Material Innovations

Danish artist, Marianne Jorgensen, uses knitting as a form of political expression.

What time is it?  That’s the first question I ask myself every morning.  It’s more a question of where though.  Where in time am I?  There’s never enough time and I need to know where I am starting from before I can put my head down again.

The three essays by Hirsch, Ingels and Poonam all have a sense of urgency in them.  They all start with realized a point of orientation and then try their best to affirm rationality.  Where proclamations from the future are guessed by Hirsch and Inglels, Poonam is clearly rooted in the awareness of the past.  All three are reactionary perspectives from the present though.  A bunch of punks kicking doors, a bunch of rich white color folks who have the money and patience, or old sages trying desperately to teach us history, all these groups are reacting to the condition of today.  I always get a feeling of rushed paranoia when asked to further consider the purpose of design and craft.  Everyone is trying to solve “the problem” instead of resigning to the actual state of things.  I guess having an agenda is more important than accepting that things are way passed fucked.

Cat Mazza Nike Blanket Petition 2003. Photo Jill Kitchner

Learning from Activists: Lessons for Designers by Tad Hirsch acknowledges what activist have been doing for decades now.  Reacting to the moment.  While the getting is good / striking while the iron is hot.  Design seems to be grabbing for straws these days to explain itself.  Everything from slow design too contestational design is being considered as descriptive analysis of who we are and what we do.  It’s the equivalent to modern art “-isms.”  Give it a rest.  Every time I hear a new design “ism” my mind starts spinning.  It’s called life, give the labeling a break.

Yes Man, the interview of Bjarke Ingels by Jeffery Inaba, appears the most hopeful / positive.  But, all the joking seems to be a form of denial to me.  Humor is usually the healthiest coping method for stress.  The strategy to incorporate all design conflicts into one architectural design is an interesting one.  It also seems the pinnacle of man’s ego pushed to the max.  I don’t believe their approach will be able to be sustained over a long period of time.  There’s too much assumption that everything can be controlled for the benefit of everyone.  It’s an old American model actually, that we ourselves, are just now realizing doesn’t work that efficiently.  You can’t please everybody.  And when you try to, something or some body usually gets over looked.

The great fault of our species is our lack of memory.  Furthermore our short term memory seems to be more and more affected.  For as much as we write down and record, history never seems to serve us until it’s the “I told you so!” moment.  Designing Freedom by Kasturi, Poonam Bir, is a call to remember that we have thumbs and we used to make things which served us both functionally as well as mentally.  Making is what makes us human.  Making, through what we call craft, defines us more clearly than any other way.   Making solves needs, which leads to higher thinking; contemplation about what it is we are attempting to solve.  Poonam calls for our contemporary idea of making called design, to help solve some of todays “problems.”  I use quotes because I don’t know what they are off the top of my head, but I can feel that something is wrong out there.  Out there being any number of things I could watch on the evening news if I wanted to feel like crap.

Craft Activist: Anthea Black collaborates with PNCA students from Christy Wyckoff's printmaking class. March 2, 2010. Photo by Chloe Dietz.

Poonam calls for design to help craft sensibilities unite our continued understanding of self – as human beings acknowledging our responsibilities as influential inhabitants of a shared planet.  And this is where we are.  This is the time where some one says, “I told you so!” and we say, yes but we’ve been trying in every possible manner to fix it.  Of which I agree.  But lets resign our human ego’s to the door and focus these energies toward the “problems”.  Stop with the labels and self proclaiming manifesto’s.  I don’t care about your  personal approach and how you can articulate problem solving.  Just get to work and do it.  People will follow more by hands-on example, less by written proclamation.  Design a human sensibility through our shared craft tendencies.  I’m done writing.