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This article was downloaded by: [Washburn University]On: 03 November 2014, At: 05:49Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: MortimerHouse, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK
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Emerging Issues in Contemporary Design: ARoundtableBarbara J. Bloemink, Brooke Hodge, Ellen Lupton, Matilda McQuaid & Patricia C.PhillipsPublished online: 03 Apr 2014.
To cite this article: Barbara J. Bloemink, Brooke Hodge, Ellen Lupton, Matilda McQuaid & Patricia C. Phillips (2007)Emerging Issues in Contemporary Design: A Roundtable, Art Journal, 66:1, 92-111, DOI: 10.1080/00043249.2007.10791245
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00043249.2007.10791245
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Features
David Hanson/Hanson Robotics, Hubo,Einstein Robot, 2005, Frubber™, facialrobotics, biped walking robot, cameras,compute~JIIlso~are,approx.72in.(183
cm); designers: David Hanson, Kim WonSup,Jun Ho Oh, Richard Bergs; manufacturer: Hanson Robotics, Inc., KJIIIST(installation photo by JIIndrew Garn, provided by Coope,,"Hewitt, National DesignMuseum)
This conversation took place December 7, 2006, at Cooper-Hewitt, National
Design Museum, in New York.The participants were Barbara]. Bloemink, Brooke
Hodge, Ellen Lupton, and Matilda McQuaid, the curators of Design Life Now: National
Design Triennial 2006, with Patricia C. Phillips as moderator. The exhibition is on
view from December 8, 2006, to July 29, 2007, at the Cooper-Hewitt, NationalDesign Museum, in New York.The discussion focused on the state of the art of
contemporary design as seen through the lens of the NationalDesign Triennial, the only exhibition of its kind that features
the work of designers from a number of fields, includingarchitecture and landscape architecture, graphic and productdesign, fashion, animation, film, and robotics. I
Patricia C. Phillips:How did you determine your curatorial team for Design Life
Now?
Barbara J. Bloemink. Brooke Hodge. Ellen Lupton.
and Matilda McQuaid. with Patricia C. Phillips Phillips:There has been a proliferation of biennials andtriennials and national and international expositions. A
growing number of people express skepticism or exhaustion with these projects. What do we learn from them?
What do they indicate about what is occurring and what
has shifted in contemporary culture? Personally, I am notquite so cynical and do see the value of these projects interms of public education and interpretation of emerging
ideas. What did you learn from your work on the National Design Triennial from
the perspectives of reflection-what has developed in the past few years-andspeculation about future initiatives, innovations, and issues?
Barbara J. Bloemink: As in other years, we have three curators from the
Cooper-Hewitt and one guest curator who is nationallyrenowned in the area of contemporary design.
Emerging Issues in
Contemporary Design:A Roundtable
Bloemink: I don't think there is another national contemporary design biennial
or triennial in the United States, so our project is unique. From my perspective,it allows us, and all of the viewers, to see and think about what we consider to
be innovative, interesting, and significant about design in the recent past from all
over the nation. Otherwise people may only know work from their region orwhat is published in the magazines.
Brooke Hodge: Organizing the Triennial is an opportunity-and an excuseto do a great deal of research with an outcome. We all sifted through a Significant amount of information and then, through our collaboration, were able tosee connections across a number of design fields.
Matilda McQuaid: I was not involved in the last Triennial, so for me working
on this project reinforces the incredible variety of design-and the genuineinterest in and acceptance of this diversity.
I. The exhibition catalogue is Barbara Bloemink,Brooke Hodge, Ellen Lupton, and MatildaMcQuaid, Design life Now: National DesignTriennial 2006 (New York: Smithsonian-CooperHewitt National Design Museum, 2006).
Hodge: Each one of us brought our own interests to the table, but in the collaboration all of our interests as curators broadened and this was very rewarding. Ithink this year's Triennial may be the most diverse representation of new areas ofdesign. Do you agree?
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Greg Lynn,Form, 2006, flatware prototypes, rendering (image provided byCoope...Hewitt, National Design Museum)
Bloemink: Absolutely. Our mission is to expose people to the many different
ways design intersects with our lives. Another wonderful aspect of this year's
exhibition is that the four of us proposed hundreds of people and projects to
consider, but in the end we voted blind. of the eighty-seven participants in the
Triennial, seventy-nine were unanimous among the four of us. The level of
consensus was really interesting. We did have an intense few days, literally locked
in a room, to edit down the hundreds of recommendations to a manageable
exhibition.
Hodge: It was a challenge to gather information and images to present to each
other without tipping off a designer.
Phillips: So the process is conducted as confidentially as possible?
Bloemink:Yes, but this year we had a blog that Ellen put on the Cooper-Hewitt
website. Members of the public were invited to nominate designers for theTriennial.
