Desma 10 Fall 2017Design Culture - an Introduction

Meeting 2 (October 6, 2017) Design Culture - Basics

Design SemioticsVisible and Invisible Design

High and Low DesignDesign and Art

Design issues between humans can be difficult; how about those between humans and extra-terrestrials?

Designing for Extraterrestrials

This plaque was a message to extraterrestrials, sent away from our solar system with Pioneer 10 and 11 spacecrafts (1972). It was designed by the scientists Dr Carl Sagan and Dr Frank Drake.

“Originally Sagan intended for the humans holding hands, but soon realized that an extraterrestrial might perceive the figure as a single creature rather than two organisms.

One can see that the woman's genitals are not really depicted; only the Mons Pubis is shown.

It has been claimed that Sagan, having little time to complete the plaque, suspected that NASA would have rejected a more intricate drawing and therefore made a compromise just to be safe.”

Sagan himself later claimed: “The decision to omit a very short line [indicating the woman’s vulva] in this diagram was made partly because conventional representation in Greek statuary omits it.

But there was another reason: Our desire to see the message successfully launched on Pioneer 10. In retrospect, we may have judged NASA's scientific-political hierarchy as more puritanical than it is.”

Unmanned Spaceflight.com

How About the Children? Would they be possible to identify?

How about different sexual orientations and social norms? How to inform space aliens about them?

Cartoon published in Los Angeles Times

Meanwhile, on Jupiter...

Infographer Edward Tufte’s ironic redesign (http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/space)

“The Amazing Levitation Trick”

Where / What is “Up and Down” in Outer Space?

Jennifer Diane Reitz, Jenniverse.com

The Simpsons

Pictures of tattoos inspired by the Pioneer plaque

Voyager Golden Records, records shot into deep space on the Voyager 1 and 2 spacecrafts in 1977. Contain collections of sounds and images from life on Earth. Contents selected by a committee led by Carl Sagan: 116 images, natural sounds, music from Bach to Chuck Berry, spoken greetings in 55 ancient and modern languages, printed messages from Jimmy Carter and Kurt Waldheim...

Are these images any easier to understand for the extraterrestrials? By the way, where is the record player? Optical laser discs are

obsolete by now...at least on Earth.

We need Design Semiotics!

Semiotics (from the Greek word ‘Semeion,’ sign)

Founders: linguist Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913, used ‘semiology’), philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914, used ‘semiotics’). Later masters: the French Roland Barthes, the Italian Umberto Eco, the American Thomas A. Sebeok..

Semiotics (Semiology) is the study of signs in cultural life and communication practices. Historical origins in medical science (Hippocrates) - symptomology, search for symptoms and signs of diseases.

According to semiotics, we can only know reality as mediated by signs; in other words, through the processes of signification, giving, communicating and reading meanings.

Useful book about signs: Thomas A. Sebeok, Signs. An Introduction to Semiotics.

"Semiotics involves the study of signification, but signification cannot be isolated from the human subject who uses it and is defined by means of it, [or] from the cultural system which generates it."

(Kaja Silverman)

Ferdinand de Saussure on "Semiology" (Semiotics):

"Language is a system of signs that express ideas, and is therefore comparable to a system of writing, the alphabet of deaf-mutes, symbolic rites, polite formulas, military signals, etc. But it is the most important of these systems. A science that studies the life of signs within society is conceivable; it would be part of social psychology and consequently of general psychology; I shall call it semiology...

Semiology would show what constitutes signs, what laws govern them. Since the science does not yet exist, no one can say what it would be; but it has a right to existence, a place staked out in advance. Linguistics is only a part of the general science of semiology; the laws discovered by semiology will be applicable to linguistics, and the latter will circumscribe a well-defined area within the mass of anthropological facts." (de Saussure, Course of General Linguistics, 1916)

Code and Message

In daily life we constantly send messages consisting of signs. The messages are based on codes, culturally shared systems of relationships. The messages manifest themselves as complexes of signs. By living in a certain environment we necessarily internalize codes that affect our semiotic behavior, whether we are aware of them or not.

We construct and send messages by referring to codes. Semioticians agree that no messages are possible without codes.

