Reviewing Art and
Design towards finding Art-Design.
The
plastic arts and design have a contested relationship, in conversations with my
design colleagues on new hybrid possibilities of art and design in our modern
society; I have found resistance to the creation of a mix characterization of
art and design, although our modernity have witnessed an emergence of an
international design practice, where the psychoanalytical properties of art
have merged with the logic driven design; creating a nebulous innovative
environment for the practice. Artists and designers have emerged new operational
modules, challenging language vibrations; operating more fluently into
indigenous spaces, also challenging the philosophical rational of this new
performance.
.
I
make these observations as an art-designer, whose interdisciplinary practice;
have seen projects developed through the merger of both the psychological nuances
of art and design. First the craft of jewelry at John Donaldson Technical
Institute; were I confronted the industrial art of crafting metal and the
wondrous properties of metal and fire – Industrialism, at the Language of
Art Environment; I met artists Edward Bowen-painter, Chris Cozier-graphics/printer/writer,
Steve Ouditt-designer, Irene Shaw-painter – in this period I found the
confidence of the artist in developing the unconscious to conscious aesthetics,
Confidence
of the Unconscious and Conscious Practice, at University of West Indies-
I was able to develop further my understanding of the politics aesthetics,
through conversations with peers in the hallways and bars of UWI – Political
Aesthetics and Activism as practice, at the Ontario College of Art and Design University, Toronto, I was
able to re-enforced the critical and analytical strength of the presentation,
objectification, materiality and environment..Critical Thinking in Practice.
This
rational of product making or aesthetics, is hard to quantify as it sits deep
in the centre of development or psychology of design; where design is placed in
this logical, processed form of thinking about materiality, objectivity and
market; which can be both people and economic, the merging of these two forms
bring a radical approach to materiality, marketing, economics etc.; at the same
time deconstructing the sacredness of monolithic thinking, while embracing
abstraction and free form making as a progression of logical design thought.
“Design history is the study of objects of design in their historical and stylistic contexts.
With a broad definition, the contexts of design history include the social, the cultural, the economic, the political, the technical and the aesthetic. Design history has as its objects of study all designed objects including those of Architecture, fashion, crafts, interiors, textiles, graphic design, industrial design and product design.
Design history has had to incorporate criticism of the 'heroic' structure of its discipline, in response to the establishment of material culture, much as art history has had to respond to visual culture, (although visual culture has been able to broaden the subject area of art history through the incorporation of the televisual, film and new media). Design history has done this by shifting its focus towards the acts of production and consumption.”
What
has been done is pit design into consumption theology in the act of production
and marketing, in a very technical language, which has become very separatist,
this attraction to material culture, which designers have hinged this hierarchy
or hegemony to, while disregarding that art has these same formulas is somewhat
invalid and misleading. As we belong to a cultural ancestry of fluid dynamism,
which was able to merge material thinking, the industrial and the abstraction
of intellectual aesthetics... forming one thought of a spiritual, social,
political and economic communal functionality; our Amerindian, African, Asian,
Middle Eastern and East Indian ancestry (for now I’ll leave the European out,
but if we also look into their history we’ll find this merging), all have these
specific formulas of art and design built into their natural fabric, check the
Barefoot College - . http://www.barefootcollege.org/barefoot-approach/
A
central belief was that the knowledge, skills and wisdom found in villages should
be used for its development before getting skills from outside.”
 |
| Here is the performance of science in the space of living where the language includes everything, children, food, husband, health, when we observe how women operate, including their world into their science, naturally designing it into their environment, in an inclusive language, rather than how men have separated that language. |
The
Steel-Pan is an example of this hybridism of art and design; from memory; a
sustainable culture of politics, economy, marketability and industry was
developed, all playing out in backyards, suitcases and intellectual dynamism,
through the act of art or the performativity of active social art-culture.
OK,
let’s WIKI . Define art
 |
| Courtesy - musical-instruments.novica.com Observation of the Djembe Drum we will see some of the same performance of a practice, which in retrospect we will call art, form making, performance, spiritual, communal- this was interwoven into the role of community, tribe...now village, town, city, where language and meaning have been lost in the high rise of gangster capitalism |
“Art is
often taught through drawing, an empirical activity which involves seeing,
interpreting and discovering appropriate marks to reproduce an observed
phenomenon.”
