New Modernism(S)
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New Modernism(s) BEN DUVALL 5 Intro: Surfaces and Signs 13 The Typography of Utopia/Dystopia 27 The Hyperlinked Sign 41 The Aesthetics of Refusal 5 Intro: Surfaces and Signs What can be said about graphic design, about the man- ner in which its artifact exists? We know that graphic design is a manipulation of certain elements in order to communicate, specifically typography and image, but in order to be brought together, these elements must exist on the same plane–the surface. If, as semi- oticians have said, typography and images are signs in and of themselves, then the surface is the locus for the application of sign systems. Based on this, we arrive at a simple equation: surface + sign = a work of graphic design. As students and practitioners of this kind of “surface curation,” the way these elements are functioning currently should be of great interest to us. Can we say that they are operating in fundamentally different ways from the way they did under modern- ism? Even differently than under postmodernism? Per- haps the way the surface and sign are treated is what distinguishes these cultural epochs from one another. We are confronted with what Roland Barthes de- fined as a Text, a site of interacting and open signs, 6 NEW MODERNISM(S) and therefore, a site of reader interpretation and of SIGNIFIER + SIGNIFIED = SIGN semiotic play.1 This is of utmost importance, the treat- ment of the signs within a Text is how we interpret, Physical form of an Ideas represented Unit of meaning idea, e.g. a word by the signifier critique and talk about a work of graphic design. But it is equally important that we do not forget the surface. A WORK OF In Metahaven’s 2008 White Night Before a Manifesto, SURFACE + SIGNS = GRAPHIC DESIGN (A TEXT) the nature and current status of surface is explored in Paper, pixels, etc. Text and images detail. Surface itself is not neutral, despite appearanc- A site of reader interac- tion and interpretation. es. It is the substratum for content, but it also informs based on material properties.2 Currently, we find sur- face to be multiplying beyond reason, growing expo- MODERNISM (ONE-TO-ONE) nentially and immaterially. Until recently, surface was paper, wood, cloth, metal, the physical world. Now with the advent of the internet, surface is infinite and free. SIGNIFIER SIGNIFIED It is “anorexic, hyper-thin architecture” and it is over- laid with the elements of graphic design: type and im- POSTMODERNISM (SLIPPAGE) age.3 The sign is now displayed primarily in this mode, in the form of pixels on monitors. The new semiotic SIGNIFIED model is that of the hyperlink, beneath a unified front, SIGNIFIED SIGNIFIED exists a chain of varied signifiers that are embedded in SIGNIFIER SIGNIFIED a wide variety of contexts and environs. What we are SIGNIFIED interested in is how this changes the functioning of the SIGNIFIED SIGNIFIED sign–and how surface is a sign in and of itself. Just as the Text offers a multitude of reads, the de- HYPERMODERNISM (EXPONENTIAL) signer is faced with an endless variety of aesthetic choices. These choices determine the tone and conno- SIGNIFIER tations of the design, and are intricately interwoven with era, culture and trend. Design movements during SIGNIFIED SIGNIFIED modernism advocated for a certain usage of the sign, a standardization and clarification of typography and layout that simulated a one-to-one relationship between SIGNIFIED SIGNIFIED SIGNIFIED SIGNIFIED 7 A SEMIOTIC PRIMER FOR GRAPHIC DESIGN SIGNIFIER + SIGNIFIED = SIGN PhysicalSIGNIFIER form of an + IdeasSIGNIFIED represented = Unit of SIGNmeaning idea, e.g. a word by the signifier Physical form of an Ideas represented Unit of meaning idea, e.g. a word by the signifier A WORK OF SURFACE + SIGNS = GRAPHIC DESIGN A(A WORK TEXT) OF Paper,SURFACE pixels, etc. + Text andSIGNS images = GRAPHIC DESIGN A site of (Areader TEXT) interac- Paper, pixels, etc. Text and images tion and interpretation. A site of reader interac- tion and interpretation. MODERNISM (ONE-TO-ONE) MODERNISM (ONE-TO-ONE) SIGNIFIER SIGNIFIED SIGNIFIER SIGNIFIED POSTMODERNISM (SLIPPAGE) POSTMODERNISM (SLIPPAGE) SIGNIFIED SIGNIFIED SIGNIFIEDSIGNIFIED SIGNIFIER SIGNIFIEDSIGNIFIED SIGNIFIEDSIGNIFIED SIGNIFIER SIGNIFIEDSIGNIFIED SIGNIFIEDSIGNIFIED SIGNIFIED SIGNIFIED HYPERMODERNISM (EXPONENTIAL) HYPERMODERNISM (EXPONENTIAL) SIGNIFIER SIGNIFIER SIGNIFIED SIGNIFIED SIGNIFIED SIGNIFIED SIGNIFIED SIGNIFIED SIGNIFIED SIGNIFIED SIGNIFIED SIGNIFIED SIGNIFIED SIGNIFIED 8 Le Corbusier’s Modulor and Unité d’Habitation, Jan Tschihold’s New Typogra- phy and Beatrice’s Ward’s ideal semiotics. INTRO: SURFACES AND SIGNS 9 the signifier and the signified. This kind of standard is found from Le Corbusier’s Modulor, a standardization of the classical golden mean, to Jan Tschihold’s New Typography, a standardization of the sans serif type- face and grid. In either case, tradition was replaced by rigorous regimentation. The project of reduction to pure form stripped sign/signifier