Umberto Eco: the semiotic model of signification and communication

- Eco, Apocalypse Postponed, 1994

Stuart Hall: Modes of Decoding Messages All signs are encoded and decoded. They are encoded in the production process and placed within a certain cultural setting. They are decoded by the viewers/readers. According to Stuart Hall, there are three modes of decoding the viewers can adopt: 1) Dominant-hegemonic reading They can identify with the hegemonic position and receive the dominant message of an image or text (such as a television show) without questioning it. 2) Negotiated reading They can negotiate an interpretation of the signs and their dominant meanings. 3) Oppositional reading They can take an oppositional position, either by completely disagreeing with the ideological position embodied in a sign or rejecting it altogether (for example, by ignoring it.)

Source: Daniel Chandler: Semiotics for Beginners (http://visual-memory.co.uk/daniel/Documents/S4B/)

Stuart Hall: Encoding / Decoding (1973, 1980)

The Sign Consists of Signifier / Signified (Saussure, Barthes)

Signifier (“form”) /signified (“content”) are like the sides of a coin. They cannot be separated from each other.

Signifier represents the"form" of the sign, the signified the idea (“content”). The relationship between the signifier and the signified is based on a cultural agreement.

For example the word "horse" (equos) does not resemble the animal it refers to but we learn to know its meaning even when the animal is not present.

The principle of difference: "The identity of a given signifier or a given signified is established through the ways in which it differs from all other signifiers or signifieds within the same system."

The principle of combination (syntax) in the fashion system.

Roland Barthes: Denotation and Connotation

The distinction between denotation and connotation is central to Barthes' semiotic theory. He claims that when we read signs and sign complexes, we can distinguish different levels of meaning in them.

- Denotation is the "literal or obvious meaning" or a "first-order signifying system." The denotative meaning of an image refers to its literal, descriptive meaning (“horse”). - Connotation refers to "second-order signifying systems", the additional cultural meanings we can find from an image or text (“Napoleon’s horse,” “racing horse,” “black horse,”“Ferrari”, etc.)

Connotation (additional, associative meaning)

Barthes identifies connotation with the operations of ideology (which he also calls "myth"). According to Barthes, "Ideology or ‘myth’ consists of the deployment of signifiers for the purpose of expressing and justifying the dominant values of a given historical period (the signs express not just "themselves", but also all kinds of ideological systems that surround them)."

Advertisement for Panzani pasta, analyzed by Roland Barthes in his classic semiotic study “Rhetoric of the Image”

- Linguistic message. Denotational and connotational (denotation: explicit meaning in French; connotation:"Panzani - Italianicity")- The image: a series of discontinuous signs- "Return from the market" connotes "freshness" and "domestic preparation"- Three colors: Italy ("Italianicity") (Redundancy with the linguistic message:"French" knowledge that an Italian would not perceive.)- Other signs: serried products, "total culinary service." A concentrate in a tin can is offered as equivalent of the natural product.- Other signs: the tradition of still life painting (given the product added “high art” quality?).- An additional sign:"this is an ad" (in a magazine and emphasizes labels).

In: Barthes, Image - Music - Text

Italian Flag

Luis Meléndez (1716-1780), Still Life with Apples, Grapes, Melons, Bread, Jug, and Bottle

Check this very useful source: Daniel Chandler: Semiotics for Beginners http://visual-memory.co.uk/daniel/Documents/S4B/

Charles Sanders Peirce Says:

Charles Sanders Peirce's Triad of Signs: Icon, Index, Symbol

Sign"is something which stands to somebody for something in some respect or capacity. It addresses somebody, that is, creates in the mind of that person an equivalent sign, or perhaps a more developed sign. That sign which it creates I call the interpretant of the first sign. The sign stands for something, its object.” (Peirce)

Signs fall in three categories: icon, index, symbol. The categories may overlap, and are flexible. A photograph is both an icon and an index; so is a painted portrait of a person, particularly for someone who knows the person. All types of signs may have symbolic meanings.

The “richest” signs are usually combinations of different types.

Index = "a real thing or fact which is a sign of its object by virtue of being connected with it as a matter of fact and by also forcibly intruding upon the mind, quite regardless of its being interpreted as a sign." Examples: the weathervane, a pointing hand, a symptom (of a disease, etc.).

Icon = resembles its conceptual object in certain ways. It may share certain properties that the object possesses, or it may duplicate the principles according to which that object is organized. Examples: representational images and diagrams (graphs etc.).

Symbol = the relationship between the sign and its conceptual object is arbitrary, based on an agreement (occasional resemblances are possible). Examples: words in natural languages, notational systems, the national flag.

