I am a forty-year-old mid-career graphic designer expanding into new fields of inquiry. By “new fields,” I mean the grey areas of exploration that are new to me and that exist between design, writing, architecture and art. These explorations take place beyond the day-to-day of my profession yet parallel it in ways that enrich my thinking as a whole. Call it interdisciplinary, trans-disciplinary, or a cross-pollinated leap of faith; I’ve been preparing for this transition from specialist to generalist for the past seventeen years.

All in all, I find myself at the beginning again (Of what? I don’t really know.) But, unlike the day I began my career, this time I am equipped with a cohesive set of ideas that provide a new framework for thinking and making.

Here are a few that I am currently exploring:

Everything is Text

My earliest memories of reading involve the Hammond World Atlas, the Encyclopedia Britannica, National Geographic Magazine, The Guinness Book of World Records, and my brothers’ copy of Boy Scout Handbook. I remember being most fascinated by the idea of the book and magazine as containers for worlds of information. The organization of words and images seemed almost magical in that I could not understand how something as ethereal as one’s thoughts materialized onto the plane of a printed page. I was and still am captivated by the ritual gestures of flipping and scanning; that is, the sensate experience of print as a medium. Indeed, it is as much the medium as it is the message that makes the act of reading an act of joy.¹ I am shaped by my early reading habits and all things have become text—artifacts or ideas to be experienced, interpreted and synthesized.

The Medium is the Model²

In his essay ”On the Crisis of Our Models“ philosopher Vilém Flusser states, “Models are tools for orientation in the world. They are meant to facilitate answers to questions of the type: “Where am I and what can I do to go someplace else?”³ According to Flusser, in addition to the human body, models can be technologies that are used to store and interpret information. These include writing, print and electronic media (e. g. film, video and TV). In the same way, historian and philosopher Walter J. Ong argues that technologies restructure human consciousness.⁴ In Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word, Ong describes how the onset of literacy (i. e. writing and print) transformed the worldview of oral cultures.

Both Flusser and Ong deal with moments of transition. While Ong focuses on the historical and psychodynamic effects of these moments, Flusser frames the idea of transition in terms of crisis thereby suggesting a need for a corresponding action or response. In relation to our own temporality, Ong’s observations are useful in terms of developing an awareness of where we are situated in the trajectory of human and technological development. Likewise, despite being published in 1991, Flusser’s essay remains relevant because our traditional models continue to fail us. He argues that we can no longer afford to interpret things in a strictly linear (or writing- and print-biased) fashion. Certainly, his mantra would be that post-industrial⁵ times demand post-industrial models.

It is important to note that in the essay, Flusser referred to film, video and TV as the models of new media. Although our models have changed since then (e. g. we now look toward the Web, PDAs, social media and apps), we have only scratched the surface in terms of understanding them in relation to human consciousness.

In graduate school, a professor repeatedly posed a question that is forever imprinted on my mind: “How do you image a network?”⁶ Looking back now, I believe he was well aware that the medium is the model.

From Text to Context

We have transformed into what sociologist Manuel Castells calls a network society⁷ or network culture⁸ as defined by Kazys Varnelis, Director of the Network Architecture Lab at the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation. Both terms are used to distinguish our contemporary condition from the prior stage of the Information or Digital Age that first introduced the computer into everyday life. We are now witnessing a period in which the broadcast or top-down system of knowledge distribution is being superseded by the network or rhizomatic⁹ system of the Internet. Because of this, information is more readily accessible and user-generated content has become the norm. With the influx of laptops, PDAs, social media and newer technologies like the iPad, we are increasingly being confronted with the problem of information overload or rather, according to writer and New York University professor Clay Shirky, “filter failure.”¹⁰“Whether we see it or not, we’re becoming editors ourselves”¹¹ says Liz Danzico, co-founder and chairperson of the MFA Interaction Design Program at the School of Visual Arts. Moreover, like curators we must give context to the available content.