Ellen Lupton: Half a dozen of those nominated on the blog were included in
the show. In the design world there are many exhibitions and competitionswhere designers submit work and a jury reviews these submissions. So designers
often ask how they can submit work for the Triennial. We have to remind them
that it is a curated project. We also didn't want to be barraged by the press people
and publicists with packets of information. It was important to have a way that
we neutrally could accept nominations. The website and blog aided this process.
Hodge: The website also was a way to communicate the curatorial process to the
public. I am not sure that people necessarily understood this before.
Bloemink: It is important to understand that we started with the work and the
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designers. There was no predisposition for any theme at all.We did not discuss
themes or look back at previous exhibitions for organizing concepts. It was only
after we had selected the work that common themes emerged. The ideas came
from the work selected.
Phillips: Is that the way earlier Triennials evolved?
Bloemink: Probably, but not many museum exhibitions develop this way.This
particular process was very important to us.
Lupton: That addresses your question, Patricia, about why we do this kind of
exhibition. We think there needs to be an exhibition that happens regularly that
looks at design per se--and not something organized around "green" ideasor social design or a particular medium. So it is important for the museum to
periodically look at what is going on in design and to have the exhibition bediverse-to include architecture, landscape, new media, graphic design, fashion,
and other areas.There is no other place that we look at all of this creative activity
and innovation together.
Phillips: And design is so volatile, fast-moving, and pluralistic. It is useful to take
a reading to determine what is significant, what are the prevailing issues and
preoccupations-and to speculate or theorize why.
Hodge: You may not always have a strong showing from each and every catego
ry of design, but this may be important as well.
Bloemink: Exactly. We didn't determine that all fields must be represented or
that there must be an equitable quota from textiles, products, or any other area.It was purely which objects or projects excited all four of us after several presen
tations and prolonged discussions.
Phillips: Speaking as an educator-we all know that universities currently aredriven by rubrics and assessment. While actually sealed in that deliberative space
for several days and faced with the daunting task of narrowing down the incredible range of nominations and possibilities, was there an articulated and acknowl
edged template or criterion of ideas that determined your choices as curators?
Bloemink: We all had to persuade each other about the importance of each
work ...
Hodge: And we did broaden the idea of national or American design. We soughtinternational designers doing major projects in the United States and Americanbased designers working in other nations or countries.
McQuaid: We were looking for the innovative aspect in the work, whether itwas in technology, form, program, or composition.
Bloemink: This idea of innovation persuaded all of us that this work was significant and needed to be included. As curators, we have to be able to stand by anddefend our choices.
Phillips: I imagine that your ideas about Design Life Nowwill evolve over timeas you hear discussions and read critical responses to the show. But at thismoment (three hours before the opening) are there ideas that you find exciting,
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Untitled installation photograph fromDesign LifeNow (photograph by KornerUnion, Lausanne, Switzerland)
promising, or problematic in general? Are there innovations or developments in
design that seem particularly striking to you? What themes emerged from the
selected work?
Bloemink: When all of the designers were here earlier this week for the press
preview, I observed so many of them talking earnestly about each other's work
and proposing future collaborations: "Let's do something together." "I've been
looking for someone with your skill set." The exhibition can influence design by
bringing this diverse work together at one time and in one place.
McQuaid: In terms of early ideas or themes that began to emerge during the
process, Ellen's observations about community and social life began to resonate.
I found that these ideas of sharing, of collaboration in very different ways, such
as through the computer, the Internet, blogging, or intensely hands-on work,
developed into a compelling theme.
Bloemink: One overarching theme differentiating this triennial from past ones
emerged when we were working on choosing a title for the show. Once we
chose the works, we had to think about what these objects tell us about the last
three years in design and contemporary life. The previous two triennials revolved
around themes of, first, technology, and then domestication and nesting after
9/ I I. Instead of one general idea, this third triennial reflects that the past few
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iRobot, iRobot Roomba® SchedulerVacuuming Robot, 2002, 13~ in.diam. x 3~ in. (34.3 x 8.9 cm) (photograph© iRobot Corp., provided by CooperHewitt, National Design Museum)
2. See. for example, Nicolas Bourriaud, RelationalAesthetics (New York: Lukas & Sternberg. 1998).
years have been a time of extreme polarities between radical new technologies,
including robotics and other innovations, and do-it-yourself crafts. Much of the
work raised questions regarding virtuality and authenticity, biomimicry and
technology, and local and global issues. All of these relationships determine so
much about the lives we live now-and how we will live.This is why we choseboth the title and the images that you see in the lobby. In one, a man is sur
rounded by a chaos of wires while another shows a plethora of household prod-ucts and collected materials of handwork. It is a time when all these ways of
working are equally important.
