incommensurable) characteristics suggested by a motley roster From the Toolbox of a Serving Library of writers. Since then, prompted by the free-ranging spirit of its successor, we happened across another inventory that feels both more timely and closer to home. In “A Cautious Prometheus,” a talk delivered to an audience of design historians, contemporary A third pamphlet concerned with art/design education French sociologist Bruno Latour reduces the particular compiled by Dexter Sinister in conclusion to “discipline” of design to five fundamentals: “Towards a Critical Faculty (Only an Attitude of Orientation)” Published by The Banff Centre and The Serving Library, Humility—that designing involves doubt, speculation, Summer 2011 planning, sketching, iteration etc., rather than arrogant assertion;

These are attitudes—but how do they become skills? Attention to detail—that all aspects are equally relevant (Richard Sennett) and subject to scrutiny; fundamental paradigms which underly models on which art decisions of school policy increasingly made by schools’ school principles are defined. The ACADEMY, the BAUHAUS, financial/bureaucraticSemiotic divisions capacity rather—that than a design academic lends itself to This is the last in a modest trio of pamphlets that consider and what I propose to simply call CONTEMPORARY. ones—has resultedinterpretation; in a largely part-time generation of some past and present models of art/design education in the attempt to forge a new one. The first, Towards a Critical Facultyteaching, staff lackingState the of fluxopportunities—that to design (time, something energy, is really always The ACADEMYwas a compendium describes of the both period familiar roughly and obscureup until fragmentsthe of resources, community,to REdesign encouragement a previous version;) to engage and in first worldarts-educational war, and therefore intent from also across pre-modernist. the 20th century, It is based while thetheoretical or philosophical grounding—while (as far as I on thesecond underlying (Only notion an Attitude of the of student Orientation) possessing proposed unique a number can see, from my ownEthical and implication colleagues’—that experiences) any design essentially needing provokes talentofspecific “working to aprinciples”—attitudes—that discipline. It is taught through a contemporary the and wanting one. Acceptingthe response all “good” this asor given,“bad.” then, and educationfaculty of mighttechnique reasonably, in terms try ofto afoster historical in light chain of this of overview. zooming out of the specific focus on schools, how might development.And where Its themethod initial of document teaching wasis by mostly imitation a reader, involving of we effectivelyLatour cites summarize a pretty convincingcurrent social real-world conditions example directly as to the reprquotesoduction drawn of fromsameness the field towards of pedagogy continuity itself, of itsthe successor relatedwhy to theseart and qualities design areon particularlywhich we might pertinent found right a now: the particularalternately discipline. paraphrased some related insights drawn from a new protocol?ecological crisis, with its chronic imperative to deal immedi­ wider range of disciplines such as literature, cultural studies ately, pragmatically, with hard practicalities rather than soft The BAUHAUS,and philosophy. in comparison, The idea was describes to have the digested period these influencesAlain abstractions. Findeli outlines Resolution his take is on not the an contemporary option here, only constant roughlyenough from tothe pass First them World on, War as a on, kind which of practical can be caricaturedescribed of paradigmmonitoring (“shared and beliefs perpetual according repair. to He which further our claims educational, we have as modernistthe teaching in terms process. of coherently Both previous breaking installments with existing can be freely political,never technological, been modern ,scientific, meaning thatlegal the and “official” social systems critical project romanticdownloaded or classical from ways www.dextersinister.org/library. of working and thinking, and Continuing function”)kick-started as comprising by the Enlightenment—that 3 main characteristics: of ModernityMaterialism, in which—”morethis cumultative or less process,amended, the more third or pamphlet’s less debased,” title, From the Positivism,general, and and Agnosticism. its Modernist He arts then wing proceeds by extension—was to list those accordingToolbox to Deof a Duve—has Serving Library been completesthe foundation the series’ of most compound tendenciesalways which fundamentally characterize flawed. the natureAs long of as a designwe continue culture to art/designsentence, schools finding in existence form as today—“oftena prospectus-of-sorts subliminally, for an emergingunder proceed those preconditions: according to its myth of incremental progress towards almostFoundation unconsciously.” Course-of-sorts. It is based on the underlying notion perceived ideals—of absolute solutions governed by verifiable of the student possessing general creativity, which spans facts—LatourThe effect contends of product that engineering any emancipatory and marketing ambition on will building—in search of Deleuze’s reconciliation with solitude. disciplines.A few Itsimilar is taught scenes through of fraught the education but instructive of a medium trial and error remain fundamentallydesign, i.e., the determinismdisabled; a lostof instrumental cause. In one reason, modest This, then, is an example of a school currently experiencing as an 1autonomousconclude with entity, his arrival without at “quality,” emphasizing the cornerstoneits lineage of the gesture towardsand central “changing role of the our economic way of factorchanging,” as the he proposes a reflexive reconsideration of its founding discipline. I’m not and continuity.book’s subtitle, Its method “an inquiry of teaching into values.” is by invention Through, a series a semanticalmost shift exclusive from the evaluation hoary notion criterion. of progress to a more sure how much the school realizes this itself, or needs to, involvingof simple the production exercises heof othernessfirst proves and to thenovelty class and that they tentative progressive. Hence the nicely absurd image of a wary An extremely narrow philosophical anthropology really, but that’s not to say the process mightn’t be reasonablywhich, independently as such, emphasizes recognize formalism. quality, because they routinely make Prometheus as Latour’s designer mascot, cautiously sketching recognized and utilized elsewhere. basic quality judgements themselves. Then he assigns the which leads one to consider the user as a mere rather thancustomer heroically or, at best,building. as a humanOur course, being framedthen, assumes by a The CONTEMPORARYquestion “What is describes quality?” theand prevailingcounters their condition angry response comparable demeanor—the stereotype of the well-adjusted that he should be telling them, not the other way round, by ergonomics and cognitive psychology. which, although underlying the art/design world as a Librarian rather than the gung-ho Bauhausler. simply admitting that he has no idea and genuinely hoped paradigm different to those described above, has yet to yield An outdated implicit epistemology of design 9. The demonstrator someone might come up with a good answer. A few days later, a widespread collective change in the way its schools are practice and intelligence, inherited from the however, he does work out a kind of self-annulling definition to constructed. In short, while these ideas are poured into the 2 nineteenth century. I’m going to end with some incidents from the classroom scenes the effect that, because quality is essentially characterized by existingPhilosophical Bauhaus container, interest in they the noclassic longer reciprocal fit. A reasonable Duck-Rabbit recounted in Robert M. Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle a non-thinking process, and because—conversely—definitions comparisonimage mightwith the be summarizedabove models, as then,follows. would First suggest you perceive an one An overemphasis upon the material product; Maintenance, which seem to summarize the component are the product of formal thinking, quality can not be defined. an aesthetics based almost exclusively on material underlyinganimal, notion then theof the other, student but your possessing perception general of the attitude second, is attitudes related so far in this document, i.e. affectedThis leads by himhaving to respondseen the tofirst, the then,eternal looking student back question, at the shapes and qualities. which“How spans do disciplines. I make quality?” It is taught with thr “Itough doesn’t the matter education how as long of a practicefirst again,through your whichperception this attitudeis further is affectedarticulated. by having seen pragmatic ways of dealing with objective facts both.as it isThis quality!” third pamphlet and to the follows response, the “Butsame how triangular will I know logic: it A code of ethics originating in a culture of business Its method of teaching is by deconstruction, involving contracts and agreements; a cosmology restricted to ais?” reconsideration with “Because of you’llthe first just one’ssee it—you scientific just intentionsproved to mewith you the the analysis of a work’s constituent parts. Although this the marketplace. the discomfiting observation and articulation of the secondcan make one’s judgements.” romantic outcomes In other words,in mind, the in studentorder to is draw forced a to term seems particularly open to misinterpretation in light current condition while participating in it totalmake gestalt. his or Or—toher own literally judgements cannibalize based itson predecessors—their own inherent of its various common formal associations (particularly in A sense of history conditioned by the concept of thissense pamphlet of quailty—and assumes “it the was “contemporary” just exactly this forms and ofnothing attitude else,”, Architecture) I propose to keep De Duve’s chart intact, material progress. the deliberate disruption of received wisdom practicehe concludes,, and deconstruction “that taught him, abiding to write.” Thierry de Duve’s survey while emphasizing that his “deconstruction” refers to by making it productively strange of art school paradigms in the first pamphlet: A sense of time limited to the cycles of fashion and intellectually unpacking, dismantling, and reading work. technological innovations or obsolescence. the collective redefinition of the situation Here’s our point of view. Given that the Bauhaus was set up ACADEMY BAUHAUS CONTEMPORARY specifically in reaction to the particular social and cultural talent creativity attitude to establish a new set of terms To continue an idea alluded to in the first pamphlet, consider Havingconditions mapped ofthese ±1920s somewhat Germany, bleak why circumstances, does its Foundation Course a reconstitutedtechnique art/design medium foundation practicecourse which draws on he then asks: imitation invention deconstruction (“more or less amended, more or less debased,” according to towards a well-adjusted awareness of self and the kinds of characteristics described in this sequel, one that De Duve) remain the default model in, say, ±2020s U.S.A.? What could be an adequate purpose for the coming surroundings embraces as much sociology, philosophy and literature as art If we reconsider what might constitute a good foundation today, generations? Obviously, the environmental issue The back-end–and towards design, of these this like period—bringingends the sources outlined paraphrased in the us roughlysecond here. one: up In to the date— space initially ignoring the regular distinctions of both under- and the communal participation towards an individual has beenleft furtherby outdated marked notions and marred,of art/design of course, education, by the this new should be a central concern. But the current postgraduate,emphasis and on art the and degradation design, and of our at biophysicala necessary remove reconciliation with solitude propagationfoundation of school might as involve business, its studentsstudent asself-reflexively customer, designing from theenvironment crippling bureaucracy tends to push that another attends degradation most schools into in the and itstheir attendant own program bureaucracy. as an intrinsicAll of which part generatesof its instruction—as the early 21stthe century, background, what that progressive of the social form and might cultural it take? through trial and error which constitutes a ever-increasinga movement gap towards between a “criticalactual pedagogy faculty” inand both its senses of environments, i.e. of the human condition. “lesson” marketedthe term.image. The Bauhaus(Findeli, was 2001) a paternal model. To paraphrase a sentiment often ascribed to Lord Reith, one-time Director General of the Phaedrus, the autobiographical protagonist of Pirsig’s Zen, In the firstAccreditation pamphlet, is anwe attemptconsidered* to communicate what the (then) to the popular —andBBC, suggests it attempted that one to key give appropriate the public notshift, what already it wanted, but is assigned to teach rhetoric to a class of undergraduates. but woollyworld term that “design we know thinking” and agree might on what augur the fortruth art/ is. underway,what itis ought precisely to have that—it of deknewmaterialization, what was best. away From a position Confused by the straightforward problem of how to activate designBetween educationBut presenting no school by collaging everthe abovebelieves some as in a the diversetalk generic at Michigan (and principles largely State from ofa “product-centeredintellectual authority, attitude.” the school This (like would the yieldBBC) theconcurred a bunch of apparently lazy and uninterested students, his Universityit must in Winter appear to2008/9 endorse and to writing be accredited. it down Those a year later, end of the product-as-work-of-art, heroic gesture, genius who draft these supposedly shared principles are anger and puzzlement lead him instinctively to devise a I read Jacques Rancière’s The Ignorant Schoolmaster in mentality and fetishism of the artifact. It would be more “demonstrator”—a task performed in front of the class in which hearteningnot those confirmation known for of their the creativitytrajectory or suggested their so far. knowledge of the history of the art they are trying to interested in the human context of the design “problem” the method of teaching embodies what is being taught. In line In line with the rest of the paraphrasing, it seems useful to rather than the classical product description. It would with the Werkplaats’ maxim Only real work has the correct distill itsprotect. most relevantAccreditation aspects