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