pwr-stud.io
The Square & the Crosshair — http://pwr-stud.io/reader.html
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In the year 2250 A.D. historians will look back (with their 100Mpx photon-sensors) on graphic design as a profession connected to the short period of 20th century industrial printing. In a more timeless manner it could be said that graphic design is the of placing and organizing symbols on a 2D surface. A discipline obsessed with flatness. Although ink-on-paper is no longer culturally or commercially hot this basic act is certainly still relevant. Ex-graphic designers are migrating to a new Flatland – the crystal clear display of a tablet or phone – and learn to co-exist with the unclean masses of Web Designers and Photoshop-users in order to survive.
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Graphic design is a process of flattening, simplifying and ordering. 2D representations of reality are arranged on a symbolic surface. In order to present a clear and striking visual image contradictions need to be resolved and confusing details removed. From nuanced shading to smooth vector shapes. A dangerous operation.
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The screen is the interface between the individual and the world. The point where the Cloud meets the dirt of human existence. Reality is constantly passing back and forth at this intersection. The user looking, touching, caressing, tenderly swiping, her reflection overlaid on top of the projection of the Other. Narcissus bent over his pool, seeing a dark shadow passing overhead. Flesh becomes images and images become flesh in a hi-speed HD cybernetic loop. The designer plays a intermediary role: optimizing the image for viral circulation and high clickability – using her skilled labour to shape the fluid, shapeshifting grids that we pour ourselves into.
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The one-milli pictureplane is our public space. This is where social interactions take place, where low as well as high human emotions and desires are expressed with very real consequences. The Facebook-Like and the precision strike of a MQ-1 Predator are opposite points of the spectrum of human relations. The user gazing into her smartphone – the drone pilot looking at a screen in a command centre far away from where the actual violence takes place. A smooth gradient from the round-corner-rectangle marking the face of a friend in the social network to the crosshair marking the body of an enemy. The Terrorist is the opposite of the Facebook-Friend. The 0 to the 1. The Yin to the Yang. Complexities reduced to pure black or white and snapped to the grid. Either you’re a FFriend or you’re not-human.
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In representative democracy the politician play a similar role to the designer. His job is to listen to the citizen/client and present a clear and simple Solution to the Problem. The citizen does not act – the politician represents him and acts in his place. Both politicians and designers are middlemen, service providers. They both try to justify their positions while claiming that their hands are tied by the market and complaining that there is nothing to be done about it.
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2013. Everyone is an image producer. Torrents put the tools of the trade in the hands of the amateurs. At the same time the net has become centralized to a few major corporations who capture the value of the creative labour of its users. The wild frontier days are long gone. Our desire to be connected is monetized within sophisticated social grids. The Harlem Shake Meme is exposed as not a spontaneous expression of the global subconscious but the product of a viral marketing group owned by Youtube. In this situation the role of the cultural Prosumer educated for the old-world profession of the Graphic Designer should be to use this knowledge to propose alternatives and to make them visible. Direct Action on the thin border between the possible and the real.
The Square & the Crosshair — http://pwr-stud.io/reader.html
¶
In the year 2250 A.D. historians will look back (with their 100Mpx photon-sensors) on graphic design as a profession connected to the short period of 20th century industrial printing. In a more timeless manner it could be said that graphic design is the of placing and organizing symbols on a 2D surface. A discipline obsessed with flatness. Although ink-on-paper is no longer culturally or commercially hot this basic act is certainly still relevant. Ex-graphic designers are migrating to a new Flatland – the crystal clear display of a tablet or phone – and learn to co-exist with the unclean masses of Web Designers and Photoshop-users in order to survive.
¶
Graphic design is a process of flattening, simplifying and ordering. 2D representations of reality are arranged on a symbolic surface. In order to present a clear and striking visual image contradictions need to be resolved and confusing details removed. From nuanced shading to smooth vector shapes. A dangerous operation.
¶
The screen is the interface between the individual and the world. The point where the Cloud meets the dirt of human existence. Reality is constantly passing back and forth at this intersection. The user looking, touching, caressing, tenderly swiping, her reflection overlaid on top of the projection of the Other. Narcissus bent over his pool, seeing a dark shadow passing overhead. Flesh becomes images and images become flesh in a hi-speed HD cybernetic loop. The designer plays a intermediary role: optimizing the image for viral circulation and high clickability – using her skilled labour to shape the fluid, shapeshifting grids that we pour ourselves into.
¶
The one-milli pictureplane is our public space. This is where social interactions take place, where low as well as high human emotions and desires are expressed with very real consequences. The Facebook-Like and the precision strike of a MQ-1 Predator are opposite points of the spectrum of human relations. The user gazing into her smartphone – the drone pilot looking at a screen in a command centre far away from where the actual violence takes place. A smooth gradient from the round-corner-rectangle marking the face of a friend in the social network to the crosshair marking the body of an enemy. The Terrorist is the opposite of the Facebook-Friend. The 0 to the 1. The Yin to the Yang. Complexities reduced to pure black or white and snapped to the grid. Either you’re a FFriend or you’re not-human.
¶
In representative democracy the politician play a similar role to the designer. His job is to listen to the citizen/client and present a clear and simple Solution to the Problem. The citizen does not act – the politician represents him and acts in his place. Both politicians and designers are middlemen, service providers. They both try to justify their positions while claiming that their hands are tied by the market and complaining that there is nothing to be done about it.
¶
2013. Everyone is an image producer. Torrents put the tools of the trade in the hands of the amateurs. At the same time the net has become centralized to a few major corporations who capture the value of the creative labour of its users. The wild frontier days are long gone. Our desire to be connected is monetized within sophisticated social grids. The Harlem Shake Meme is exposed as not a spontaneous expression of the global subconscious but the product of a viral marketing group owned by Youtube. In this situation the role of the cultural Prosumer educated for the old-world profession of the Graphic Designer should be to use this knowledge to propose alternatives and to make them visible. Direct Action on the thin border between the possible and the real.