Designs for 2010

In 2002, Harper’s Magazine Editor Lewis H. Lapham, cautioned that the ‘American Idea’ needed to be reinvented. At a time of a military buildup in Iraq, he said in an address to the United Nations Association’s meeting, the challenge is whether the US will succeed as a “democratic republic” or become a “national security state.” Eight years later, 2009 saw a new administration led by President Obama triaging a broken economy, broken health care and education systems. Although drawing down the number of troops in Iraq as promised in his campaign, Obama at the same time has announced a plan to step up American presence in Afghanistan. Standing on the threshold of 2010, are we answering Lapham’s call for the new “American Idea?”

I recall a day in July, 2002, when more than 4500 participants at the Listening to the City Town Meeting pondered this very idea in a day-long dialogue at the Javits Center on “Recreating Lower Manhattan Through Artistic Public Dialogue”

What is artistic dialogue or what is more popularly referred to today as “design thinking?” Artists work with different mediums and technical skills, and they have a spatially different way of seeing the world. Painters, such as myself, compose within a two-dimensional pictorial frame, while sculptors deal with the idea of ‘kinetic volume,’ with implied space surrounding a three-dimensional form. Perhaps we are drawn each to our medium by the particular way in which we ‘see.’ Seeing is the beginning point of all thinking, and “seeing” in this context incorporates all the senses—hearing, taste, smell and touch. Thinking is conceptual, and we construct our reality into layers of meaning (Langer, 1953, 95)

The Javits Center participants pored over the six architectural design submissions and engaged in lively discussions on the designed space. I realized that it is the architect who, as Langer described, takes society’s parts, organizes them, and creates a cohesive, visible entity. Once made visible, its image is in the public realm. The outside world should and must be architecture’s sanctum as well, for it is its visible context, just as the horizon provides its frame. (Langer, 1953, 96) In the aftermath of 9/11, Michael Kimmelmann reported the way in which people sought out public spaces to come together–whether at spontaneous events such as candle lightings, constructing public memorials, or the public park, the space most reflective of a city’s cultural continuity to make sense out of daily life, particularly after such an horrific event as September 11. As New York Times’ writer Herbert Muschamp, writes on the metonymic meaning of Ground Zero: “Initially its meanings were almost strictly emotional: shock, anger, fear and pain but then expanded into more complex patterns of deliberate actions undertaken by individuals and groups around the world who wish to comprehend the deeper historical meaning of 9/11.” Yet for all the devastation at Ground Zero, Stephen Gould observed that it was also the focal point of “vast web of bustling goodness, channeling uncountable deeds of kindness from an entire planet.” Though Memorial Plaza was the design picked over the other five, the participants voted down all designs for failing to be bold in design, lacking innovative and quality design. The designs, it was unanimously felt, also missed the essence of what New York is —its monumentality. While preserving the Twin Tower footprints was essential, those present thought it was just as important that the buildings visually delineate the skyline, without walling off the neighborhood with buildings that would eliminate the street grid. The principals, the participants urged, should mount an international competition to solicit designs that would not only be bold, innovative but also restore a sense of community in Lower Manhattan. By day’s end the question in the balance was would a new design represent a new American ideal that would be sustainable? As Daniel Libeskind noted in his proposal: “the great slurry walls are the most dramatic elements which survived the attack, an engineering wonder constructed on bedrock foundations and designed to hold back the Hudson River. The foundations withstood the unimaginable trauma of the destruction and stand as eloquent as the Constitution itself asserting the durability of Democracy and value of individual life.” As 2009 comes to a close, let Constructivist László Moholy-Nagy’s triumphal last paragraph of his “The New Vision” represent a human centered perspective of the new American Ideal that is represented by “constant fluctuation, sideways and upward, radiant, all-sided, announcing to man that he has taken possession, in so far as his human capacities and present conceptions allow, of imponderable, invisible, and yet omnipresent space.”