processes here. are universally discredited yet ever more intrusive. Kafka as the emphasize the design of immaterial services (such as hospital sense of requiredness, Phaedrus enacts his bald reconsideration descendant of Vitruvius. or school bureaucracies) rather than material products. of the question “how to teach?” in front of the students he is Subtitled(Wigley, Five Lessons2005) in Intellectual Emancipation, the book And finally, this “vanishing product” would be approbated trying to teach. primarily tells the story of Joseph Jacotot, a French school- on sustainable, ecological grounds, in reaction to current This frayingteacher of who, any coherentthrough a consensus kind of inspired or ideology accident, since discovers overproduction and planned obsolescence. In one particular passage, Phaedrus assigns his class a that he is able to teach things he doesn’t know himself. In exile the Bauhaus—further confused by the tendency towards broad, straightforward task—to write an essay on an aspect from France following the Restoration, Jacotot was invited to of the United States—and becomes preoccupied with one teach a class of students at a university in the Flemish town particular girl who, despite a reputation for being serious and of Louvain. Because neither party spoke the other’s language, hardworking, is in a state of perpetual crisis through not being Jacotot searched for a common item to use as a teaching tool. able to think of “anything to say.” He obliquely recognizes in her He discovered a recent bilingual edition of François Fénelon’s block something of his own paralysis in not being able to think adaptation of Homer’s Telemachus, and set his class the task of “anything to say” back to her by way of advice, and is baffled of reading and discussing it in French. by his own eventual stroke of insight: “Narrow it down to one street.” This advice doesn’t work either, but after subsequently Starting with the first word, relating it to the next, then suggesting, “Narrow it down further to one building,” then deducing the relationships between individual letters to form out of sheer frustration “one brick,” something gives and the words, words to form sentences, and so on, Jacotot made his student produces a long, substantial essay about the front of the students discuss the work they were learning to recite by heart, local opera house. From this unwitting experiment Phaedrus using the terms they learnt from the text itself. The experiment reasons that she was blocked by the expectation that she ought was a success: within a couple of months his students had a to be repeating something already stated elsewhere, and that substantial grasp of both the book and the French language. she was freed by the comic extremity of his suggestion to write The learning process, Jacotot observed, was played out strictly about a single brick—for which there was no obvious precedent, between Fenelon’s intelligence and the students’ intelligence, therefore no right or wrong way to go about it, and therefore without mediation. The chance experiment led him to no phantom standard to have to measure up to. By this curious conclude that “everything is in everything,” a principle that yet perfectly logical method, the student was liberated to see recognizes the fundamental equality and relativity between for herself, and to act independently. He performs variations on things. Once something—anything—is learned, it can be the exercise with the rest of his class—”Write about the back of compared and related to everything else. Jacotot’s role as your thumb for an hour”—which yield similar results, and lead a “Master” was limited to directing his students’ will to learn him to conclude that this implied expectation of imitation is the by asking them to continually respond to a 3-part question: real barrier to free engagement, active participation and actual 1. what do you see? 2. what do you think of it? 3. what do learning. you make of it? 5 The philosopher recalls the adage “whenever you meet a (Only an Attitude of Orientation) contradiction you must make a distinction,” and announces that the correct answer depends on what the group agrees “going round” actually means. There are two possibilities: if taken to mean passing to the north then east then south Another pamphlet concerned with art/design education then west, then the man does go round the squirrel; if taken compiled by Stuart Bailey to mean being in front then to the left then behind then to the as a sequel to “Towards a Critical Faculty” right, then he does not. Make the distinction, says James, movementsEdited andand published nascent culture). by Office This for Contemporarywas school as Artliberal Norway, and there is no ambiguity—both parties are right or wrong annexOslo, and winter breeding 2009/10 ground, but whose by-product was to depending on how thePresent verb “to go round” is practically accelerate the animosity towards the so-called Real World of conceived. The key here is the word “practically,” as James’s business. —andpoint this is is precisely the same founded writer forty on hard years facts later: rather than soft abstractions. Like its predecessor,The art school this has pamphlet evolved through aims toa repeatedprovoke a discussion We were wrong. That old article tells you why: around howseries a ofcontemporary attempts to gear art/design its practice school to trade might and reasonably James recountsrational designthe anecdote would only because work forit provides rational people, a “peculiarly reconfigureindustry itself to in which light ofthe recent schools and themselves projected have changes in simple” exampleand such ofpeople the pragmatic do not exist. method Real people. I was have first introduced how institutionsresponded and with disciplines a dogged insistenceactually operate on spontaneity, in the early to the ideairrational by David, needs, who many opened of them his to own do withlecture human with the 21st century.on artistic autonomy, on the need for independence, same story.tribalism. Titled Though“Naïve tribalismSet Theory,” itself thisis rational—it talk comprised on the power of the arbitrary gesture. Art as free three parts,increases each ayour condensed chances ofstory survival—its of a man totems and his are lasting practiceHere’s versus an oppurtunityart as a response to freely to externalimagine what should be contributionnot. Ifto you his belong discipline to the recorded coal-effect in tribe,a particular you’ve gotbook. demand:done, the unhindered state and theby administrative art market define worries the about what To cut thisto shorthave a story coal-effect even shorter,fire. There’s these no were:reason William for problem, the art school modernizes, individualizes, wanting your heat source this shape, other than the can’t possibly be done. (Stark) James’s conception of Pragmatic (as opposed to Rationalist) adds nuance to the solution. fact that other tribe members do. There’s no reason philosophy, Kurt Gödel’s Naïve (as opposed to Axiomatic) for having a modernist, post-modernist, minimalist The foundationArt school of students“Towards are a marginal,Critical Faculty” in class terms, was an approachor to any mathematics, other source ofand heat Paul source, R. Halmos’s either, except Naïve as (as attempt becauseto grasp art, what particularly my colleagues fine art, meant is marginal by “design in opposed ato similar Axiomatic) totem. approachThe