McQuaid: And often these extremes exist within individual objects. If you
look at Hanson Robotics, Inc.'s Hubo Einstein Robot, it appears so hightech, but there is an extraordinary amount of handwork in it and in
many of these robotic projects. You don't often see this striking
coexistence of craft and technology. There are many coexistences
in the show, as well as extremities.
Bloemink: Many of the designers and technicians designed
works with which users emotionally bond as though they were
alive.The Mars Rovers, for example, are still functioning threeyears after they were supposed to end their usefulness. Their earthbound "handlers" often refer to specific of their attributes with
human terms, as if they were sentient beings. The same is true ofRoomba and Scoomba, which "recognize" dirt and, when they run
out of power, autonomously return to their "homes." There is a growing desire for and creation of emotional, subjective design--even in the
most technologically sophisticated and ambitious work there is a stronghuman connection.
Phillips: Not that there has ever been an impenetrable firewall between art,
design, and craft, but to what do you attribute the hybridity and mingling thatwe see today and in this exhibition?
Bloemink: I don't think young people care about any boundaries. We're all
mongrelizing, and borders are disappearing. Most of the artists and designers Iknow don't want to be identified as one or the other. Craft and design, as well
as the whole do-it-yourself area, are not that dissimilar. They both seek to makepersonal, significant, and transformative objects. I just don't see ever going back
to "pink is the black of the season." Everything is available at any time.
Phillips: The focus on the relational potential of art, design, and aestheticsstrongly connects to the theme of sociability, exchange, and collaboration in theTriennial. Generally, whether they are architects or product designers or scenic
designers, designers are educated for collaboration more than artists traditionallyhave been (although I think this is beginning to change, as well). We certainlysee evidence of this in art programs. We often think about the social function
of design-how it galvanizes and brings people together both functionally andsymbolically. Clearly, this is a central issue for art, as well. 2
McQuaid: I agree, but the external world still wants to embrace the individual.The star system remains firmly in place.
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3. HalFoster. Design and Crime (andOtherDiatribes) (New York: Verso. 2002).
Bloemink: And, of course, there is a client still for most design. Perhaps artistsmay participate in this way, but generally they do not have a client who asksthem to make something that will function in a specific way.
Lupton: For some of the designers in the Triennial there is no client, but they
create a "situation." As a social act that brought together writers, illustrators, andgraphic designers, Nicholas Blechman published a book-length edition of hiszine Nozone (2004) on the theme "empire." It didn't have a client, but it had a
reason to be, a social message, and a social function. The work itself was about
bringing together a community to make something public. Another example isthe open-source programming language of "Processing" created by Ben Fry and
C. E. B.Reas that is an interactive tool, social space, and resource for exchange.Some of the materials in the show, such as Abhinand Lath's SensiTile or Emmanuelle Bourlier and Christian B.Mitman's Panelite, are examples of designers cre
ating materials that will be used by other people. They are not client-driven butfunction-driven.
Bloemink: I grew up in the late 1960s. and art and music were where political
discussions occurred. If you look at the 2006 Whitney Biennial, the only overtly
political work was about the 1960s and 1970s.Today-and I think ofArchitecturefor Humanity's projects and Nicholas Blechman's work, for example-social
ferment and action are coming out of design more than contemporary art.
Phillips: Has design become a more fruitful forum for political issues?
Hodge: I think it is perceived as more democratic than art. Design reachesacross many different communities.
Lupton: But we still are talking about minority voices, when it comes to politi
cal activism within the design community.
Bloemink: Yes, but at least those voices are represented here. The internet and
blogging have made everything more accessible and democratic. No matter howmuch you might want to cover up information, it is far more difficult today than
previously.
Phillips: I am thinking about the concerns raised, in particular, by the art histo
rian and theorist Hal Foster in his collection of essays Design and Crime. 3 Amongother topics, Foster writes about contemporary design's problematic alliancewith consumerism and a rapacious marketplace that increasingly governs allaspects of our lives.There is a tremendous range of design-and it is representedin the Triennial-from the really profound to the shockingly superficial. How doyou as thinkers, observers, and curators negotiate these treacherous extremes?
Lupton: What Foster may have missed is the rise of the producer-consumer. Hisposition is all about the consumer and consumerism. But what has transformedthe world in the past decade is the proliferation of tools we all use. With theinternet and Power Point, everyone is a producer. Foster may not be consideringthe new generation and how they are empowered in different ways.They areself-publishing, using Photoshop, the internet, blogging, sewing, and knitting.It's an entirely different way of being a consumer. The rise of the producerconsumer is positive and empowering. It has changed politics, journalism, the
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Abhinand Lath/SensiTile, Scintilla, 2005,cast acrylic, dimensions variable, manufacturer: SensiTile Systems (photograph bySensiTile Systems, provided by Coope,,"Hewitt, National Design Museum)
medical profession, and many other areas of life. People are equipped to get
information and to publish and share it. Everyone is an educator and has a skill
that she or he wants to pass on to other people. This profound change is inti
mately connected to design. It is one of the reasons Google is in the exhibition.