Twitter founder @TCNJ

Oprah does it, fans hope to coax Miley back who stopped, Ashton reached a million and is still going strong, and candidate Obama took campaigning to a whole new level using it. Unless you have been living in a cave, by now either you use or at least know about the internet phenomena TWITTER for letting friends, colleagues and followers know what you are doing in real time in 140 characters or less. On November 5, The College of New Jersey students and local small business owners had an opportunity to hear Jack Dorsey, creator, co-founder, and chairman of Twitter talk about what has become one of the most powerful communication tools on the web taking on a life of its own virtually from the outset. Dorsey told how Twitter’s initial target population was teenagers for what he saw as a way to fan the flame of imagination, spark conversation and celebrate curiosity. Ironically, it is adults who have embraced Twitter while teens prefer to text. Small business owners especially wanted to hear about the Twitter model and Dorsey didn’t disappoint. Here are three learnings he highlighted:
1. Communication – in designing a powerful tool for communicating on the web, the company realized it was not acting like a cohesive company in that it wasn’t blogging, doing face to face contact, to stay in touch with users. Mistakes were made, principals weren’t communicating nor were they taking time to step back and reflect and alter direction.
2. Working in public—in creating a simple utility, users could share their work with everyone. Most of the terms associated with Twitter such as tweets, hashtags, etc. were the innovation of users and they continue to define the future of Twitter to this day.
3. Unexpected inputs—the task has become how to choose something that extends, enables and sustains technology and the company. Dorsey sees his role as “editor” in defining the still evolving business model addressing such questions as how are people using it? What speaks to the pattern of value for the greatest number majority? His main challenge, as he sees it, is to know when to say “no” and part ways with some things that are no longer working.

Dorsey covered one last point that spoke to his creative process telling how one can carry an idea around in one’s head, or a bunch of ideas, indefinitely. But at some point it won’t be realized—if at all—until it is given form. Dorsey advises to put it out on paper, play with it, allow others to play with it, but most importantly, move it toward implementation. The idea may make it out, or it may not be its time. But it will never be realized if it remains abstract. So don’t pent up those ideas, put them on paper or into the ether and let them take form! Who knows–you may hold the seeds to the next great innovation! Nurture them, grow them! Get more out of Twitter by going to:
Twittertips.org
Listorious.com
Twittip.com
Twittinsecrets.com
See Forbes 21 Top Twitter Tips: http://bit.ly/3fEB8B

Global Public Policy and Service

A lively debate grew up around an UN University-sponsored event yesterday moderated by Dean Dr. Jean-Marc Coicaud and featuring Professor Lan Xue, Dean School of Public Policy and Management at Tsinghua University. The “Open to Global: Preparing a New Policymaking Generation for China” event was also streamed to students at Tsinghua and Peking Universities. Dr. Xue Lan, who received his Ph.D. in Engineering and Public Policy from Carnegie Mellon and taught at George Washington University before returning to China in 1996, covered five major points: China in Transition; Challenges of change in the Public Policy process; Responses to these changes; the program at Tsinghua University; and moving from Open to Global. China’s economic status has evolved from that of central planning to that of market driven and is now a global manufacturing hub. This has resulted in one of the world’s major migration as its rural youth has sought out opportunity in its cities in the past two decades has resulted in China moving away from a rural and closed society to urban and open society. This transition period has seen China dealing with increasing internal demands for transparency and accountability at home as well as external pressure to meet global issues such as climate change, resolving conflicts, effective financial markets and reaching trade agreements. In response, China has improved its policy deliberation processes and put in place mechanisms to create learning systems within government as well as external independent think tanks. Interestingly, some of the issues raised in the Q&A were not unique to China such as: how do schools build in public service and produce public servants who are not self-serving but responsive to the majority of the people? How do schools internationalize curricula that, in the West moves it away from the position of power, and in the East produces future leaders who will question underlying assumptions and challenge the status quo? How do schools foster superb critical thinking skills in order to offset studying for extremely competitive entrance exams in China and standardized tests in America as well as Europe? How will China deal with Western influences of individualism and market forces and greed that has penetrated its ideological vacuum? What this writer found interesting is that the Q&A touched on a discussion of the influence of Confucius and China’s relationship with nature. It must be noted that China has a long tradition of grooming public servants and these literati were devoted to lifelong learning and nurturing their intuitions through the “Three Perfections” of painting, calligraphy and poetry. For the Chinese, art was never separate from daily life and the individual saw to the continuous process of self-cultivation so that one not only participated in one’s own self-transformation but that of the community and the world as well. If China taps into even a small portion of its own cultural DNA it could have great ramifications at home and abroad.

