2021-10-14 12:52

Why we need this AKA what’s the point?

– 02

Culturally, institutionally GD-R is usually absent, and where it might exist tends to be either ignored, under-appreciated or critically attacked (or maybe - probably most likely - laughed at).

There is no tradition to speak of, no body of knowledge to point at and no momentum or trajectory to build upon; any reputation (within HE and in terms of a cultural presence and discourse) tends to be negative: a cash cow, concerned mainly with prettification (and that most old-fashioned of 20th century ideals - cool) and the absence of any critical tendency from within (and the resistance to anything from outside). GD tends to be conservative, servile, timid and works with a pack mentality; there is a slavish obsession with self-justification solely in the shadow of ‘industry’ (however loosely- or ill-defined) and perhaps parallels can be drawn with other disciplines: the entrenched cultural hierarchies, classism and innate protectionism of farmers and farming, the administrative or bureaucratic mentalities described by David Graebner which have burrowed into most organisations, other niche cultural identities around music and football, the worst of fashion and their dedication (and self-deception) towards an idea of fashion, the craft ale movement as a symptom of a wider cultural malaise and a collapse or emotional breakdown in terms of our relationship to an idea or application of brandism etc.

But, GD should not only defined by these things - since it has innate qualities which are clearly valuable (perhaps why its hijacking has been so complete and so successful) or which offer value across the traditions and norms of so-called academic research (which is itself as guilty of being as reactionary as any practices of graphic design) - and these are the things I’m trying to think about and write about and, most importantly, to explore through some kind of making.

There are capabilities of GD for a practice of research which are almost entirely absent from the wider worlds of academia - certainly GD has made no attempt to move towards realising these and, where they’re evident, they almost seem accidental or to be done-and-gone (not written-up, not factored-in or extracted as something worthy of study or further consideration).

I have a map of what some of these capabilities may be that is in no way complete or as comprehensive as it should be - and this has been developed from the inside-out (from my experiences in projects over the last 6, 7, 8 years) and so is tied tightly to the needs and expectations that have been identified from this position (inside); so work is needed to disengage or detach, to make abstract or generalisable and transferable and to work out ways in which ideas and words can be made to work in certain ways so that a practice can also be a site of some kind of knowledge, and that this knowing is both woven into and through any making as well as being identifiable in some way as an outcome, byproduct or bonus of it.