Google is not about design in the old sense of a nice object, a nice chair....
Google makes connections, not objects. It makes tools.
Bloemink: Foster's statement could just as easily pertain to contemporary art asdesign. In our selection, we didn't ask: is this work going to last, be timeless, and
have enduring historical significance? Many of these works may not be lasting,
but in this moment they seem indicative, important, and innovative.
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Phillips: It is not about establishing a gold standard, but identifying what hascurrency and agency now-and the reasons for this.
Hodge: For example, although it has been around for a while, we included the
iPod in the exhibition. It has had such social Significance-the twin facts ofmobility and isolation within one's own world.
Bloemink: By contrast, Google is about building global communities and globalinteraction for everyone. The film being shown with its display includes colors
representing the thirty-seven different languages that use the online resource atthis time. Once there are a certain number of words in a particular language or
genre, Google will develop a search engine for it. For example, there is a search
engine in Klingon, the fictional language spoken by characters in Star Trek. Thisidea of self-producing is really key.
Hodge: As is the role of the individual.
Phillips: Large, established practices and corporate design may well prevail, butthe show reflects another arena of design activity that concerns the small-scale,immediacy. temporality, and improvisation in design. There is a conspicuous
presence of producer-consumers who move agilely across materials and formats.
The Triennial indicates strong democratizing potential that centers ideas ofaccess, availability, flexibility, and poaching into existing systems. Getting backto themes that have emerged-sociability, the community, design in life-what
do you now see as the possibilities as well as the problems of design now orhow we might think, write, or even teach about it in the future?
Lupton: We are increasingly embedded in an intelligent landscape. The down
side of this new environment is the lack of privacy. Some of the pieces in theTriennial, such as]. Meejin Yoon'sWhite Noise White Light (2004) or Cameron
McNall and Damon Seeley's Electroland staircase create environments or situations that respond to the individual. This can be a wonderful but also unnerving
experience. Do you really want an environment that responds to you? We knowthat we are being Videotaped and recorded all the time. Obviously, some design
ers are looking at the disturbing dimensions of all this.
Phillips: There are the increasing encroachments on civil liberties. as well as theconcerns about the level of physical and psychic manipulation in this new environment of surveillance and security. And designers certainly playa significantrole here. I don't know if there are new ethical questions, but certainly the moraldimensions and consequences for designers are increasingly complex.
Bloemink: Some of the design sponsored by the military may initially seemdisturbing; however, the Army funds research at the Institute for CreativeTechnology, such as Sergeant Blackwell, in order to help train officers in culturaldiplomacy and negotiation rather than battle strategies. The Navy funded JosephAyers's research on the Robolobster, intending it to seek out underwater minesand detect water pollution. Meanwhile, Graham Hawkes and his wife Karendesign and build their submersibles entirely on their own, bypassing the timeconstraints and bureaucracy of government-funded organizations. As a result,his underwater transportation innovations are far in advance.
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Electroland, Enteractive (I Ith andFlower), 2005, dimensions variable, designers: Cameron McNall and Damon Seeley(digital rendering by Electroland, providedby Cooper-Hewitt, National DesignMuseum)
McQuaid: Of course, the government often subcontracts with these small firms.
They may not have the money, but they have the ingenuity and intellectualresources to do innovative work.
Phillips: There is a dramatic range of scales of production presented in the exhibition, from individuals and friends working from their homes or small studios
to the global military-technological complex.
Bloemink: There is currently an ethical issue in the area of robotics, as robotsincreasingly resemble humans. How much do we want robots to look and actlike us? Between simple emulation and actual cloning, the design implicationswill become moral issues. Through his development of creepily realistic skin,or "Frubber,' David Hanson enables robots such as his Einstein to react and talkto visitors, using almost imperceptible, human-appearing facial movements.Artificial intelligence now enables robots to store and retrieve millions morefacts than the human brain and to increasingly "hear" words in visitors' questions and form cogent answers.
McQuaid: The issues have to do with users versus inventors. It's not just whatsomething is, but how it is used and applied.