http://bit.ly/3MyQj9

Design Council Slide Collection Now Online

Today’s announcement of the slide collection of the prestigious Design Council in the UK is being made public online will surely be welcomed the world over. As David Kester, Chief Executive of the Design Council, puts it ‘The collection is an incredibly rich resource for anyone interested in design.’ Kester makes an interesting observation noting ‘In particular, it demonstrates the Design Council’s long track record of promoting the use of design to strengthen the UK’s economy and improve society.’ Here in the U.S., design studios making their presence as part of Business School curriculum. The announcement goes on to say that ” the slide collection was transferred to the Manchester Metropolitan University in 1995, and since then a series of digitisation projects have resulted in over 13,000 images (nearly two-thirds of the
collection) being made available online through the Visual Arts Data
Service (VADS).” This fantastic resource houses several collections that show a wide variety of products such as: tableware, furniture, lighting, toys, domestic appliances, textiles, machinery as well as such areas of design as architecture, town planning, interior and graphic design and corporate identity.
To link to the online collection: http://www.vads.ac.uk/collections/index.html

The Art of Sustainability. Third in the Design series.

Last week I attended the University and College Art Educators Conference, UCAE, on the Future of Arts Education in this Time of Economic and Political Turmoil. The sub-title should have read “Or in anytime for that matter.” With all the crises and challenges facing the world today, can’t we art educators stand up and take charge once and for all?! Innovation, Creativity, and Sustainability are the sounding mantras of what is needed and yet we are still debating the value of the arts?! In the past few decades, we have seen America’s trade deficit continually increase while its competitive edge continues to decline along with the ingenuity it once prided itself on. As Ken Robinson likes to point out, as he travels the world over the education system is the same: math, language are at the top of the scale and the arts are relegated to the bottom of the list if at all. Yet even with arts inclusion, Robinson declares, “schools kill creativity.” How can we begin to look out on the world around us and address sustainability when what is needed is as Robinson sees it, human ecology. We haven’t addressed sustainable human value, or we de-valued it by “vulcanizing”* children. A study on innovation is highlighted today on the HBR blog. The chief finding in innovative individuals is inquisitiveness. Four year olds excel at this skill by asking questions, but they will stop asking questions just a short two years later. As a result, children will grow into adults who have lost their sense of curiosity, and discovery and wonder about the world around them. And the consequences? Today’s workforce lacks an entire skill set: 1. associating – making connections especially among seemingly disparate subjects. 2. questioning- inquiring into the “what ifs” of a situation (or why and why not’s). 3. Ability to play, and experiment, test concepts and explore possibilities which are endless. Unfortunately, we are locked into the a world of “it is what it is” or “go for the low hanging fruit.” Doesn’t that just make you jump out of bed every morning! ~to be continued.
*Kerry S. Walters
Professors Jeff Dyer of Brigham Young University, Hal Gregersen of Insead, and Clay Christensen of HBS further explore this topic in an article which will appear in the December issue of Harvard Business Review.
HBR Blog: http://bit.ly/VMpNc
Ken Robinson Ted Talk: http://bit.ly/2tkgtH

Designerly Ways of Knowing. 2nd in series.