Within the past few years there has been much focus on design thinking,¹² perhaps it is time to instill a new ethos of building and organizing; namely to create alliances between cultural producers (e. g. artists, designers and writers), information specialists (e. g. librarians, archivists and programmers) and lawyers (i. e. in the area of intellectual property and the public domain) who will work together to maintain what Harvard Law School professor Yochai Benkler refers to as “the networked information economy.”¹³

A Set of Objects, A Sequence of Events

Vilém Flusser pointed out that “the word design is both a noun and a verb.”¹⁴  In this sense, design is a thing and a thing-in-the-making. It is both object and event. Philosopher John Dewey goes further to explain that objects are “events-with-meanings.”¹⁵ In essence, design is an act of becoming or an idea in motion. It is a set of objects or a sequence of events that is sometimes ephemeral and at other times durable. Out of these sets and sequences emerges a set logic applied to the whole. Social-cultural anthropologist Arjun Appadurai feels that, “Our job is to determine how these sets [and sequences] connect to larger sets or systems.¹⁶ He asks, “How do we find proper meanings of objects [or events] and meaningful arrangements?”¹⁷ In short, what it all comes down to is context.

Note: This essay is a work-in-progress. I, too, am a work-in-progress forever in beta mode.

[Slightly modified version of an essay submitted to the Winterhouse Awards for Design Writing & Criticism, June 2010]

¹ McLuhan, Marshall. The Medium is the Message. Bantam Books/Random House, 1967.

²Ibid.

³ Flusser, Vilém. Writings. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2002.

⁴ Ong, Walter J. Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word. New York: Methuen, 1982.

⁵ Bell, Daniel. The Coming of Post-Industrial Society: A Venture in Social Forecasting. New York: Basic Books, 1973.

⁶Kaplan, Geoff. Masters of Fine Arts in Design program. California College of the Arts. San Francisco, CA. 2004.

⁷Castells, Manuel. The Rise of the Network Society (The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture, Volume 1). Malden: Blackwell Publishers, 1996.

⁸Varnelis, Kazys. 2007. “The Rise of Network Culture.” Conclusion to Networked Publics [online] cited May 31, 2010. http://varnelis.net/the_rise_of_network_culture

⁹Deleuze, Gilles, and Félix Guattari. A thousand plateaus: capitalism and schizophrenia. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987.

¹⁰Shirky, Clay. 2008. “It’s not information overload. It’s filter failure.” [online] cited May 31, 2010. http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10142298-16.html

¹¹Danzico, Liz. “The Art of Editing: The New Old Skills for a Curated Life.” Interactions January/February 2010.

¹²Brown, Tim. Change by Design. New York: HarperCollins, 2009.

¹³Benkler, Yochai. The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.

¹⁴Flusser, Vilém. The Shape of Things: A Philosophy of Design. London: Reaktion Books, 1999.

¹⁵Dewey, John. Experience and Nature. New York: Dover Publications, 1958.

¹⁶Appadurai, Arjun. “Designer Humanity: How Objects Seek Meaning” (lecture).  Parsons The New School for Design. New York, NY. February 7, 2007.

¹⁷Ibid.

1

Battles, Matthew. “commonplacing & the modern longue durée.” [Weblog entry.] library ad infinitum: the republic of letters & the storm called progress. 23 Dec. 2009. 23 Dec. 2009. <http://mbattles.posterous.com/commonplacing-and-the-modern-longue-duree>

Battles discusses why fragmentary reading practices of today (e. g. clicking, linking, blogging, and tweeting) “evoke patterns that made humanism possible.” In previewing his Barnes & Noble review of The Case of Books by Robert Darnton, Battles states:

What I find evocative in Darnton’s description of commonplacing is its striking similarity to some of the energies we like to think the web has created or unleashed…. Elsewhere in the chapter, he declares that early modern readers read “segmentally, by concentrating on small chunks of text and jumping from place to place and jumping from book to book…” does it sound familiar?

[Confession: I do admit to being a fragmentary reader (the Internet has made this more apparent) but I also make a ritual of reading some texts repeatedly. For example, I often re-read certain works by Jorge Luis Borges and parts of Species of Spaces and Other Pieces by Georges Perec.]

2

Borges, Jorge Luis. “Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote.” Labyrinths: Selected Stories & Other Writings. 13^th ed. New York: New Directions Publishing Corp., 1964. Print.

