Notes & Links by Casey A. Gollan on
art, design, creativity and technology on
enough

 
Like all blanks, associative leaps through space need to be created. We must understand what makes electricity arc through the air. A conscientious reader confronted with a string of unrelated passages separated by blanks will, for a while, dutifully attempt to form bridges from one passage to the next, to discover the writer’s logic or pattern, the work’s intended accumulation. If no such thing is discernible, however, the reader will eventually, understandably, move on to something else. Such is the risk of communicating through silence. The rewards include the powerful bolt of understanding a leap can create, an understanding that reaches the reader beyond words, beyond rational explanation, and so is more intensely felt.
Peter Turchi, Maps of the Imagination: the Writer as Cartographer, p. 55

Being available in response

Tumblr doesn’t even permit reblogging chunks of text this large anymore (instead defaulting to an excerpt and a link) but these quotes about “being available” have been kicking around in my brain since I read them a few days ago so I wanted to repost them here.

linedandunlined:

…I had to share one reading that I’ve been revisiting a lot over the last few days. It’s from Lawrence Weschler’s incredible book Seeing Is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees, which is about the artist Robert Irwin. Chapter 15 is called “Being Available in Response,” which is also the name of a project initiated by Irwin.

The first time I read this chapter I nearly lept out of my chair — I got so excited I reread it three or four times right away.

Rather than trying to explain the project too much, though, I’ll let Irwin (and Weschler) tell you about it as they do in the book. Here’s Irwin:

“I just sort of let it be known that I was available, in a way like I’m saying it to you. I mean, I didn’t put out any ads or anything, but word got around. And you could be, let’s say, up at UCLA, and you’d say, ‘Well, let’s take advantage of that. We’ll have him come up and talk to the students.’ And that’s what I’d do. Or, ‘We’ll have him come up and do a piece on the patio.’ And I would just come up and do that.

“There’s an important distinction to be made here,” [Irwin] continued, “between organizing and proselytizing, on the one hand, and responding to interest, on the other. I was and continue to be available in response. I mean, I don’t stand on a corner and hand out leaflets. I’m not an evangelist. I’m not trying to sell anything. But on the other hand, if you ask me a question, you’re going to get a half-hour answer.’”

People scratched their heads. Weschler explains:

Irwin was availble in response but for a long time nobody asked. Nobody knew what to make of the offer, and Irwin was no help: he didn’t have a clue. “Curators would ask me, ‘If we invite you, what are you going to do?’ and I would have to say, ‘Well, I don’t know what I’m going to do; I’ll just spend some time there and then decide.’ […] In other words, we had no connection, because they kept needing something tangible, and I kept saying, ‘I don’t know,’ which also put into these situations the possibility of failure. I could go to the Walker Museum, let’s say, and they’d set up an exhibition with all their catalogues and press releases and everything, and there was a risk that when I got there, I wouldn’t be able to come up with anything.”

Though it was slow to gain momentum, Irwin’s idea eventually caught on. Weschler continues:

[…] By 1972–73, enthusiasm had soared to such an extent that Irwin was almost continually on the raod, wending his way through labrynthine tours, travelling weeks on end, for example, from one small midwestern college to another. […] At each stop he might stay a week, talk with students, contrive an installation, stir things up, and then be gone. For many young art students in the vast middle reaches of this continent during the pale middle reaches of the past decade, Irwin’s roadshow constintuted a first exposure to significant strains of modernism and minimalism.

The trips also grounded Irwin:

“The ideas I came to be dealing with during this period were getting real obscure, even for me, to the point where I was beginning to wonder what and how I practiced in the world. There were some critics who from a political perspective attacked that obscurity as a kind of elitism. […] To me, the crucial difference between obscurantism and elistism is availability.”

He charged nothing for his visits:

“I do things which from any social or political view are outrageous. I mean, they absolutely ignore all the social issues of the day. […] But my way of balancing that out is that there’s one thing I can do that has immediate social value, and that has been this kind of running around and talking with people. So I do that for free. Because I don’t want to put economics on it at all.”