reasons to have logic. to Bybe thetacked end on of the talk thinking.”cultural Though terms. I initially Constant considered attempts tothis reduce term thea tautology, it’s clear laterthat (butdespite only hopping if you are across a member disciplines of the rationalist and skirting it was seeminglymarginality regarded of art education, by my colleagues to make art as and being design a major around sometribe—nobody quite complex else bothers). ideas (at least for newcomers) aim of contemporarymore “responsive” art/design and “vocational” education. by And gearing so I ended each example is an articulation of the same basic idea: that the up tryingthem to perform towards what industry I presumed and commerce it meant—a have kind of ongoing processSo designers of attempting can’t rule the to understandworld, they can—though only never loose, cross-disciplinaryconfronted the ideology problem of “being solving—by an artist,” collecting the past really understandingmake it more completely—like it already is.is absolutelyFortunately productive (or . and presentromantic fragments vision ofwhich insight is deeply that Iembedded thought could in the inform The relentlessunfortunately attempt if toyou’re understand a hard-line is rationalist)what keeps the any a future artmandate. school experience.Where the Even majority as pop of stars,these art excerpts were practice worldmoving is notforward. any kind of coherent entity, so “like it directly concernedstudents celebrate with pedagogy, the critical from edge seminal marginality Arts & Crafts already is” can mean many different things—just and Bauhausallows, statements turning it into onwards, a sales thistechnique, follow-up a source looks of further Such an chooseattitude your is marked tribe and by go both for it. a Thisrejection can give of absolutea afield, seekingcelebrity. tangential (Frith/Horne, reinforcement 1987) and extension of truths, andsatisfying faith in illusion verifiable of control facts. , Thisdespite is staunch the strict empiricist limits imposed by tribal convention. Because many tribes the same line of thinking. Its sources reside in the poppier thinking, founded on the notion that “beliefs” are—practically— The following account was written by a student towards the have novelty as one of their totems, it is possible to end of sociology, philosophy, and literature. In fact, most of “rules forchange—”redesign”—some action” and that we only of need the other to perceive totems atthe end of this era, a typically convoluted attempt to deal with the its sources touch on all three. potentialregular function intervals. and/or Once outcome confined of such to the a clothingthought’s meaning contradictions of lingering socialist art and design ideals in the in order toindustry, determine this kind its significance. of programmed James totemic sums change up the contextIf the of firstthe hand-in-handpamphlet tried bur to geoningsummarize of social the lay liberation of the land, pragmaticnow method extends as to only goods an of attitude all kinds: of “fashionorientation, of looking and commercialization:confusionthis one tries might to summoninform an the educational results its program,inhabitants however, might be away fromdesigners” firstIn addition,things have (preconceptions, becomethrough justa group “designers.” of principles, related circumstances categories, twoteaching possibilities towards suggests. Readers themselves. are referred The to thefirst disclaimers is essentially and supposedcontributing necessities) to andthe descriptionstowards last of thingsrecent profit-based(results, reactionary—tolisted theI amfirst trying time design toaround, learn distinct to and be coursesa are designer particularly for. Designers the overtly asked are to bear fruits, andSuch consequences).trade, designers—the many of the ones more who carefully design planned“designer features” of commercialwith my directlysidestepping and concerned the overtly such with basic marginal life. distinctions Designs trajectories, are asfor art/design living. dispensing and goods—havethe art or apparently profession achievedof visual communicationa measure of that Designing is just part of the process in which solar withunder/postgraduate. the illusion that Althoughthey are combined. I think this The reflects second the isgeneral There arecontrol twocombines introductory over the images, wider points public.words, to orIt draw seems,ideas, from are according undertakenthis. First, to bythat energy lives through the medium of hereditary infor- one TV commercial I have seen, that they can even fundamentallyconfusion, the ideaprogressive—to isn’t to perpetuate operate it—only outside tothese focus existing the an attitude suchthose as earning empiricism income might at the be level usefully just below identified that of and energy ofmation. this reader Designers elsewhere are concerned for the timewith informationbeing. I should, its implicationsmake people drawn ashamed out and to considered be seen with across the wr disciplines.ong possibilities,—information where the which point furthers of a course life. Being would a designer be to propose senior administrators, typically those helping to maintain however, add one new point: that this approach isn’t AGAINST Second, thatmobile it isphone—a useful to kind start of shamewith the that result can only in mind have and different isways finding of thinkingout ways altogether.of furthering life. Not thermo- meaninga favorable within publica designer-led image or tribal those context. in the territorial The teachingdynamicsmechanics basic skills or techniques life, this (whetheris being a doctor,crafts, software work backwards,old, Marxist-centralistdivisions in order of an toaggregate designkind of ofadesigner methodfunctions didn orientedinvolved’t care intowards moving Inor hisprogramming), booka servant The Shape purely nor historyof. Emotion-communion Time or, for theory, example, only life. theFOR Howart an historian youexplicit achievingwhether thatgoods outcome. people from feltproducer And shame so toin or consumer.accordance anything else. with He orboth: the Gconsensuseorge Kublercheck regarding a proposed design: the does wholea model it mak those ewhich its componentsuser broke more apart alive? are and Or intended hoped-forshe results simply of knew our as-yetwhat was phantom “best” incourse some areabsolute precisely the reconstitutedto constitute.his children theBefore prevailing maybe? beginning, W compartmentalizatione have I’d liketo work to reiterate in time also. ofthat the these arts. Theattitudes proceduresense, demonstrated anddidn’t str overeally by to the makechange following industry my mind examples.apply about this the Inpamphlets his new system,make no architecture claim to authority, and packaging—both only to engage essentially and definition,wisdom. but the But exercise “designer was” designersproductive. work As the so other many of the containers—wereentertainHere both is staffa pr conflatedoblem and students—possibly for underthe designer, the rubric one at to “Envelopes,” the beat same his time. carved-upway sentences around. Fardivvied-out from wanting among to control the students their contained all small headsolids against. and containers Clients usually under ask “Sculpture,” him to operate and the all the samecommercial terms (not masters, least “G theyraphic enthusiastically Design” itself), share when we work