In “Kafka and His Precursors,” Borges states:

The fact is that every writer creates his own precursors.

That is, every writer is a reader and thus writes, knowingly or unknowingly, under the influence of preceding texts. In the case of Pierre Menard, Borges once again depicts the reader-writer as palimpsest. Here, the process of reading is unraveled as the “subterranean” work of every writer. Unlike his “visible” works, Menard writes the Quixote by reading it and despite being exactly the same word-for-word as created by Cervantes, the text becomes enriched by Menard’s everyday reality and prior reading experiences. Borges describes Menard’s impossible quest to compose “the Quixote itself” in this manner: 

To be, in some way, Cervantes and reach the Quixote seemed less arduous to him—and, consequently, less interesting—than to go on being Pierre Menard and reach the Quixote through the experiences of Pierre Menard.

[This is one of those “certain works of Jorge Luis Borges” that I often re-read and with each reading a different word or phrase catches my eye. What will I find ten years from now? Perhaps Borges will make me the fool. Perhaps not.]

3

lgnlgn, comp. kshpatel [Kush Patel]. #endofarchitecturetexts. [Twitter thread.] a.aaaarg.org. 21 Dec. 2009 – 30 Dec. 2009. 04 Jan. 2010 <http://a.aaaarg.org/node/8070>

This thread is about the state of architectural criticism at the beginning of the 21st century. It was the impetus behind the proposals for the Public School New York classes, The Page + the Screen: Siting Text in the Early 21st Century and Beyond and Texts + Textures: A Writing Workshop. It is also a formative document of the lgnlgn forum.

It is important to note that at the tail end of the thread, the discussion turned toward how conversations like these, which are distributed across multiple platforms, will eventually be archived and interpreted. Beyond this thread, there are still questions that loom. For example, with the introduction of newer technologies and their applications, what happens to the ways in which we read and write? In relation to Twitter and other social media, can these fragmented texts be defined as a form of criticism? If so, do they have the ability to stand alone as such? Where are they situated within a body of knowledge or canon?

[After participating in this thread, I came to this conclusion: Twitter is indexical in that it points toward larger conversations happening elsewhere.] 

Here are excerpts from the latter part of the thread (To read chronologically, start from the bottom.). As noted within the thread, these fragments taken out of context may not have much of an impact here:

TommyManuel @kshpatel true. depends on the intent I suppose. dialog vs. a one-way dissemination of thought. #endofarchitecturetexts 5 days ago from Seesmic

kshpatel @TommyManuel or not ‘cause twitterings are descriptive and conversational, about exchange and emergence (?) #endofarchitecturetexts 5 days ago from web

TommyManuel @kshpatel I believed the 140 chrtr limit would have appealed to many past arch. manifesto writers. #endofarchitecturetexts 5 days ago from web

loudpaper Gillick 1972. 28 year later and we’ve lost the emerald pills. #endofarchitecturetexts http://twitpic.com/vhi3l 5 days ago from Echofon

kshpatel “To have an archi. theorist use twitter as an exclusive vehicle to communicate is totally conceivable” ~ Tschumi. #endofarchitecturetexts 5 days ago from web

sevensixfive … and all the more so when you’re talking about a tweet about a blog post, about an email, about an article … #endofarchitecturetexts 5 days ago from web

sevensixfive … saving links to delicious that were sent via twitter - how fragmented will this conversation look in five years? #endofarchitecturetexts 5 days ago from web

4

loud paper [Mimi Zeiger]. “blue lobsters.” Junk Jet #3, Flux Us, Flux You. [Weblog entry.] loud paper. 02 Mar. 2010. 02 Mar. 2010. <http://loudpaper.typepad.com/loudpaper/2010/03/blue.html>

Not unlike the era in which manuscript shifted to print, the digital age has brought with it a similar rise in hybrid or, what Zeiger calls, “mutant” publications. Today’s incunabula are half-analog, half-digital—a result of the proliferation of affordable Print-on-Demand (POD) technologies, online publishing platforms and social media. In this article, Zeiger focuses on small DIY architecture and art publications including The Holster (which she describes as “performative”), POD early adopter, the Situated Technologies Pamphlet Series, and her own blog-zine, loud paper. For those who feel that the Web killed print (and theory, for that matter), Zeiger provides this:

But given that experiments in other media could now be taken to define much of architectural practice, I prefer to call these half-breeds “mutants.” Living between paper and screen, mutants are part of publishing’s evolution, even if a specific characteristic proves too unwieldy to pass on to the next generation. 

