHING

DEPENDS

ON DESIGN.

GLO

SS

AR

Y50

GLOSSARYArt The quality, production, expression, or realm, according to aesthetic principles, of what is beautiful, appealing, or of

more than ordinary significance.

Bridge A connecting, transitional, or intermediate route or phase between two adjacent elements, activities, conditions.

Confession Acknowledgment or disclosure of sin or sinfulness, especially to a priest to obtain absolution.

Design

To plan and fashion artistically or skillfully.

Everything

Every, thing or particular of an aggregate or total; all.

Fooling

To act like a fool; joke; play.

Gravity

The force of attraction by which terrestrial bodies tend to fall toward the center of the earth.

Human

Consisting of people: the human race.

Intent

Something that is intended; purpose; design; intention.

Key

Something that affords a means of access.

Lever

A rigid bar that pivots about one point and that is used to move an object at a second point by a force applied at a third.

Machine

An apparatus consisting of interrelated parts with separate functions, used in the performance of some kind of work.

Nature

The material world, especially as surrounding humankind and existing independently of human activities.

Orbit

The curved path, usually

elliptical, described by a planet, satellite, etc., around a celestial body, as the sun.

Pen

any of various instruments for writing or drawing with ink or a similar substance.

Root

An essential part or element; the basic core.

Sign

Any object, action, event, pattern, etc., that conveys a meaning.

Trojan Horse

A hollow wooden horse concealing soldiers, left by the Greeks upon their pretended abandonment of the siege of Troy.

Ulysses

From Ulixes, the Latin name for Odysseus, a character in ancient Greek literature.

Value

Relative worth, merit, or importance.

Ggravity 32

Hhomosapiens 32

human 32,38

Iintent 8

idea 18,38

KKunst 23

key 39

Llever 15,32

law 32

Mmachine 15,29

material 18,39

mammals 33,43

Nnoun 8,23

nature 8,32

IND

EX

51

INDEXAart 18,22

authenticity 42

Bbourgeois 28

bridge 29

branches 29

barrier 42

Ccunning 9

cheats 15

crafty 15

confession 47

Ddeception 8

deceit 15

design all

Eexistenal 28

everything 49

Ffooling 15

Oorbit 33,43

PPlato 18

plastic 39,43

pens 39,43

Rroot 8,23

Renaissance 29

Ssign 8

schoolchidren 15

science 39

TTrojan Horse 15

technology 42,43

UUlysses 15

V verb 8

value 39,42