In Designerly Ways of Knowing Professor of Design Studies at The Open University,UK, Nigel Cross puts forth his research that Design has a legitimate place alongside the other two major areas of education of the humanities and the sciences. For Professor Cross, Design brings intrinsic value to education: first, it develops a different approach to problem-solving; second, it supports constructive thinking, or abduction, rather than deductive or inductive reasoning; it addresses a cognitive mode not used in other disciplines such as nonverbal modes. For example, Design depends on visual methods such as drawings, diagrams and sketches as not only aids to internal thinking but also for communicating ideas and instructions to others. It is worth noting that the strongest point Cross makes is that a designer’s approach is solution-based rather than problem-based. To this reader, that indicates a major shift from looking at something that has worked in the past and instead looking to the possibility of designing for the future.

I recommend reading Designerly Ways of Knowing with these two caveats: first, though published in 2006, the section on neuroscience is not up to date. Cross adheres to the left-right hemisphere split of rational on the left, and creative on the right whereas recent studies show activity across different areas of the brain depending on the complexity of tasks being performed. As Jessy Dorn cites in her paper on Betty Edwards’ book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain Kandel, Schwartz and Jessel argue in their 1995 textbook Essentials of Neural Science and Behavior, one can only extrapolate so much from this finding:
It is sometimes said that our brain consists of a left hemisphere that excels in intellectual, rational, verbal, and analytical thinking and a right hemisphere that excels in sensory discrimination and in emotional, nonverbal, and intuitive thinking. However, in the normal brain, with extensive commissural interconnections, the interaction of the two hemispheres is such that we cannot dissociate clearly their specialized functions.

Also in defining why Design can take its place as a stand-alone area of education, Cross states the reason that it systematizes concepts that were for the most part “intuitive” in programs such as that of the Bauhaus in Weimar Germany in the 1920’s and 1930’s and was one of the birthplaces he Modern Movement in architecture and design. Not only were its concepts clearly logical but also they had to have aesthetic relevance to the culture. Still Cross’ work is important as the concept of designer thinking and seeing is coming to the forefront and being adapted to Business School programs as an integral part of its curriculum. Also Columbia University is including Cross’ work in seminars on innovative teaching in education.
Sources:
The Bauhaus http://bit.ly/13qrAI
Jessy Dorn http://bit.ly/p8JpP
Edwards, Betty. Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. Tarcher/Putnam,1999.

Kandel, Schwartz, and Jessel. Essentials of Neural Science and Behavior. Appleton & Lange, 1995.

Understanding by design. First in a series

In June, I attended 2009 Global Forum of the Business as an Agent for World Benefit at Case Western Reserve University. The conference centered around 3 themes: management as design; massive innovation; along with design education practices. Design is an interesting concept: painters contend with two-dimensional design, sculptors with three-dimensional design and architects with the virtual design of space. So in this series I want to explore different approaches to design: topics covered at the conference as well as from other sources. A recent column written about golf spurred me to begin this series–that’s right, golf. NY Times columnist Tom Friedman wrote in “59 Is the New 30″ about Tom Watson’s historic performance at the British Open at age 59 who tied for lead for four rounds in a playoff to 36-year old Stewart Cink but ultimately lost unable to par on the last hole. What does it have to do with design? Well, Friedman notes how baseball, basketball and football are all played on flat surfaces designed to give true bounces. Not so with golf. The uneven surfaces instead pack surprises which Friedman likens to life. But it also likens to art and design. I am suspicious of artists or designers who “control” their process from start to finish and inhibit that “bounce” from entering their work. That is where the rubber meets the road on how well you can think on your feet, persevere, be surprised, be flexible, seize an opportunity, and see until now, “unseen” worlds. Watson was rueful afterward on the hard lesson of learning from defeat not victory. But as Friedman concluded, Watson gave all who watched an “incredible lesson in possibilities” and that is the mark not only of a gentleman golfer but a true artist-designer. Read Friedman’s column: http://bit.ly/XTJXL