5

Ong, Walter J. Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word. 4^th ed. New York: Methuen & Co. in association with Methuen, Inc., 1987. Print.

This book discusses human culture’s shift from primary orality to secondary orality. The earlier represents the stage in which words were purely sounds, when humans communicated mainly through speech while the latter is representative of culture after writing and print; primarily after the introduction of electronics such as the radio, TV and the computer. Ong argues that new technologies (in this case, writing, print and electronics) restructure the human consciousness. He goes on to explain that although this is true, characteristics of the earlier culture remain embedded (interiorized/embodied) in the newer processes of communication.

[A few notes after re-reading this book, but this time from the middle to the end then back again through the beginning:

As new technology emerges, old technology becomes interiorized/embodied. At that point, more reflective criticism of older technologies may also emerge. Criticism takes place from a distance.

In primary oral culture, the word was sound, event and action.

In chirographic culture, and more evidently in typographic/print culture, the word became visual, static and enclosed. The knower was separated from the known. The author became distanced from the reader and vice versa. Network culture allows the opportunity to close the gap (or not).

In network culture, the word becomes linked into action.

Screen logic encourages us to forever be in beta mode. Change is the constant.

With search engine mentality, we dip into, out of, and back again into real-time flow to aggregate many-platformed interactions, objects, texts, and experiences.

Network culture is reliant on organizational methods and tools. Thus, the roles of curator and editor are ever popular.]           

6

“Reading (In) the Future.” The Agenda with Steve Paikin. Prod. Wodek Szemberg. [Web Video.] TVO. 16 Dec. 2009. 21 Dec. 2009. <http://www.tvo.org/cfmx/tvoorg/theagenda/index.cfm?page_id=7&bpn=779675&ts=2009-12-16%2020:00:00.0>

Done in conjunction with TVO series, Empire of the Word, this broadcast features among its guests, Bob Stein, founder and Co-Director of The Institute for the Future of the Book (and TPSNY Page + Screen facilitator). Topics include reading as a discipline, what we read vs. how we read, writing and technology, collaborative reading and writing, the economic and ecological impact of new technologies within the publishing industry, and new models for publishing.

+++++++++++++++++

The Page + The Screen Ann-o-tated Bibliography is a limited edition unbound pamphlet published by The Public School New York. It will be available for purchase at The Public School Benefit Party on May 22. After the event, copies will be on sale at Dexter Sinister.

We’re thinking of doing a bit of a remix, possibly Jonathan Lethem style with a nod to DJ Spooky.

Smithson realized, of course, that the very act of textualizing this material was one of building spatiality back into it, of producing those oppositions and differences necessary to open the surface to the intelligibility of reading and the organization of form. He quoted the paleontologist Edwin Colbert saying: “Unless the information gained from the collecting and preparing of fossils is made available through the printed page, assemblage specimens is [sic] essentially a pile of meaningless junk.” It was the conflict between the “junk” and the “text” that seemed to fascinate him.

From A User’s Guide to Entropy by Rosalind Krauss, Published in October 78, MIT Press, Cambridge Mass., 1996 and in Formless: A User’s Guide by Yve-Alain Bois and Rosalind Krauss, Zone Books, 1997.

Archfarm: non-periodical fascicles on architecture

Hybrid formats provide opportunities to speak in-between and around larger subjects.

Loud, Crowded, and Out of Control: A New Model for Scholarly Publishing by Mark Sample (@samplereality). Sample’s post is a response to Dan Cohen’s The Social Contract of Scholarly Publishing.

The digital makes reading and writing an event. It is up to the reader to filter the noise. Sooner or later, critical thinking will be the skill in high demand.

When we talk through the screen, we sometimes forget that there may be millions of others listening. Or, not.

Video by sween