Origins of the Peace Sign

Designed 1958 by Gerald Holtom for the British nuclear disarmament movement by combining letters “N” and “D” from the semaphore signal language (“Nuclear Disarmament”).

- Also said to have been inspired by Goya’s painting The Third of May 1808. Gesture of despair would have been inverted and circled.

N D

- Adopted by the Students Union for Peace in the USA. Lost its original denotation and became a general sign for peace.

What kind of signs are these?

Sign seen in The Hague, Holland - what does it mean?

Frankly, I don’t have a clue...

Visible and Invisible Design

Many designs are meant as visible - to draw attention to their message, owner, designer, manufacturer, etc. Fashion!

Most everyday designs are invisible. They are meant to be functional, to make our daily lives easier, and possible. They may be good or bad, but are everywhere!

Some designs function (almost) unconsciously, others request conscious attention. Traffic lights are visible, but psychologically they function as if they were invisible. Our relationship to them becomes ‘automated.´

Visible vs. invisible design can be a matter of life and death, particularly in warning systems (the marking of the emergency exit), and in systems that regulate traffic.

Audible and Inaudible Design

- Everyday sounds can be “audible,” “inaudible” or both, depending on the situation and the listener. Habit can turn signs that are audible into inaudible signs.

- Muzak (Elevator Music) is inaudible sound design meant to have an effect on shoppers’ behaviors by being barely noticeable (malls, department stores).

- Alarms are (and must be) highly audible design but people get used to them. Use of headphones or ear plugs can be a problem!

- Freeway noise is not designed; rather a by-product of design(s). Design is used to limit it (mufflers, sound walls, etc.). It can function as a sign - for what and whom?

Street Arts Are they Visible or Invisible Design?

Depends on for whom and in what situation.

Street arts are not interpreted in identical ways by everybody.

Some require very specific codes to be readable as signs.

One of the greatest invisible designs of all time.

Predecessor: the peg, known already 3000BC.

Unknown invention from the 2nd half of the nineteenth century. First patented in 1899 by the Norwegian Johan Vaaler. Made possible by steel wire.

Based on Hooke’s law 1679: Ut tensio, sic uis (’as is the extension, so is the force’).

Symbolic meaning: in occupied Norway during World War II wearing a paperclip became a symbol of resistance.

Success: 20 thousand million produced yearly.

From Henri Petroski: The Evolution of Useful Things, 1993.

The Paper Clip has a long design history...

The Lesson of the Paper Clip: nothing is too ‘small’ or ‘unimportant’ to be designed, patented, produced and used!

Excursion: Visible and Invisible Design on Railways.Several examples from different countries were discussed.

“Me, Loo, I need Design too!”Several examples related with toilet design were discussed

Toilet design should be universal (you cannot decide when and where nature calls). It is not.

“The two buttons are fit together almost like a disproportional yin and yang.”

- Derek Houng, former Desma 10 student

High and Low Design

High design ~ ”design for display", luxury design. Often bought for symbolic value (power, wealth), which is at least as important as practical use. Highly visible design.

Low design ~ ”design for living", practical designs for everyday use. Function often dominates, symbolic value secondary. Everyday use makes these objects invisible.

High design - Prada store in New York (designed by Rem Koolhaas & OMA)

Alessi Coffee and Tea Piazza by Michael Graves, Alessi, 1980-83. Part of a collection of coffee and tea servers by 12 famous architects.

High design in mobile phones: Vertu. The company went bankrupt in 2017.

http://www.vertu.com/

High Design may be expensive but it does not necessarily manifest good taste. Well, it can be the other way around.... Perhaps we can talk about “Highish Design” or “Highish Junk Taste”?

The Grand Master of Highly Exclusive Junk Taste?

Philippe Starck: Juicy Salif (Alessi, 1990-)“The” high(est) design object of our time! With taste...

From the Alessi catalogue (2004)

The Background of Juicy Salif

Design objects have become collectable status objects, rather than things for use. people buy them because of their look rather than their function and practicality. The name of the designer and the well-branded design company also matter.

Philippe Starck: kitchen utensils for Alessi (Italy)

“While eating a dish of squid and squeezing a lemon over it, Starck drew on a napkin his famous lemon squeezer.”

(Alberto Alessi)

Made of cast aluminum with polyamide feet,11,5 inches high. price: 102 dollars

Philippe Starck (1949-) about ‘Juicy Salif’

"This is not a very good lemon squeezer: but that's not its only function. I had this idea that when a couple gets married it's the sort of a thing they would get as a wedding present.