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ReadyMade, How to Make Almost Everything book cover and Wate,,"BottleChandelier spread, 2005; book design: EricHeiman; project design: Grace Hawthorne;publishers Clarkson Potter/Random House(photographs by Jeffrey Cross © ReadyMade;images provided by Coope,,"Hewitt,National Design Museum)
Coma (Cornelia Blatter and MarcelHermans), Frame magazine covers, 2003-5,paper, ea. II%x 9 in. (29.8 x 22.9 cm) (covers © Frame Publishers; images providedby Coope,,"Hewitt, National DesignMuseum)
Lupton: Patricia, I'd like to get back to some of the refreshing intellectual questions that you sent us before this discussion. Looking at the field of graphic
design, I think we are in a very "unintellectual" phase. The late 1980sand early
1990S were theoretically rich and rigorous times, with deconstructivism, poststructuralism, and other ideas. I was very much enamored and excited then by
the intellectual activity in my field. Now we are at a pragmatic time with technology at the center. The technology is so challenging and time-consuming to
learn that it seems to have eclipsed other ways of thinking.
Phillips: We all are so immersed in our own reskilling-at whatever scale or
sophistication-that we have not had sufficient time to reflect on the conceptualor theoretical implications of these technological changes and their influence on
design. Ellen, as you suggest, the center of gravity has shifted from concepts and
theories to pragmatics and applications. But perhaps we are approaching a tipping point when we can begin to examine ideas raised by an increasingly technologized design world. I am often either so amazed by or too overwhelmed
trying to learn even the most modest new technology that there is little time tothink expansively about this new landscape and its implications.
Lupton: In the graphic-design field, the question has shifted from "what does itmean" to "how do you do it." This brings a feeling of loss-a loss of certain crit
ical practices. The gain is that the culture is action-oriented, and people want tomake things happen. There isn't a great deal of questioning or concern about the
relationship of one's work to the capitalist establishment-for example, whether
the work is for sale.The interest is in doing it, making it, getting it out there,beaming it to someone else far away: Action-oriented practice is potentially excit
ing, but it also can seem vacuous: What is the point? What does it mean? What isits relationship to politics? There has been a certain dumbing-down along with
the ramping-up of what we are able to do with technology:
Phillips: We mentioned this briefly before, but I see more and more collabora
tion in schools, often in terms of how to do things. You know how to do this andI know how to do that-let's bring these skills and resources together. People
now work together on some common activity or purpose in temporary confed
erations.
Hodge: In academia, new work often develops in response to or reaction againstestablished forms or practices. This action-based practice has to take hold enoughso that people can react to it or push against it to create something new. It is in
the process of being created.
Lupton: So it is difficult to establish what may become the new theory:
Hodge: We do see a response to the stripped-down, minimalist aesthetic ina new baroque, organic, and complicated design sensibility. But this really is
formal rather than theoretical.
McQuaid: I think there is a desire for more interactivity and how this can be
introduced at the scale of architecture.
Phillips: Yes, there is a strong representation of this in the exhibition, but I think
it is important to distinguish meaningful experiments in interactivity from those
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Hunter Hoffman, SnowWorld, 2006, installation view, University ofWashington andHarborview Hospital, Seattle; creativeworld-building:Ari Hollander and HowardRose;VR goggle systems: Hunter Hoffmanand Jeff Magula;optical lens system: JanetCrossman-Bosworth and Eric Seibel(photograph © 2004 Hunter HoffmanlUniversity ofWashington, provided byCooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum)
that seem more gratuitous, entertaining, or diversionary. Certainly there has
been an examination of the regulatory and disciplinary effects of architectureand other design activities; the term "interactivity" suggests a more fluid and
negotiable equation between objects and users, architecture and occupancy.Interactivity is a rich subject, but I don't think its liberatory or manipulativepotential in design has been entirely sorted out.
Lupton: Blogging and open-source software present other ways of thinkingabout interactivity. The interactivity that is most promising is focused on theagency of the user, reflecting the do-it-yourself culture at the center of design
now. For example, five years ago website design was all about Flash animation.
This approach has become obsolete as designers are creating websites that canbe searched and rearranged by users. The user is no longer passively watchinga "movie" of objects on the screen but is inputting key words to build her or
his own website. This mode of interactivity isn't about using a mouse to makesomething bigger, but about assembling and constructing information.
McQuaid: Some work may seem inconsequential in the research stage becausewe don't know yet what the possibilities are. Electroland, for example, uses
incredibly sophisticated software, even if the product or results seem selfevident.
Lupton: Viewers will be able to interact with Electroland's staircase installationin unexpected ways-to perhaps play it as an instrument.
Hodge: It is interesting to consider the many different ways that designers inthe exhibition have used technology-and at many different levels. I think of
ICT Leader's project, Sergeant John Blackwell (2004-6), and the Hunter Hoffman
project SnowWorld, which uses virtual reality to help burn victims manage pain.People pick up technologies and inventively-and interactively-apply them in
a broad spectrum of ways.