relationships to the bare minimum, any obfuscation or ornamentation cre- ated unnecessary noise in this relationship and was therefore eschewed. As postmodernism emerged, designers began to uti- lize the sign in a dramatically different way. Gone was Beatrice Warde’s concept of typography as a crystal goblet, unadorned and transparent, showing only the message. Replacing it was vernacular and ambiguous typography, “stunt typography,”4 expressing the frag- mented nature of sign systems themselves. Postmod- ernism had a different concept of transparency: visu- al style representing the slippery nature of meaning. As a reaction to modernism’s fascination with the new and the austere, postmodernism took inspiration from non-industrialized sources, the aesthetic of the human hand, not the machine. Postmodernism’s stylistic frag- mentation rejected the totalitarian structures of the grid and limited typographic choices as a critique on the society modernism had wrought. The design ob- ject was allowed to be the visual representation of the Text’s irreducibility.5 Postmodernism has been characterized by an appre- hensiveness about the future and technology, which has been manifested in its penchant for appropriation 10 NEW MODERNISM(S) and plunder of the past. But if postmodernism was a battle between analog and digital, then we can now say with confidence that digital has triumphed and is be- coming a standard in and of itself, now only noticed when it is absent. The internet has created a space for infinitely multiplying surface and the hyperlinking of meaning. Internet phenomena such as the meme en- sure that everyone is seeing variations on the same structure, a net-wide inside joke. In this environment, there is a standardization of chaos, it has a URL, an IP address and an email, but behind the facade is a web of meaning. The Text is at once unified and divided, both holding the grid and exploded. It is this hyper-reality which is documented in proj- ects such as James Bridle’s The New Aesthetic blog, which focuses on “new ways of seeing the world, an echo of the society, technology, politics and people that co-produce them.”6 The internet once referenced the signs of AFK (away from keyboard) life, but now AFK life references the web. It is this degradation, compres- sion, .zip-filing of the sign which characterizes our current lives. If modernism was the standardization of sign systems, and postmodernism was the negation and break down of existing systems and structures, the next cultural movement will be towards a standardiza- tion of the hyperlinked sign. It will be compression of the postmodern plurality of meaning into an agreed upon language where each symbol contains an almost infinite chain of signifieds and referents a la the inter- net–a hypermodernism. Its model will be the computer desktop, universal icons, but varied contents, the sign INTRO: SURFACES AND SIGNS 11 becomes a hyperlink and a work of design a hypertext. It will be both totalitarian and customizable, freedom within new constraints. I am proposing the term hypermodernism not as a creation of my own, or even the only logical step after postmodernism, but rather as a pre-existing term that best describes the changes we are seeing in post-digi- tal art and design. There are no shortage of proposed successors to postmodernism (altermodernism, super- modernism, digimodernism, etc.), but I feel that hyper- modernism most elegantly describes some of the major changes we are seeing in graphic design as a medium and microcosm, as well as in culture at large. In this essay, I am examining places where mean- ing has become hyperlinked in graphic design. This increased speed and frequency of sign systems has be- come more and more apparent, as designers are now producing work that shows a pivoting away from post- modern ways of working. During modernism, people lived primarily in the architectural space, and the physicality of architecture detected the changes of that world, with the term “postmodernism” itself orig- inally being coined in the architectural context. Now, people are living in a virtual world: the internet. The content of the web is communicated in the language of graphic design, therefore trends within graphic design are the new barometer for epochal change. If architec- ture was the indicator of the break down of modern- ism, then graphic design is the “architecture” of the current period, the fire alarm of postmodernism. The intention of this study is not a comprehensive theory of 12 NEW MODERNISM(S) these changes, but rather a contribution to the dialogue about these issues which is already in progress within graphic design and other fields. In Barthes’ words, we must “play” with objects of design as Texts, in hopes of revealing their network of associations and signifiers, leading us to a better understanding of our position as both designers and interpreters of Texts. 13 The Ty pog r aphy of Utopia/Dystopia The fall of modernism was an attack on the notion of the artist, designer and architect as a heroic fig- ure.