on othera flat way—againstplane under life—the“Painting.” clients These I have re-classifications come came2. Discomfort to recombinetheir belief that them the back public, into because one giant, of its collectively already fellacross. within They Kubler’s ask him broader usually to call make to supplanta design for the regular translatedirrepressible definition, tribal the individual vanities, is “definitions”there to be milk ofed. the same distinctions1. Pragmatismpart ofof Uselessa system (=art) for making and Usefula profit. (=design) Making a pr withofit those wordIn 2001 were theThey so British havediverse capitulatedcultural that we critic inwere a Michaelway forced that Bracewell myto decide[previous] onpublished one is life, sure, but for the client only. And it may be the of Desirable (=objects that last) and Non-desirable (=objects —orThe Ninetiesrather,article to, an makefervently account a single hoped of the amalgamation they decade’s would not,art, of butsociety, a few.for the Inand other par- Though Iclient still considerthe designer this is pamphlet working for, a reader,but it is thispeople time he around ticularly reasonpop culture. that is pointedIn an introductory out: in visual conversation matters there betweenis that don’tis last).working His on. new The system client doesnemphasized’t sit down objects and read that stood words, weno were “one forcedbest way.” to transformExploiting thisa batch uncertainty of relatively is specific my idea is to paraphrase its sources instead of directly quoting two “culture-vulturing city slickers” that frames the rest of the test ofall time, his 50,000 regardless leaflets, of people whether do. theyThe clientfulfilled pays, a more meaningswhat into today’s more diffuse,design business diluted, is ambiguous, all about. The and old, abstract quantifiablethem, inbut the the purposehope designer of absorbing(a hammer)must be theirready or alessons to less tear quantifiable updeeply his cheq- enough one onesthe book, whenidealistic one combined remarks modernism for to broaderthe that other I use—aonce that espoused culture pratical is lesson on“wound the in the what(ato painting).pass society themues if Alternatively,required, on.he or Actually, other and people I’mindeveloped What going he loves is to aa startdon’tdesignerfit-for-purpose twoor won’t, layersthe getself- out,plan of precogimplicationson an ever-tightening fromscrap theof heap. definition other coil.”pamphlets: and He democracy. is referring to the momentum actiondescribedby paraphrasing inthe order cabinet-maker money, to my utilize and colleague if industrythe Norman client David towards isPotter trying Reinfurt distinguished constructiveto use paraphrasing him to ends.between of art assimilating and reproducing itself according to the A“Things,”William century channelJames, on,“Places,” we lifethe might awayandAmerican conclude“Messages.” from other philosopher that people. As such far The whoastop-down Idesigner know,began authority neither hisis Anotherlogic of the Sofriend myphrase naiveargued “Pop idea that willof themy eat 1definition960s—that itself” (itself had designers thepulled name its of a insystemfamous the arts wasseriesworking has pursued ofbeen onlectures people: undermined beyond on he pragmatismthese is working by two the books,forbottom-up with people. thebut followingthey primacy remain punchesvery nineties’ wereby stopping partband). of the Thisshort solution account at pointing to theof unprecedentedworld’s out the chaotic fact that cultural both ofusefulanecdote: market places demand. On to a groupbegin And thecamping so productive much trip, so thatJames destabilization the returns implied from arrow a walk overtlyself-consciousness commercialuncontrollability—was is and backed overtly up precisely marginalby a list the of poles wr dominantong are way equally trends, ofofto productionprevailingfind theThe group designerclassification. has engagednow may surely have in areversed, to hypothetical work for from clients disputeIndustry-serves- whose about a impotentwhich includer. ound.The former theToday’s subtle because designers shift fromthe have kind yuppie emerged of work bullishness from commissioned the to what Societyman, a totree,business Market-dictates-Industry and isa drainagesquirrel. ofThe this squirrel kind.. A crude But is notclinging generalization, if he canto one side byis essentially and forback large itsroom corporationsrehabilitation of purist, centralist (or as other“attitude”; control predominantly toirony the similarly butOneof the one contemporary tree wesurvive andassume thewithout. manmodelis broadly Ifis he thatdirectly has felt appears to, and oppositehe mustwidely to operate never on acknowledged the for onotherget this side commercialsupplantedbrightly by enterprises) “authenticity” lit stage of has public become as thetotem-shaping. temper irreversibly of theSeen bland zeitgeist, from and what they are doing, and what they are doing to enoughprincipleof it. Every to is reasonably timeCittadellarte, the man guide establishedmoves our approach around in thethe here. ninetiestree In to line glimpse by withthe thisthe innocuous,most patentlythe stuck self-same manifest in a Marxistloop in Reality of viewpoint catering and toConflictthat market-researched I espoused TV; and in the him, what they are asking him to do to other those ancient days, they are now visible as part of inversion,artistsquirrel, Michelangelo it then, moves our equally Pistolettoinstinct as is fast into Biella,similarlyin the oppositeItaly. work The “the direction. name other is a way demandsencroaching which sense are of themselves culture appearing based on to desires have been based distinctly on the people. If he forgets this for a moment, they may the problem, not the solution. They have overtly around.”While it isRather evident than that the the usual man Promethean goes round thetalk tree, of a returnthe to designed by media, retail or advertising—a state of high contractionstart of draining the Italian him. words There mustfor “city” be people and “citadel,”who are which previous acceptedround of their market-researched role as part of capitalism. demands, Designers and so on. disputed question is: The rest of mediation, of “culture” wrapped in quotation marks. 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He proposes 3irony: to whomdirectly their question very newness and effect is an theopportunity contemporary for role In linethat with the the designer beginning designs of thishimself text, a Thierry third role, de essentiallyDuve has a of art in society,living. (Bridgman, operating 1969) as a “mediator” between all arts identifiedAll“research” of whichand calibrated position, suggest aforging some wholsesale specific purely shift specultative, qualities from the of three constructionimmaterial disciplines and other broad social categories, such as economy, ofprojects images outside and objects any obligation to their rote to producemediation; objects. from depth to politics, science, and education. It is organized into “uffizi,” surface. How, then, to reintroduce an ethical dimension, in offices with irregular titles like Nourishment, Spirituality and which form is determined by the depth of engagement rather Work, alongside Fashion and Architecture. Participants pass than an aggregate of expectation? If we accept that broad through for varying amounts of time to participate in