Tuesday, December 6, 2022
Monday, December 5, 2022
process of the process (book)
screen caps of indesign, showing the general idea of the book i’m preparing. I’m planning on making the actual book by hand, so right now I’m just sorting and laying out images to print onto the loose pages.
remember (collage)
Collage made with mixed paper, and paint. Material sourced from selected research materials (F Gale, M Roach), as well as from the obits of the Boston Globe.
notes and recollections, 15
Process books due Thursday 8 December, unless extension has been approved. For those who are getting books printed by Lulu, pdf and receipt/acknowledgement from Lulu acceptable.
update (Monday 12, December) :
I did not specify what time today the process books are due, for those who are not doing the Lulu route.
I will be at school tomorrow (Tuesday), 7:00am. I will expect to see physical copies on the seminar room table then.
Lulu versions : pdf and forwarded notification from Lulu.
Reminder: those who will continue on in Spring, update/revise proposals for the reviews on Wednesday.
collage and documentation thereof
Thinking of Dan Eldon (1970-1993), his The Journey is the Destination (Kathy Eldon, editor; 1997), borrowable (wow!) at internet archive : link
more at wikipedia : link
Socrates: “All the great arts need to be supplemented by philosophical chatter and daring speculation about the nature of things; from this source appear to come the sublimity of thought and all-round completeness which characterize them.”
Plato, Phaedrus 270 (Hamilton translation, Penguin edn) : 89
We used to read all or parts of this dialogue in Design Stories; it is devoted to love (that might be loosely translated as caritas, or even kindness) and to rhetoric (the arts of persuasion), and as such, is fully relevant to design.
see wikipedia for a summary : link
and SEP (Stanford Encylopedia of Philosophy) for an extended discussion of Plato on rhetoric : link
This passage — re: philosophical chatter — is perhaps what we’re about in Design Seminar. Working on language, that is one connection of work under way, or the stammering/stumbling toward that work, with the world and our lives in it. Moreover, it is with language that we engage with clients, partners, colleagues, developers, printers, editors and everyone else who participates with us in the practice of design.
The dialogue contains a famous passage about the superiority of spoken over written language —
“The fact is, Phaedrus, that writing involves a similar disadvantage to painting. The productions of painting look like living beings, but if you ask them a question they maintain a solemn silence. The same holds true of written words; you might suppose that they understand what they are saying, but if you ask them what they mean by anything they simply return the same answer over and over again.”
Plato, Phaedrus 274-279 (ibid.)
JM discussed this passage in the context of design in the Design Stories course blog/website, at “alphabets, writing, externalization of memory” (18 February 2008)
https://studio.montserrat.edu/gd/stories/index.htm#alphabets
(unfortunately, that website is currently unavailable, but it is backed up; printed and distributed that post, in class).
Katherine Small Gallery
mentioned several times in class. : ksmallgallery.com/
sign up for mailing list (weekly, or so, interesting posts, mainly about design/designed books)
about : link
instagram : @ksmallgallery
visit (open Fridays, Saturdays) : 108 Beacon Street, Somerville Mass 02143 (walking distance from Harvard Square, Porter Square)
trains
Steve Reich, Different Trains (Kronos Quartet performance, 1988) : link (at his website, explanation plus preview)
at youtube : link
JM favorite is “2. Radio: All Moving 4-4-4-9” (disc 2) : link
Madiun, January 1978 : link
more and better (same yard, not my photos) : link
and more (up a step) here : link
shoes
John showed shoe interior (b&w) containing the pink Pumas amidst orange/red leaves, three versions. in one, gravestones visible in upper read. JM wondered if shoes were buried. Apparently, yes.
- shoe cemetery : link (in German, but can be auto-translated)
- search for "shoe cemetery", other things come up too.