Bloemink: Consider how powerful design can be if a visual animation like
Hoffman's SnowWorld can actually change a person's perception of pain-cut itin half-while his or her bandages are being changed. That is transformative
design!
McQuaid: The iRrobot Roomba is for cleaning rooms, but it is made to be easily"hackable": the designers want people to hack into it to modify and reprogramwhat the robot can do. It is another dimension of the do-it-yourself phenomenon that connects to interactivity.
Bloemink: This is even true ofWowWee's Robosapien, which is designed to beopen-source and so allows users and computer geeks to program it with newactions, commands, and movements.
Phillips: The challenge to conceptually understand what designers are trying todo with software and technology-the actual design of technology-is sobeyond me. This must be a challenge to you as curators, to really understand thescope of the innovations and their potential.
Lupton: I don't think it is our job to be technologists. Each of these designers is
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Konyk.UPlhouse 1500 prototype (crosssection), 2005, architect: Craig Konyk;rendering: David Fano (photograph providedby Coope....Hewitt. National DesignMuseum)
4. See Ellen Lupton, Donald Albrecht, SusanYelavich,and Mitchell Owens, Inside Design Now:NationalDesign Triennial, exh. cat. (New York:Princeton Architectural Press, 2003).
so skilled in different aspects of technology; our job is know what is important,
how it is different. how it is changing ...
McQuaid: ... how to understand it to a certain degree, and then how to com
municate its significance to an audience that may not have an idea of what it is.It is about taking complex, specific work and making it comprehensible in the
public realm.
Phillips: To represent both the symbolic and use value of these objects, environments, and systems. Changing the topic just a bit, did each of you stay withinyour area of expertise in the nominating process?
Hodge: Although I, for instance, focused on architecture, the process was quite
open. I began by looking at the publications from the last two Triennials andthinking about areas that were underrepresented. For example, in Inside Design
Now, the 2003 Triennial, I thought that architecture and landscape, as well asfashion, were underrepresented.' I made a conscious effort to focus on theseareas. Ellen has far more expertise in graphic design than the rest of us, but generally we all looked broadly, but with depth in some areas. at design irrespectiveof categories. The fact that we worked independently to identify prospectiveexhibitors and then came together to present the work actually knitted ideas
and the exhibition-together.
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Phillips: I'd like to talk about visual literacy and design. There is an increasing
concern that, with or in spite of the volume of images we encounter each day,
the public may not be well prepared to critically analyze the meaning and sig
nificance of visually based ideas and information. Are you aware of particulardesigners or projects that attempt to deal with the gap between design innova
tion and public perception?
McQuaid: Are you talking about ideas of overproduction?
Phillips: Many people do not have the language-and schools are not providing
a background-to describe and decode visual phenomena. It is a paradoxical situation where a proliferating visual culture is coupled with an ambivalence about
the visual. I may be on the wrong track here, but I wonder if designers can playsome role in this larger cultural and perceptual realm. For example, a number of
critics and theorists have written about the social responsibility of artists-how
artists might help to make challenging ideas in contemporary art more accessibleso that people don't respond with hostility, denial, or withdrawal. I acknowledgethat this is a debatable position. Others believe that it is the artist's or designer's
role to make the work and not to shepherd its successful entry, or shape an inter
pretative environment for the work, in the world.
Lupton: The do-it-yourself movement is all about design education. Readymademagazine, Make magazine, and Howtoons are three entries in the Triennial thatbegin to address these issues.These publications show how to become a produc
er of visual ideas and things.
McQuaid: And Processing, the open-source computer language.
Lupton: Processing and blogging are about inviting members of the public intodesign and, in the case of Make, into technology. This is a different kind of litera
cy-and perhaps different from a literacy based on decoding that Foster and oth
ers might defend. The literacy of today is acquired through the process of making. How do I do it? Not how do I read it, but how do I write it? Schools may
be slow on picking this up, but kids and young adults are not. Kids pick up thetools, the software. and just start making. There is a lot going on in the design
world about spreading visual literacy by opening up boxes, making a robot youcan take apart, and making things more penetrable. It is not about decoding and
demystifying, but about actively making and doing. Although I miss the focus on
critical thinking, today I am much more interested in giving a workshop on howto make a book than I am in giving a lecture on deconstruction. For many of us,the focus has shifted from providing a critique to providing information that canbe used or applied.
Phillips: Rather than design theory, the emphasis seems to be on how to make
decisions in the progression of a design process. What is interesting-and I dosee this more in Design Life Now than in other triennials-is the strong evidence
that imaginative innovation is happening at an active grass-roots level.
Lupton: It is not all high-tech.