projects switch6. Well-adjusted to Market-dictating-Industry, a package as entrenched in instigated through contact with local businessmen, politicians, contemporary culture as CS must, by virtue of being a massively economists and so on, and the whole enterprise is couched in popularIn 2005 product,the writer reflect David theFoster consensus Wallace ofgave market a “commence- demand—its global ambition, typified by the many one-liner slogans which “creative”ment speech” components at Kenyon at College, any given Ohio. point This a reflection occasion isof most an Pistoletto employs as catch-all common denominators between wantedestablished techniques. aspect of What higher exactly education are these in the techniques, U.S., traditionally why insular industries: “Art at the centre of a socially responsible haveinvolving they someprevailed, kind andof public what mentorrelation, figure if any, offering do they wisdom bear to transformation,” “Italian enterprise is a cultural mission,” theirand advicemanual to precedents? those about The to graduate. aim is to Wallace’snavigate anspeech education was a or “The artist as the sponsor of thought.” accordingcharacteristic to such attempt questions, to simultaneously following a course embrace guided and parodyby whateverthe form, seemspushing intellectually through clichés, and practicallycross-examining instructive them in in the commercialsearch of some toolboxes kernel of theaffirmation time. Not and in genuineorder to advicecapitulate behind to marketthe empty demand, platitudes. of course, He scratches but to interrogate the form to its reveal preferences; some 5. Group exercise tocontent. query tools whose uses have become bland, unthinking; to And here’s our frame of reference. Digital arts software exerts work from the situation rather than towards it. The course aAfter fundamental reading my influence dictionary on definitioncontemporary of “G raphiccultural Design,” work. asThe a whole,speech thenbegins (the with container, a requisite the moralbox) is epigram, itself a tool with for the Thea close vast colleague majority arguedof anyone that even it was vaguely far too touching subjective, art and that thinking,difference as that well Wallace as a means points to out prompt the fact the thatuse ofhe’s that beginning tool. designit might use be the useful same to fewobserve programs the extent from ofthe that broad subjectivity and ever- by with a requisite moral epigram. He continues to refer blurringsubjecting set it of to disciplines an “objective” such Semanticas fine art, Translation. graphic design, I passed Lestthroughout all this shouldto the fact seem that suspiciously he is using abstract, the form—making arbitrary or a photography,this task on to writing, a group editing, of design etc.—or students any in of California, the alternative mainly absurd,meta-commencement it’s worth mentioning speech—as that thewell founding not-quite-apologising conceit here for categoriesas an excuse put to forward discuss by both George how Kubleraccurate (envelopes, they thought sculpture, the —thereconceiving lack of grandiose the Bauhaus wisdom Foundation on offer. As Course the speech via the progresses, painting)description or was,Norman and Potterwhat the(things, effect places, and value messages) of making in the a Photoshopit becomes toolbox plain that—is Wallace drawn from is working actual somethingexperience. out A couplefor last“naked” pamphlet. translation Whichever might yoube. accept,The whole all areblock already was carved one, up ofhis years own ago,benefit my asbetter much half as wastheirs, appointed and so speaks to the full-timewith plain abettedinto individual by the erosionsentences of anyand meaningful randomly assigned. amateur/professional Here’s one facultyconviction. of the Fine Art department in a major U.S. university, divide.small excerpt This is (fromall old my news, original but still text): served by old models. and one of her inaugural obligations was—surprise!—to teach anSo undergraduatetwo younger fish class are inswimming Design. Such past aan situation older fish doesn’t who Compared to Furthermore,the hard tools through of the a Bauhaus complex of (whether factors characteristic color seemexclaims, untypical, “Morning and boys!though How’s the overarching the water?” causesWhen heare has more wheel, paintbrush,of late cameracapitalism, or manyplaner), of the today’s more softstrategic simulations aspects orpassed, less obvious, one of the it’s youngerworth summarizing fish asks the this other, one “What particular the hell lack any significantof Graphic distinction Design are from undertaken one another: by those the working paintbrush effect:is water?” a “teacher” This establishes “teaching” Wallace’s a subject theme: she has the never awareness herself of IS the eyedropperin “middle-management” IS the eraser—one positions, of a continuously typically Public beenself and taught, surroundings, and has no and particular the task involvement (and difficulty or andmuch pain) of expanding collectionRelations of or pixel-modifiers, Marketing departments. or effects. According interestmaintaining in otherwise. that awareness The extent on a ofdaily any basis guidance in Adult was World. to be to Tim Griffin writing in ArtForum, today’s digital “effect” handedHe comes the to couple settle ofon sheets a crucial that aspect constituted of this herawareness: predecessor’s Yo u are effectivelyand here’s synthesizes its Semantic its Translation various etymological (by a student) roots—: a result; stabnot theat a center curriculum of the whichuniverse comprised—surprise!—the but part of a community whoseBauhaus goods or moveable property; a mode or degree of operation on 3 Foundation Course: color wheels, grayscales, circles, triangles, an object; the physical result of an action of force—to produce squares, more or less amended, more or less debased. And so: similarly indistinct hybrids of production & product, catalyst & “[exasperated] you know [sigh] it would probably be more consequence. Effects become ends in themselves: After Effects useful to [sigh] go through the fucking Photoshop toolbox …’ with no identifiable Befores. Fluency inthis toolbox, then, disregards the technical proficiency of an earlier Bauhausian model and replaces it with a kind of forensic faculty. In place 4 of “How can I do this?” the more useful question now is, then, “What did I just do?”

