RISDspeaks

Often we hear the terms, designer or architect, not only referring to the traditional senses of those terms…individuals working in their respective fields of design and architecture...but as the “designer of a bill" or “architect of the treaty.” These usages acknowledge our contribution and the role of our disciplines as greater than aesthetic and technical ones. These usages acknowledge that a big part of what we do involves forming concepts, organizing information based upon those concepts and delivering this ordered information purposefully to others. Concepts deliver information with a point of view and clarity. Concepts are powerful and with power comes responsibility. 

The clearest way to make this point is by looking at maps. Think of all the many views of the world given in maps. Each projection has a bias…has accuracies and inaccuracies and each creates different perceptions of the world.
The Mercator projection (image 1) is accurate only at the zone surrounding the equator. Notice how it distorts the land mass towards the poles…that is because the longitudinal lines that normally converge on the globe at the poles, when flattened through the cylindrical projections of the Mercator…become parallel. Alternately, the Peters Projection(image 2) preserves size but distorts shape…look at India and Greenland…and their relative size on the Mercator vs. the Peters Projection. Clearly the Mercator Projection, which is one of the more commonly used projections, (which is why it doesn't look strange to us) favors North America and Europe. In the Peters Projection, which is accurate in terms of size, Africa looks huge compared to what we are accustomed ... compared to the conceptions that formed our perceptions of the world. Imagine how these different concepts of the world affect perception...the battles that are planned.. the policies made... and treaties that are signed. If we think of what we do that way…that our concepts of the world are powerful tools that can affect perception and policy and the human condition…would it change what we do, how we teach and what we make?

   

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Concepts_as_Tools.zip (1912 KB)

Kevin Kelly, in his book, Out of Control, talks about intelligence as connected to body…to matter. He gives the example of two different pursuits of designing/building robots….one approach of playful experiments with machines, simple machines that have simple tasks, played out repeatedly. The second approach to building a robot was a machine with “a brain” that ran it… a computer attached by wire to the machine. The first robot, the supposedly “stupid” robot that had one task…proved to be the most successful: a robot as a set of simple machines with many simple tasks that are layered on top of another…played out repeatedly. The many permutations of the outcome of these layered tasks inevitably move ahead with some unscripted purpose that is successful…and intelligent. The gathering of all of these layered purposes…each layer a task imbedded in the machine … in the material directly… parallels the development of intelligence in evolution. Kelly says “The body is the anchor of the mind, and of life. Bodies are machines to prevent the mind from blowing away under a wind of its own making.” The relevant chapter, called, “Machines with an Attitude,” (as well as the whole book) is online at: http://www.kk.org/outofcontrol/ch3-b.html 

Alternately…

Scientist Steve Grand, points out that you and I are more like waves than permanent ‘things.’ He invites us to think… “of an experience from your childhood. Something you remember clearly, something you can see, feel, maybe even smell, as if you were really there. After all, you really were there at the time, weren’t you? How else would you remember it? But here is the bombshell: you weren’t there. Not a single atom that is in your body today was there when the event took place… Matter flows from place to place and momentarily comes together to be you. Whatever you are, therefore, you are not the stuff of which you are made.”  

Kyna Leski's ten "Ground Rules for Navigating the Creative Process." There are more, or less, of course.
 
1. The creative process holds internal guides for a project’s development and guides an individual’s growth as well.

2. Only by committing yourself to the authority of the work can you develop as artists.

3. You can get stuck in thought if you aren’t making at the same time. Or one can make mindlessly if one is not thinking while making. If making is simultaneous to thinking, instead of proceeding or following thought, one imbues material at hand with intelligence.

4. Listen and converse with the intelligence in the things you make; a conversation of reflection, conceptualization and critique.

5. "Art (or architecture) is the science of the unique and unrepeatable.” Principles are formed out of the conditions, content and forces of the situation of each project.

6. Problem making is essential to problem solving because the definition of a problem sets in play the direction and momentum of its solution.

7. There is a power to limits.

8. The whole cannot be seen from a single point of view.

9. Words are essential to developing a consciousness of the creative process…an intimate felt experience of a “material language.”

10. Everything is connected, somehow; from the astronomical to the metabolic.

Click here to download:

obamas secret hope.mov (5759 KB)

SHUT DOWN THE FURNACES / POWER DOWN THE LIGHTS
This is a place for urgent messages
 
we’re talking gigaBTUs / of non-renewable energy pumping through your veins / as the signs of the end stages of consumer capitalism surround us / i feel my pulse quickening / i hear the sound of my shortening breath / the leader of an ecumenical economic congregation wakes me in the night / with visions of a waterfall running in reverse
 
i get a call from barack obama at 2am on the off-red phone in my home office / "who are you?", he asks / I knew it was just a matter of time before he called on me / i'm just an ordinary citizen / doing my job / saving the world / on the $13 a week you just gave back to me
 
do you remember those ads i ask him? / i think you do. / for just $1 a day they promised / you could feed, clothe and educate a starving child in Angola or Mozambique. / only a picture could make this seeming alchemy true / but it was! / the alchemy of global inequality smelted with the equally irrepressible materials of guilt and the narcissism of the elite / working their mysterious charms / and the only thing that could prove it to us was a picture / in a personalized manila folder / and a vaguely humiliating / letter from the saved
 
what is this national stimulation / if not a test of our emotional intelligence / what to do with our money / there is no question / the next great election will be brought to us by citibank
 
as the fundamentally emotional roots of our economy reveal themselves / painfully, achingly to your beleaguered 401k, a new test arrives for our collective emotional intelligence in the form of a stimulus package / as the numbers come in, it is hard to avoid seeing its foundation on an essentially amoral and aimless notion of consumer spending

let's take it on / its arithmetic acrobatic merits / let's assume that this homeopathic cure is more than a placebo / it seems entirely possible that we could extract / from a fleeting emotional response, something solid / that is to say, it seems to me entirely appropriate that the response to political emotionalism should be concrete political action. / how might we respond to a government that takes a mass of money the scale of which explodes our capacity to perceive scale and / in the name of a thinly rational economic wisdom / spreads this massive glob of potential energy out amongst the chickens / in hopes that we will peck away / as we are wont to do / redistributing the redistribution straight into the coffers of our local Walmart

but how might we collect the kernels / collect our collective $13/week / realize their greatest fear / which must of course also contain their greatest hope / what if we were to save / together / and amass a real political response to politics / what would you do with $13 cannot be the real question / it seems that the question being asked is what could we do with 100 or 1000 or 100,000 $13/wk.
 
awaken from this ultra-low dose electroshock infusion / with your nerves unquieted / and receive the subliminal recipe / straight from the White House kitchen / get together 100,000 of your friends and you'll have assembled a little government / with a budget of 1.3 million dollars in new money / rolling in each and every week / to spend as you see fit / to feed your own starving children / to build your own transportation systems / to power your own lives / with wind turbines / and microhydro / pumping energy back into the grid / that might be all it would take / just 100,000 citizens to reverse the tide
 
barack interrupts me / utterly reasonable in an age of unreason / let's assume 100,000 friends are harder to organize than facebook would have us believe / what might you do with just 100? / a smallish gathering of chickens, pecking in reverse / with $1,300 a week to disperse / how might you craft / a stimulating response / to this moment?
 
i wish i could offer it to you for free for three months / a trial membership / but there’s no time
this is a place for urgent messages.