Phillips: Let me qualify that there is innovation in more established realms ofdesign because many resources are directed there, but another "frost in the
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cracks" activity is quite intriguing. Whether it is hacking into or poaching onexisting systems, this improvisational resourcefulness is vivid in the exhibition.
McQuaid: And inviting as well. The exhibition is an invitation-and incentiveto pursue this innovation.
Phillips: Are there other thoughts on the denouement of this long curatorial
process? Of course, you will have six months to gather and reflect on public andcritical responses to the exhibition. May I ask an overworked question? How
have some of the catastrophic, shape-shifting events of the past five years-9/ I I,
natural disasters, global conflict, genocide, health epidemics-created new
implications for design?
Lupton: Well, there is a military presence in this exhibition. The 2003 Triennial,
Inside Design Now, was a response to 9/ n-s--the idea of going inside and in somesense withdrawing, turning inward. This Triennial reflects a "coming out" and
being social-and public-again.
Hodge: I think it is too soon to tell. I recently was accused, in the context ofanother exhibition, of being engaged with pre-a/' I I architecture. Of course, itisn't as if all architecture since 9/ I I responds to security concerns or issues
related to terrorism. In many respects, architecture is continuing with an interestin new materials, new technologies, and new forms. I really don't see a signifi
cant shift in design since 9/ I I. With Hurricane Katrina, we do see a little more
attention to sustainable design, but I don't see any brilliant new solutions todesign problems emerging.
Bloemink: The natural disasters of the past three years have led to a new interestamong designers in working for the poorer regions of the world, a growing
interest in socially responsible design. That's why Architecture for Humanitywas included in the Triennial. Interestingly, an outside person contributed fivethousand dollars in honor ofAFH's inclusion in the show to allow it to complete
a school and an AIDS clinic in Tanzania.
Phillips: Perhaps the biggest focus of Katrina, in addition to the many environ
mental, technological, and social-justice issues, is our capacity to design intelligent and accountable systems to respond to catastrophic events. But this is the
purview of another project.
Lupton: Katrina is still too close to fully understand its implications for design,whereas 9/ II has become thoroughly entrenched in our consciousness.
McQuaid: It would have been nice to see more change. You see the urgency andimpact of these catastrophic events and think there would be major innovationsand breakthroughs. And much of the innovation that we do see is on a smallscale. In fact, given all the talent that has been sent to New York after 9/ I I andto New Orleans after Katrina, it is shocking to consider how little we have progressed. It is ironic that with all the design vitality we witnessed on a small,grass-roots scale, so little of this energy and innovation registers on a larger scale.
It ends up being diluted and compromised.
Phillips: Has working on this exhibition prompted any thoughts on the educa-
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Natalie Jeremijenko/X Design Lab, roboticdogs, 2006, reconfigured toy robotic dogs,length approx.20 in. (50.8 cm) (photograph by Emily Nathan, provided byCooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum)
tion of designers? What is relevant content and how is it taught? Ellen, you men
tioned that you would rather talk about how to make a book than contemporary
theory with students.
Lupton: I have always taught design history and theory, but ten years ago I
became a studio teacher as well. There is so much to explicate and cover, and
every year it becomes more and more. We are constantly reskilling and giving
students new tools. I am interested in bringing design to the public and not just
to professionals in the field. Politics and theory are embedded in the activity of
making and doing. If you are going to make a book, an exhibition, or create a
website, the act of doing this-whether you are a student or a member of the
public-makes you more powerful. This is politics at a small, local scale. I like
being in an art school because it is so action-oriented. It is about making things.
Phillips: It is about different calibrations of theory and practice that are
intractably connected. There is something to be said for the meaning that
emerges from making. It is reflected in the handwork in this exhibition, as
well as the activity we see all around us all of the time. The passion for makingthings is palpable in the exhibition. The making leads us to ideas rather than
ideas precipitating a creative process-a continual feedback loop.
Bloemink: The same is true of the curatorial process: curators continually
look around for work that reflects innovation, significance, and something that
separates it from all the other clutter of contemporary life. Only after looking
at hundreds of works do overarching ideas, themes, and topics occur that are
compelling enough to lead to exhibitions.
Lupton: I'm thinking again about Foster and his conflation of design with
shopping-and that design is about making consumer choices-which it is, of
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Ladd Brothers,Terre du Lac, 2006, silk,ultrasuede, paper, glass beads, designers:Steven and William Ladd (photograph byAndrew Zuckerman, provided by CooperHewitt, National Design Museum)
S. See John Maeda, TheLaws of Simplicity: Design,Technology, Business, Life (Cambridge, MA: MITPress, 2006).
course! But design is also a way of thinking and discovery through making, and
this is worth celebrating and perpetuating.