We’re going to borrow one of the software monopolies, Adobe’s Creative Suite bundle, as shorthand for current arts software in general—and even more specifically, the “Photoshop toolbox” as a kind of colloquial proxy. The advantage of CS in the face of other obvious contenders like Adobe Premiere, Microsoft Office or Final Cut Pro is that it usefully circumscribes the trickle- down effects of three formerly distinct domains (Photography, Drawing, Typography) in one compound package (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign)—a gamut already rich with implications. For instance, consider what Bauhaus DNA remains manifest in these generational updates (Effects? Vectors? Makeup?): what Aside from the reconsideration of its tools, the box metaphor has been lost and gained in this genealogy? Here’s some more was prompted by three other frequently recurring art school disillusions. One is the demise of the inclination and ability on a community radio station, and a certain number of column —presumably a loop—of students to articulate their own inches in the local newspaper. This incessant production was or others’ work, especially in a group. A second—surely an deliberately designed to force the sort of abstract discussion outcome of the first—is the demise of both theinclination we might expect from the group art seminar into concrete, and ability to consider such work relative to culture at large. public, “answerable” forms. Because the matters arising had And a third is the absence of shared intentions, of staff and to be more or less immediately communicated to an external students working towards perceived, declared ends (however audience, they were forced through a high-pressure mangle of abstract or diverse) including a sense of who is teaching what translation. In the process, the issues were actively handled. (and why and how) in relation to everyone else. In short, how the parts fit together into a whole. Then last month I attended a two-day conference on French philosopher Jacques Rancière titled Everything is in Everything So: literally for the sake of argument, our initial contention after the motto of Joseph Jacotot, quietly radical eighteenth —or suspicion—is that color wheels and other principal century pedagog and subject of Rancière’s The Ignorant features of “basic design” are today less constructive than a Schoolmaster. I’ve already recounted, in a lengthy postscript communal effort to observe and relate the contemporary to the previous pamphlet, how that book sums up and now condition by practicing the forms of reading, writing, and informs our attitude here, but to briefly recap in the terms speaking that facilitate its articulation. The most appropriate that dominated this event: Rancière (speaking for and through foundation we can imagine right now is one that fosters both Jacotot) posits a “horizontal” egalitarian pedagogy against a the inclination and ability to participate in this process—to “vertical” hierarchical one. In the traditional vertical model, an articulate current social and cultural phenomena as a group authoritative master typically stultifies by dispensing knowledge in order to work parallel to them individually. And aside from piecemeal, progressing step by step towards a complete its ready stock of metaphorical tools, our cartoon toolbox intelligence, while in Rancière’s horizontal alternative, the icon is also handy in constituting a readymade framework “ignorant” master emancipates by insisting that intelligence —a matrix that shows the sum as well as the parts, an image is the precondition of learning rather than its goal. In this that can be held in mind by the whole “department.” Ditching formulation the student essentially teaches him- or herself, the specificity of Photoshop or even CS, then, we’ll begin while the “master” creates the conditions for this to occur by only with this nominal idea of the toolbox—an outline—and providing articulate objects (a book or other device) that will customize our own hybrid with bits from various domains “reveal an intelligence to itself.” and softwares along the way. What struck me at the conference, though, was how the We’re clearly not interested in “teaching the tools” so much principles being espoused and debated were unwittingly as trying to defamiliarize them, to make them as strange as enacted by the presentations themselves. It became we suspect they actually are. And so we’ll start with a increasingly difficult, in fact, to pay attention without reflexively handle—a carrier—then clip on new components as and when evaluating to what extent the various speakers were acting they’re abstracted into a teaching class, forming an expandable in line with their subject, i.e., whether they were behaving and adaptable diagram rather than the locked-in panopticon of like an explicating authority or fellow ignorant. The social Johannes Itten’s Bauhaus schematic. In fact, flip back to that implications of Rancière’s thinking were manifest too in the Bauhaus onion, with its progression through layers of years more mundane aspects of conference decorum: speakers towards a final imperative: BUILD. With Prometheus in mind overrunning their slots, panel discussions without discussion, again, what might it mean to invert the metaphor, starting from opaque academic jargon, and sundry opinions and mannerisms the inside and designing our way out—asking why as well as that seemed suddenly heightened either in accord or at odds how? Because the idea of this course is that it works itself out in with Rancière’s lessons. The net effect was a kind of meta- practice, that this process itself constitutes part conference in addition to the ostensible one, which merely of its “teaching,” and that this is the first installment, we’ll demonstrated the difficulty of putting principles into practice necessarily start with those components that allude to more even if you wholeheartedly adhere to them in theory. But general, structural “skills.” Meaning the hand, pointer or lasso the point remains: Rancière’s writing is carefully contrived rather than pencil, brush or knife—those already a degree of to prise the reader—or proselytiser—out of inertia and into metaphorical remove beyond that of the more obvious art tools. action. As time goes on, the priority ought to switch. And the other week I went to a two-hour talk, On (Surplus) Value in Art, by a well-regarded cultural theorist at a local art 5 school. He began by briefly describing the two fundamental Marxist notions of value—“use” and “exchange”—in order to consider whether, in light of social and cultural developments since Marx’s time, it’s possible to conceive other types of value outside this binary distinction. The rest of the lecture comprised a number of suggestions, nicely prefaced (and summed up) by the notion of “whistling in the shower” as representing the sort of romantic activity that occurs outside our normal conceptions of time spent productively. While the examples presented in the talk involved situations or objects that carried these alternative values, considering the idea from a user’s or observer’s perspective, most of the students’ questions afterwards—which lasted as long as the talk itself—wondered what it might mean to produce according to this dissident Last summer I took part in a two-week temporary academy ethos, to make things not primarily instrumental or profitable. in the company of a dozen youngish artists and a faculty that As it turned out, the talk was merely a set-up for a group comprised a painter, a collagist, a writer, a designer, a poet, discussion the following day, dedicated to this question. and a Greek philosopher. The overarching theme of the fortnight, When your Lips are my Ears, our Bodies become The exaggerrated workshop that forces abstract into concrete; Radios—attuned to national identity and group activity—was the auto-implication of Rancière’s horizontal idealism, where played out through a kind of extreme sports version of the student and teacher investigate a strangely articulate object; group workshop. The group had arranged to submit three and the thought experiment that unhinges now in relation to pieces of work each day to be channeled through three local the recent past. These three encouters strike us as exemplary media formats: a meter-high poster displayed on dedicated working models; ways in which our course might manifest itself columns through the town, a 10-minute audio segment aired in terms of practical projects. 