Master Dance Class

Two art giants passed this week: the choreographer Merce Cunningham and the writer Frank McCourt. Both found their outlets in dance–Cunningham with a vision of seeing bodies as movement in space and McCourt through literature which he referred to as “the dancing words.” As true artists both were inventive. Merce Cunningham incorporated dissonant elements in his dance forms such as the element of chance. He likened the I Jing, The Book of Changes, as reading one’s fortune and accepting the roll of the die and played with the dance forms that appeared as if by chance. Frank McCourt, ever the storyteller, could invent “on his feet” often taking an unintentional cue from his interviewer and developing it into an idea on the spot. When asked what his favorite pickup line was he replied “Would you like to have adventures?” That worked? Sometimes–they were amused but I don’t think enchanted. Are you single? he asked turning the tables on the interviewer. “I’m married. She’s immune.” to which McCourt replied jocularly “Marriage is a process of gaining immunity.” I recall a fascinating anecdote from Cunningham. He was on tour with his company and ready to leave the hotel at 8:00 a.m. but was delayed 2 hours because the bus had broken down and needed repairs. All packed with nothing to do, he sat at the desk and started to draw a tree outside the window on the hotel pad of paper. Another knock on the door and a man inquired ready to go, Mr Cunningham? I thought you said we weren’t leaving until 10:00 a.m.? It is 10:00 a.m. Cunningham realized that he was so engrossed in his drawing that he was unaware of the passage of time. From then on, he drew every morning to stay nimble in both hand and mind by feeding his imagination.
See article in Obit magazine on both these master artists:

http://www.obit-mag.com/

For full interview by Daniel Asa Rose

http://bit.ly/7SqGy

Should art be political?

From Bill Moyers website: This week on the JOURNAL, Bill Moyers spoke with poet W.S. Merwin, who recently won the Pulitzer Prize. During the taping of the interview, Merwin argued that political poetry rarely makes for good art. This is my comment:Great question, Bill. I have been thinking lately on a growing perception that museums be seen as social agents in their communities. Getting people in the doors to have a deep experience and reflect on that experience seems to me to be a most worthwhile undertaking in and of itself. I recently came across this entry on Percy Bysshe Shelley, the English Romantic Poet who said that the imagination is the great instrument of moral good and poetry administers to the effect by acting upon the causes. However, Shelley identified as the lesser poets as those who have frequently affected a moral aim, and the effect of their poetry is diminished in exact proportion as they compel others to follow this or that purpose. I too feel that cultivating the imagination creates a future rich with possibilities and empowers people to choose that possibility that suits them best not something imposed on them from others.
Visit the site and post a comment:

http://bit.ly/eG1nn

Long Live Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens, the foremost English novelist of the Victorian Era, died on this date, June 9, 1870. Recently, I attended a conference in Cleveland and visited its main library which is a great historic building downtown. The literature department on the third floor featured an exhibit highlighting the works of Charles Dickens along with critical studies on his works. The following is from Malcolm Andrews’ Charles Dickens and his performing selves: “In 1841, Dickens declared to his readers ‘to commune with you, in any form, is to me a labour of love.’ He was confessing to what became a life-long professional commitment and a species of private addiction. Communication with his public in any form, but particularly as a writer and Reader, was his route to the community of feeling, the sense of shared life.” Andrews goes on to distinguish the difference between ‘commune’ and ‘communicate’ in the way in which Dickens was to maintain an extraordinarily energetic level of communion with the public, particularly his readers, on a journey to personal intimacy with those who had come to know and depend on him for more than twenty years. Is it any wonder that Dickens’ works retain not only a fresh immediacy and continue to resonate with readers to the present day. For example, I never tire of the lesson that it is never too late to change and begin anew as in “The Christmas Carol.”