McQuaid: Design is about taking control. It often is at a small scale, something
portable or that involves handwork, like Judy Geib's jewelry and knitting or
Steven and William Ladd's eccentric work. It is about creating a niche-and carv
ing out and controlling every dimension of it. It is satisfying when so much
around us cannot be controlled.
Hodge: Making is about finding ways to connect the
personal with the world at large.
Phillips: It is advocating for new forms of indepen
dence-which I acknowledge can be a false indepen
dence of choices without real consequence. We're
increasingly dependent on, regulated by, and possibly
challenged by technology at times, but it has opened up
radical possibilities for change.s And schools are pro
moting and projecting this idea. I recently received a
mailing from Syracuse University about its arts journal
ism program. There was an image of a backpack con
taining everything a successful journalism student
needs-a computer, iPod, etc. It was a profession as a
life of imminent mobility and absolute fleXibility-all
in a single bag. It certainly prompted me to think about
the persuasive rhetoric of freedom and restriction,
empowerment and control in contemporary design.
Currently deputy director for curatorial affairs at New York's Museumof Arts & Design, Barbara Bloemink previously served as curatorial director of the Cooper-Hewitt Museum, and as chief curator of five art museums, including the Guggenheim Hermitage Museum, the Hudson River
Museum, and the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art and Design. She has organized over eighty exhibitions nationally and abroad, including Florine Stettheimer: Manhattan Fantastica at the Whitney Museum ofAmerican Art, and has written numerous articles and nine books, including Design..Art: Functional Objectstrom Juddto Whiteread, and Design Life Now. Bloemink received her BA in art history from StanfordUniversity; an MA from the Institute of Fine Arts (NYU), and an additional MA and her PhD from YaleUniversity.
Brooke Hodge is curator of architecture and design at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.She received her master's degree in architectural history from the University of Virginia. She has organizednumerous exhibitions on architecture, landscape architecture, fashion, and car design. Her most recentproject is Skin + Bones:Parallel Practices in Fashion andArchitecture, a major thematic exhibition that examines the intersections between fashion and architecture.
Ellen Lupton is a writer, curator, and graphic designer. Her most recent books are 0./.Y: Design It Yourself(2006) and Thinking withType (2004). She is director of the graphic design MFAprogram at MarylandInstitute College of Art in Baltimore and a curator of contemporary design at Cooper-Hewitt, NationalDesign Museum.
Matilda McQuaid is deputy curatorial director and head of the textiles department at the Smithsonian'sCooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, where she oversees one of the premier textile collections inthe world. She recently organized the exhibition Extreme Textiles: Designing for High Performance, the firstmajor museum exhibition devoted to high-performance fabrics and their applications in areas such asarchitecture, aerospace, medicine, and sports. She was previously a curator at the Museum of ModernArt, New York, where she organized more than thirty exhibitions over her fifteen-year tenure.
Patricia C. Phillipsis the editor-in-chief of ArtJourna/. She is a professor at the State University of NewYork, New Paltz.
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Words of ArtSeth Price, "Excerpts from Title Variable," Art Journal, Spring 2007
© Matthew Gehring
G N I L W A R P S N 0 I T A R A L C E D
N R I F T S Y A 0 U C S U B T L Y U I I
I H E P H Y U A L I 0 C U E S S V S E S
Z T S V R F X B T U W I S H A 0 T N W C
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C A S C B L H Y S E 0 A N A N U L K E N
I S P U I T U E U H R A N G R L 0 0 H T
T N 0 P N L D T U N F T U R I 0 L T S E
N D N Y R U P D I A R I E N E K V E I N
A 0 S U C 0 N X S 0 S E G D 0 V P W L T
M T V T E H P C E H N N P N G S A A 0 N
0 A I E T N I R E C I 0 0 E I Y I G P 0
R V G H L N D D I Z N I I R A 0 L T U N
E S D I A T E 0 I A T E C S Y T S 0 U E
I N I T C R Y N T A T A I M R E A H E M
H I I N U L 0 C N G T I E S I E H B E 0
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SEXY EXPLICIT PATHOLOGYWISH FANTASY TRANSIENCECUSP NOVELTY DISCONTENTCUES CRISPEST PERVERSIONEDGY HEAVIEST REVOLUTIONLIMBO POLISHED FASCINATIONMAGIC SWELLING VERNACULARTHROB INNUENDO HARMONIZINGTOKEN SYNTHETIC PHENOMENONVAGUE CULTURED HOMEOPATHICSUBTLY SEDUCTIVE DECLARATIONSCATCHY ALIENATION DISTINGUISHEDDREAMS SPRAWLING ROMANTICIZINGMAYHEM VORACIOUS UNREPEATABLESINCERE SUBVERTED APPROPRIATION
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