I’ll
like to add that art is the ephemeral, emotive act imprinted into a political
symbolism of culture. This is the Steel-Pan., which are gestures of
communalism, memory of performance,
emotions,
space, liberty, finally finding symbolism, through an industrial process, to
express their art, finally finding form, sculpture; all sculpted differently
from village to village, yard to yard; pounded into a language of art, which we
will can call industrial design, which it isn’t.
 |
| courtesy - www.caribben-steel-drums.com when we look at the performance of the making the Steel Pan, we see the same sculptural format in making the Djembe Drum |
I
understand this merger of form making, so I can’t comprehend, why? In Trinidad
and Tobago with these considerations of the ancestral idiom of practice; there
is this need to separate form making or marking. Design theory has fitted well
into the neo-liberal aspiration of state; design theory is being placed at the
feet of political jargon in the attempt of finding favour in development as a
preferred syllabus in the innovation and diversification discourse.
 |
| courtesy - www.toucans.net what has happened is the language is separated and people are told that you're an engineer, a designer, hierarchy is developed and specifics are set eliminating the traditional inheritance of this knowledge, so young men who may have inherited this scientific knowledge, feel they are not worthy. The academism of knowledge can create elitist spaces, where we leave out other innovators |
This
separatism is not in the interest of development as it falsifies the act of
creation, innovation and intelligent design. Innovation comes from the
emotional deliberation of line making/marking from the cerebral to the
hand...to the line of objectivity, in this process art and design comes in and
out in a seamless conversation or research between the maker and the objective,
this conversation is had with a constituents of wife, paddner, lawyer,
economist, in the private and public spaces; stoops, offices, blocks, malls
etc. from books to the emotive naive act of creation. All playing a role in
developing authentic creativity, marking, investing, critical thinking,
One isn’t art, one isn’t
design...one is living.
When
we understand that it all hinges on the critical thinking aspect of living, we’ll
then support an innovative atmosphere, empowered towards national development,
from doctor to garbage person and in the end the artist as a people, in this
aspect – Innovative Education
 |
| Marlon Darbeau http://marlondarbeau.blogspot.com/ Re-Development of the Peera Stool, is a prime example of how a designer can assist in the development of art and craft. The re-imaging of a normal object, which would have been crafted through skilled and unskilled hands to work out a need, in a designers hands there're certain specifics that are taken into consideration to bring the project to objectivity. Design has changed to engage social design, where the social designer is more observant of people, behavior - thus the designer has become a anthropologist, psychologist, sociologist |
THE HDC, HOUSING
DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION DEBACLE IN CONSUMING AESTHETICS...
“ DEBE HDC residents
protest...home renovations for our safety and comfort” – it
seems that HDC sent letters to residents who added additions to their homes,
that it was illegal and they had 28 days to remove all illegal addition. This
has created a conversation about management, service, form and finally
aesthetics...although not one word of beauty has been offered.
From
the article there are –
“Mohammed added: “There were a lot
of people that did not get the approval to do these things but they are
securing their place. You can’t wait till it gets in your house to go to put up
something. Some people have little dogs outside as a form of protection,
because they would not have gotten approval or they don’t have the finance even
to fix their properties.”
HDC
RESPONSE – Maurisa Findlay, HDC Manager of Corporate Communication –
“She said, “We meet with communities
all the time but the HDC apparatus for monitoring for maintaining order,
improving security enduring that there is discipline, for ensuring that there
are standards in our community will continue to work, that apparatus, we are
not easing up on that.”
Maurisa
went on to say.
“Even if they believe that there are
things we must do their unit and that is very subjective based whether or not,
they are homeowners, they are tenants there is still that responsibility to
uphold the rules and regulations of the organisation. Those rules and regulations
of the organisation is not to be flouted. It is to endure that there is a
standardisation in the way in which we want our communities to appear and we
want people to live.”
This
is also good to note –
“She said renovations and defects
were different issues and would be dealt with separately.”
SUNDAY
EXPRESS-27 SEPTEMBER 2015, 11PG
Here
is a prime example of having a serious conversation about art-design in the
living; Art - as the people
innovating, developing space from an emotional position, becoming an eye soar
and aesthetic issue to the living quality of other like minded residents who
share these spaces, due to poor craft skills, I’m sure contractors not aware or
fully versed in the language of aesthetics. Design - is the implementation of the heart of peoples, “design”
manages “art” through critical conversations specific to that space; its
politics, social authority, economic.
In
the article you witness the bureaucratic language of design, which keeps us in the
brutish norms of colonialism...
·
“standardization”,
·
“rules”,
·
“regulations”
·
“organization”
Not
one word of beauty, aesthetics...there are the words “Community to appear” and “live”...
What
is interesting in this article; is how divorced authority is to the language of
beauty, how authoritarian we have become from an education, which have created
robots, built for industrial work, orders and commands. There is no softness in
power, in understanding both the authority and the management of beauty - Art.
There
is natural right of the proletariat; to an innovative education, encouraging
the natural instinct toward intellectual thought of the mind, to the
instinctive craft and skill of the hand; merging the academics of life,
evolving child to man to woman as an all inclusive conscious aesthetic
property. It’s a clear attitude of
socialist norms...but its more than that, it is the natural anthropological
behaviour of all humans to behave in such a manner, it’s our inability to
control the language of capitalism, which has created this ambivalence towards
space and behaviour.
What
is needed is the designing of art into the living of these spaces, art-designing
how people manage these spaces, it is not enough to say that there’re are
resident associations leaving it like that, we must art-design how these association
operate, the social implication of roll out is important in the social
art-designing of living spaces. At this point HDC spaces are just designed,
this is the issue.