6 stylized clothes. Stylized refrigerators filled with stylized food in stylized kitchens in stylized houses. Plastic stylized toys for stylized children who at Christmas and birthdays are in style with their stylish parents. You have to be awfully stylish yourself not to get sick of it once in a while. It’s the style that gets you; technological ugliness syruped over with romantic phoniness in an effort to produce beauty and profit by people who, though stylish, don’t know where to start because no one has ever told them there’s such a thing as Quality in this world and it’s real, not style. Quality isn’t something you lay on top of subjects and objects like tinsel on a Christmas tree. Real Quality must be the source of the subjects and objects, the cone from which the tree must start. Our toolbox will be housed within the larger environment of a newly-minted not-for-profit umbrella institution The Serving … or might point to the square object with the stencil alphabet Library—and stored in close proximity to the bar. The Library and explain that it’s a ouija board made by Paul Elliman while consists in two complementary spaces, virtual and actual. a design professor at Yale a decade or so ago in order to engage The former (www.servinglibrary.org) is a depository of freely Josef and Anni Albers in a séance with his class; that it utilizes downloadable PDFs, or “bulletins,” assembled bi-annually a version of Josef’s modular geometrical typeface to render in themed batches to serve as a rough semester’s worth of A–Z, 0–9, a “yes” and a “no,” laser-cut from one of the three reading matter. The latter (currently a mobile library, but on proportional formats, and in the same material (hardboard), its way to a fixed location) comprises two collections—of used for his well-known series of color paintings. books and artefacts—both dervied from 10 years and 20 issues of our house journal, previously known as Dot Dot Dot but … or might refer to one of the “present” books—say, the now superseded by a bi-annual hard copy of the PDFs, called essay collection Notes for an Art School, and show how all Bulletins of The Serving Library. These two collections will aspects of its material form—size, colours, paper, margins— continue to grow as each issue of the Bulletins suggests a new were directly drawn from the very particular restrictions of the round of books and artefacts to scavenge. eccentric printing machine that produced it; and relate this to the historically-organic form of the oujia board; and oppose The books are shelved according to a simple binary: either these to the kind of surface style lamented by Pirsig; and onto (0) older, “classic,” most-frequently-referred-to works of, a discussion about the relative presence and value of both e.g. literature (The Man Without Qualities), cultural studies today in art, in society, and so on. All of which ought to occupy (The Nineties), philosophy (Either/Or), and, typically, all three a morning, at least. combined (Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance); or (1) newer publications that passed through—and were often published by—our workshop/bookstore Dexter Sinister in New * York, essentially the prototype of the library back when we We’ve been missing a shared goal for some time now—to were more preoccupied with selling than archiving. One way establish a plan as concerted as a Bauhaus mandate, bearing in to relate these two types of books is to say the new ones are mind the lessons of such previous experiments and the cultural directly marked by the spirit of the old zeros; another is to level changes since. We intend to assemble a bunch of tangible them with anonymous hardback library leatherette. skills (critical faculties, orienting attitudes, whatever) relevant to working right now. Not in reaction or capitulation, but The artefacts are mostly flat, framed, and hung in the haphazard more as a means of staying awake, alert, concerned. It should manner of the assorted junk that hides the fading wallpaper in be apparent that this is a hard surface with a soft centre—a old British pubs. They are wildly diverse in size and medium, structure but no curriculum. As ever, it’s a case of trying to from a huge red wax crayon rubbing of a Monument to establish and maintain an equilibrium of freedom and order; Cooperation (the original relief fronts a housing estate around careful to ensure that “letting things work themselves out” the corner from Dexter Sinister) to a modest update headed doesn’t morph into an excuse for letting original intentions slide. Monument to Information on an enamel plaque. Other objects include paintings, lithographs, woodcuts, polaroids, record Here’s how we imagine all this working. We’ll invite guests from covers, and LSD blotter art. And because each one originally different fields to come and help deconstruct their respective appeared, scanned or photographed, as an illustration in an digital toolboxes by isolating a component in order to consider, issue of Dot Dot Dot (or will have done in the Bulletins), they together with the class, its analogue past, virtual present, and come with more or less elaborate backstories attached. possible future. The “past” aspect will consider the lineage of the tool in question as a physical object or process, whether Both books and artefacts are cooperative collections in two prosaic (type), allusive (hand) or madcap (magic wand). senses. First, that they constitute the pooled resources and The “present” will consider its digital corollary, whether a influences of a relatively large group of writers (say, 100 people) direct translation of an analogue technique, a more complex over a relatively long period of time (about 10 years). Second, metaphorical interpretation, an effect that has superseded that they have been sought, swapped and bought, bound its physical referent, or an autonomous function with no and framed, courtesy of a number of sympathetic insitutions ostensible counterpart. And the “future” will, of course, be pure over the past few years (thanks again!) as and when germinal speculation—science fiction—according to the whim of the versions of the Library were staged in various corners of Europe. teacher’s particular ignorance. During our course, the idea is to freely draw on both books and artefacts. Mid-seminar, I might recall something, run to the In response to the closing question, “Are you an idealist?,” in a shelf, grab one of the “past” books—say Pirsig’s Zen, again—, recent interview, the Danish art critic Lars Bang Larsen replied: spend five minutes trying to find the page, then read: The question remains, how to combine idealism with The result is rather typical of modern technology, the scepticism and self-reflection that turns it into an an overall dullness of appearance so depressing that artistic tool rather than an end in itself? it must be overlaid with a veneer of “style” to make it acceptable. And that, to anyone who is sensitive In which case, this prospectus will ideally serve as a kind of to romantic Quality, just makes it all the worse. Now it’s not just depressingly dull, it’s also phony. Put the all-purpose wrench. two together and you get a pretty accurate description of modern American technology: stylized cars and stylized outboard motors and stylized typewriters and (Excuse the lack of references: we ran out of space.)