So the new husband's parents come around, he and his father sit in the living room with a beer, watching television, and the new bride and mother-in-law sit in the kitchen to get to know each other better.

'Look what we got as a present', the daughter-in-law will say.” (1999)

“I must say that, after testing Juicy Salif, a couple of my participants were actually bleeding… it is extremely unstable and once it falls, you not only break the glass that is under it (collecting the juice) but its sharp legs turn into a weapon. I remember that by the time I was doing my masters I read somewhere in the web that Juicy Salif was used as a weapon to kill people in a b-horror movie… I would love to see that!

Another problem of Juicy Salif is that, if you bought it to catch people’s attention in your house/kitchen, or to start a conversation (as Philip Starck claim is it’s function), never try to use it as a lemon juicer… because you will have to throw it away the next morning… the day after I had the first pilot of my study (where the participant was asked to squeeze a lemon in it, wash it, dry it…) I could see the first signs of rust. It didn’t shine anymore and there were dark spots all over it… I must say that, after 30 lemons were squeezed on it, I had to throw it away… it was disgusting to look at it.”

Beatriz Russo, 2008

http://deconstructingproductdesign.com/

“This product is a perfect example of, ‘Humans have been on the planet too long.’”

(Hari Matsuda)

High or Low, High-Low, Low-High?

Some objects are made to look classy and stylish, although they are affordable (IKEA, MUJI, Target).

Some objects are designed to give the impression of ‘street credibility’, although they are expensive (“pre-used” jeans; designer clothes based on hip-hop styles that originated as ‘bricolage’). Assigning ‘value’ to such things depends on the codes the observer has internalized.

Design and Art

Design and Art were traditionally considered separate from each other. Emphasizing this divide, ‘design’ used to be also known as “Applied Art,” or even as “Decorative Art.” This signified that it was somehow inferior to (High) Art.

Today the relationship between design and art is getting less clear, boundaries are blurred ... A huge debate is going on.

Art and Design: The Traditional View

- An artwork is an expression of the creative freedom of an individual, a design object is determined by industrial and commercial goals and financial calculations.

- An artwork is unique, a design object is mass-produced.

- An artwork does not have a practical purpose, whereas a design object serves a concrete function.

- An artwork has a spiritual "surplus" value, while the design object is more down-to-earth.

- An artwork is a goal in itself, while a design object serves an external goal beyond it.

-An artwork can be mass produced and commercially distributed (Andy Warhol, Takashi Murakami, Maywa Denki).

-Some design objects are not - primarily - functional. Rather, they emphasize symbolic, ‘emotional’ and aesthetic values.

-Design objects are produced as ”limited editions” (like graphic art) and collected much like works of art.

- Much contemporary art is conceptual, but so is contemporary design (the focus is on the idea, not on its material realization). There is “critical design” and “conceptual design).

- Artworks inspire artworks, but they also inspire design objects! Design objects inspire design objects and also artworks.

Art and Design: The Contemporary View

Is this object design or art?

Dario Escobar: Sintitulo (’Without title’), silver, tin and aluminum embossed and hammered onto a skateboard, 2000. MOCA, Los Angeles.

Murakami’s work bridges and blends high culture and low culture, art, and design, history and contemporary, East and West.

Artist and/or Designer? Takashi Murakami (1963-)

Murakami’s screen painting (link with Japanese tradition)

Kaikai and Kiki, Murakami’s “spiritual” guardians, have been turned into his brand. A group of young artists inspired by Murakami also calls itself Kaikai and Kiki.

Mr. DOB in the strange forest

Murakami, Miss KO

Louis Vuitton’s fully operational design store inside the @Murakami exhibition, LA MOCA, 2007.

Murakami’s sayings

- “I express hopelessness”- “When I consider what Japanese culture is like, the answer is that it all is subculture. Therefore, art is unnecessary.”- “If my art looks positive and cheerful, I would doubt my art was accepted in the contemporary art scene. My art is not Pop art. It is a record of the struggle of the discriminated people.”- “I wanted to be commercially successful. I just wanted to make a living in the ‘entertainment’ world, but since then my motivation has changed.”

Maywa Denki (’Maywa electric company’), a Japanese cult group that blurs the boundary between art and design.

Novmichi Tosa, President of Maywa Denki

Maywa Denki at UCLA Broad Art Center, 2010, Invited of the Department of Design Media Arts- See video on YouTube!

Have a Nice Weekend!