Design to Algorithmic-Design, Design Used to Dictate
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Back in 2003, Berlin was described by its former mayor Klaus Wowereit as “arm, aber sexy” (poor, but sexy) – despite being one of the fastest- rising property markets in the world, with as much as 35 percent overvaluation. Berlin still boasts many creatives, with more affordable studio and living spaces than New York or 01/08 London, albeit fewer job opportunities.1 To understand why most freelance creatives struggle with depression and face the stigmas associated with mental illness in Berlin, one could look at some commonly used words that exist only in the German language: Unverbindlich, non committed; Phlegmatisch, skipping everything to the point of not doing anything; Ahmet ğüt Verrafft, people who are confused about life; and something right-wing extremists like to use: Links-Grün-versifft, left-green-dirty. From Self- ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊYes, Berlin is still proudly a stronghold of the left, green, and dirty; and its queer club Design to scene also actively fights to protect the city’s politically engaged culture so that Berlin doesn’t Algorithmic- become just another global center for entertainment.2 In spite of all this, it’s not at all a coincidence that Germany was represented at Design the 2017 Venice Biennale by an artist who wore a Balenciaga hat while receiving the Golden Lion award for best pavilion.3 This was perhaps a double confirmation of the institutionalization of streetwear garments as high fashion, developing hand in hand with the adoption of “attitude” as high art. This is a far cry from the days when, for example, legendary fashion designer and activist Katharine Hamnett met with Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in 1984 and wore a T-shirt that read “58% DON’T WANT PERSHING,” protesting the installation of US missiles on t British soil. Following the appearance of the ü ğ Balenciaga hat in 2017, it was a wonderful t e n surprise to see that the artist chosen to g m i s h e represent Germany in the next Venice Biennale is A Ê D - 9 Natascha Süder Happelmann. This is a c 1 i 0 m 2 deliberate misspelling of the artist’s name, h h t i c r Natascha Sadr Haghighian, in order to highlight r o a g l thirty years’ worth of misspellings of her name by m A 4 o — public officials. “Happelmann” didn’t say a word t 8 n 9 g at the press conference; her head was hidden i # s l e under a papier mché stone, replacing the a D n - r f Balenciaga hat. u l o e j S ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊAs argued by Boris Groys, the position once x u m l f o occupied by religion has been replaced by a new r - e F obligation for the modern subject to “self- design,” which “forces the artist – as well as anybody who comes to be covered by the media – to confront the image of the self: to correct, to change, to adapt, to contradict this image.”5 Groys sees the modern artistic avant-garde as a design-free domain, one of honesty, high morality, sincerity, and trust.6 Looking at the economy of symbolic exchange explored by 04.08.19 / 15:02:55 EDT 04.08.19 / 15:02:55 EDT 02/08 04.08.19 / 15:02:55 EDT Marcel Mauss and George Bataille, with their design is also used by conservatives and right- theories on the gift economy, Groys reminds us wing extremists. All of this happens under the that individuals who show themselves to be shadow of algorithmic-design, commanded by especially nasty receive the most recognition powerful technology companies and and fame. By contrast, Groys argues that there governments, characterized by the increasingly also exists a subtler and more sophisticated invasive collecting of user data. form of self-design, one that takes the form of ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊAs alluded to above, on the individual and self-effacement and self-sacrifice: the death of 04/08 community level, self-design can be the author.7 But in surveying what is happening empowering. One well-known example is queer in the world today, particularly with the ballroom culture in 1980s New York, where algorithmic takeover of everyday life, it seems gender norms and class divisions were overcome that religion has not left us so easily.8 And just as through performance and fashion. Less know are religious-design has never really left us, nor has the “Sapeurs” of present-day Kinshasa in the state-design, given that the nation-state acts as Democratic Republic of Congo. (“Sapeurs” is a continuation of the ethics and politics of derived from “SAPS,” which in French stands for religious power. This, of course, has been in “Société des Ambianceurs et des Personnes progress for some time. In the 1920s, police in Élégantes,” or “Society of Tastemakers and the US would stop women on the beach to make Elegant People”). Despite high levels of poverty, sure