The name Robert Irwin sounded familiar but I couldn’t remember exactly who he was…incidentally, I posted one of his pieces back in January. Thank you searchable external brain Tumblr.

Kenya Hara, famous designer and creative director of Muji, on Japanese aesthetics:

A central aesthetic principle in Japan is simplicity, but it is different from simplicity in the West. Let me explain the difference by comparing cooking knives. The knives made by the German company, Henckel, for example, are well crafted and easy to use because they are highly ergonomic. The thumb automatically finds its place when you grab the knife.

Japanese cooks who have special skills prefer knives without any ergonomic shape. A flat handle is not seen as raw or poorly crafted. On the contrary, its perfect plainness is meant to say, “You can use me whichever way suits your skills.” The Japanese knife adapts to the cook’s skill (not to the cook’s thumb). This is, in a nutshell, Japanese simplicity.

The knife’s simple shape is not seen as poor or raw. Beauty beyond fanciness is an aesthetic principle that is sleeping at the bottom of Japanese perception. A guiding principle also to Japanese high tech architecture and the minimal products of Muji.

(via iA)

In our time, many of us have been taught to strive for an insane perfection that means nothing. To get wholeness, you must try instead to strive for this kind of perfection, where things that don’t matter are left rough and unimportant, and the things that really matter are given deep attention. This is a perfection that seems imperfect. But it is a far deeper thing.
Christopher Alexander on the perfection of imperfection - (37signals)

Soft Clock Concept by Egor Myznik.

The hands of the clock make bulges in the glossy flexible PVC front. How minimal!

(via today and tomorrow)

We have grown accustomed to locating museum architecture along a spectrum. At one end are buildings that are sculpture in their own right; at the other, boxes that decline to compete with their contents. The Modern Wing edges toward the latter pole. “I’m a builder by training,” Piano said. “I like the idea of making good, solid safe shelters for human beings.” He wasn’t being entirely disingenuous. Laciness aside, the Modern Wing is a good, solid safe shelter for art and our enjoyment of it.
Julie Lasky — Design Observer

I saw Objectified, the second major film by director Gary Hustwit (of Helvetica), tonight at the IFC Center and it was really inspiring.

Because the film had been so hyped up on the internet since long before its release, I tried to have semi-low expectations, but that wasn’t really necessary because the film was excellent. It very fluidly covered a really wide range of topics, taught me things I didn’t know, introduced me to wonderful new-to-me and old-favorite designers and their ideas, made me laugh, and reminded me what it is about design that I love so much.

I was surprised that the reviews I had read seemed overall positive but a little lukewarm, because I really loved the film. I think it’s a very strong second swing after Helvetica, which I enjoyed but felt unresolved about in many ways.

After Objectified, I left the theater smiling, with a newly revived appreciation for everyday, invisible/good enough design.

I’m about to pass out on account of a delicious post-movie nutella, strawberry, and ice cream crepe from the nearby Creperie, but I’ll dash off some more extensive thoughts on here in the coming days.

In a design portfolio review a year ago I was asked “Why Helvetica?” I should’ve said “Because austerity is a rebellion against tastelessness.” 

22 Series Recessed Power Plug by Bocci

Cast aside the cover plate and contemplate the simplicity of a three-pronged plug laid bare. The 22 is a seamless suite of electric sockets designed to fit flush on any wall surface. From Bocci.

Extreme subtlety excites me.

When things are going well in a design, we don’t pay attention to them. We only pay attention to things that bother us. It’s like an air conditioner in a conference room. Nobody ever interrupts our meetings to tell us how comfortable the temperature is. They don’t even notice. We only notice the conference room temperature when it is too cold or too hot. Or perhaps we notice if the unit is too loud or is leaking all over the floor. But when it’s working perfectly, it becomes invisible.
Jared Spool — Great Designs Should Be Experienced and Not Seen (via stopdesign)