their bathing suits weren’t too revealing.9 Sapeurs dress in stylish French fashion from the World War II and wartime austerity didn’t make early twentieth century.11 In Erbil, the capital of things easier. In 1942, the US government issued Iraqi Kurdistan, young men have formed the regulation L85, around the same time that the gentleman’s club “Mr. Erbil,” despite the years of British government issued regulations for “Utility war that have ravaged the city. The members of Clothes”: both policies introduced rationing Mr. Erbil dress in stylish Western suits, some measures for women’s clothing, regulated designed by local fashion designers. Amidst women’s skirt lengths, and required the violence and poverty, the men of Mr. Erbil also repossession of all nylon for parachutes and advocate for women’s rights and organize weekly other military uses, leaving only cotton and rayon events in their neighborhoods, featuring for the production of stockings.10 In 1970s Korea, activists, designers, musicians, and artists. under dictator Park Chung-hee, police took Through this self-design strategy, Mr. Erbil young women into police stations to measure members know how to generate international their skirts. They also stopped men with long hair attention, although they purposely reveal little in the streets and subjected them to involuntary about their daily lives behind the scenes.12 haircuts using the scissors they carried with ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊHowever, self-design has also been used for them at all times. utterly destructive and violent purposes. For ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊIn 2007, Turkish sociologist Şerif Mardin example, from 1931 to 1945 the German clothing proposed the term “mahalle baskõsõ” – which brand Hugo Boss supplied uniforms to the Nazi translates as “community pressure” or “peer t party and military, using forced labor by Polish ü ğ 13 pressure,” and which refers to the practice of and French workers. More recently, Anders t e neighborhoods policing themselves – to describe n Behring Breivik, a right-wing extremist who g m i s h a common experience in urban Turkey today: a e murdered seventy-seven people in a bomb and A Ê D - clash of intolerance between secular Turkish 9 gun attack in Oslo in July 2011, has refused to c 1 i 0 m society and Islamic lifestyle. With the rise of 2 wear anything other than a red Lacoste sweater h h t i c right-wing forces all over the world, mahalle r for his public appearances in court and at police r o a g baskõsõ can be found in many places – wherever l stations. Before the attacks, he even prepared m A o conservatism and patriarchy reign. This leads to — photos of himself wearing Lacoste sweaters in t 8 n 9 a new danger, in which two kinds of policing g different colors, to be used by the press after he i # s l combine: mahalle baskõsõ and “algorithmic- e carried out his crime. In the 1516-page manifesto a D n - r design,” which is self-design mediated by f that Breivik emailed to his followers shortly u l o e j S algorithms for the collection of user data, the before the attacks, he outlined a dress code, x u m l f production of brand value, and surveillance. As o advising his followers to wear Lacoste clothing in r - an potential response to this danger, Groys’s e F conservative colors to avoid arousing suspicion. original conception of self-design can be Lower-cost brands, he wrote, are not as effective empowering, though given the more complicated at sending the “psycho-socio-economic signals” nature of self-design today, we will have to go necessary for tricking potential targets.14 Here, further. self-design is a way to accumulate, and ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊSelf-design has been deployed by designate, identity by way of a brand. Another countercultures, LGBTIQ* communities, and case: among Turkish right-wing extremists, white social movements for identity-formation, winter hats have become a popular item, even a political expression, and survival. But self- uniform. Ogün Samast was clearly wearing one 04.08.19 / 15:02:55 EDT when he gunned down Armenian-Turkish it was supposedly against. journalist Hrant Dink in 2007. ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊIn 2014, something very unusual happened ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊAt the annual Business of Fashion event in in Paris. A new fashion brand made its debut, November 2018, Christopher Wylie, a Cambridge with the ironically generic name Vetements, Analytica whistle-blower, explained how fashion meaning “clothing” in French. Designed by a profiling – codifying and targeting individuals collective of designers who remained mostly based on the clothing brands they wear – has anonymous at first, Vetements steered attention been a key metric in building Steve Bannon’s 05/08 back to the clothes themselves.