- concealed shoes (a thorough and interesting entry — on shoes as apotropaic objects — at wikipedia) : link
- Revisited Myth # 145: It was the custom to bury old shoes in a new building for good luck. (July 30, 2018) : link
- and then there are shoe trees, e.g., link (Shoe Tree of Middlegate, in Nevada) but there are others, see —
- Shoe trees (decorated plants), long list, at wikipedia : link
paused at this —
Mostly I want to be letters — not
their sounds, but their shapes
on a page. It must be exhilarating
to be a symbol for everything at once:
the bone caught in a child’s windpipe,
the venom hiding in a snake’s jaw.
— Kaveh Akbar, from “Rimrock”, Calling a Wolf a Wolf
source
Thursday, December 1, 2022
Grandmothers Hand Collages
Since I enjoy working with these hand collages, l made two collages with my maternal and parental grandmothers’ hands. I also started rotating some of the photos that are in the petals.
Wednesday, November 30, 2022
notes and recollections, 14
Several process books were put out for examination. Apparently, the online directory is unavailable (server issues?). The directory exists in print form in the green 3-ring binder: projects are indexed by (student) name and by year, and short summaries are provided in the respective pages for each year. With a very few exceptions, all process books are available — in gray boxes for recent years, and in 3-ring binders (and other unusual formats) in the file cabinet next to the printer workstation.
Process books are due on the last day of class (Thursday, 8 December); late extensions (only with permission of instructor) until Wednesday 8:00am, 14 December
brief notes re: work shown/considered on Tuesday 29 November
Sarah showed a sketch and notes that will be incorporated in pop up book(s). JM opined that these were interesting as such; see his comments to her post : link
JM mentioned “live visual note-taking;” see
ink factory. (People do this professionally.)
Josh presented visuals and sound derived from one of the index card “scores” we recently provided him. All are subjected to the same set of rules, including the same beat constant (130bpm) so that they can be combined, superimposed, etc. The new work is well underway; we can expect to see/hear two more shortly (maybe Thursday?).
Katie showed spreads from the new book (A5 size), incorporating our contributions of images and text. Bodoni, bold (or extra bold), large. The discussion was largely about principle: (1) editing others' text; and (2) showing some in large and some in small type. JM held out for the principle of making same size work for all lengths of contribution, which would mean, accommodating the longest. This need not involve more (too much?) work, assuming that paragraph styles are used.
Madison showed new houses, a whole village (or neighborhood) of them, done by relatives/friends at Thanksgiving. We continued to discuss how to present these in book, and how large that book might be. In one memorable example, the maker included lawns around the foot of the house in the template! The project continues to example “participatory” design or art.
Patrick showed a longer video/animation, with new elements — link.
The more abstract passages (the morphing cube, the fragmentary rotations of the drawn heads) were stunning (for JM anyway, who did stop motion views of those). JM suggested that Patrick focus on the art, not the self-promotion. Leon Golub — link — came to mind, somehow.
JM did some quick, rough screen grabs from that movie, which are moved to the end of this post. The portrait variations came from quick drawings Patrick made during class — marginalia, scribbles during meetings and zoom presentations, when some of us get our best drawing done!
aside —
It may have been in this context that JM talked about the virtues of websites other than templated, run-of-the-mill (boring) portfolio sites. Build websites around a theme, or a single project. And even a templated site (e.g., tumblr) can work in this regard. The website as a stand-alone and beautiful work of art and design. Don’t get out of practice, with coding, btw.
Stacey showed new collages with hands, petal/leaf fragments, fragments of photographs. JM thought these worked in many ways — about kindred, sharing, giving and receiving, exchanging, kindness — even without knowing whose hands these are. There is a certain universal quality to them, in addition to being personal to Stacey. One idea was to more freely deploy fragments of photographs, e.g., at different rotations.
Thursday (below)
John presented slides, mostly or all from wikipedia, on Puma and its relationship with Adidas.
Sarah showed a drawing/collage — link — of various (text, markings, black outline of a (symbolic) coffin. JM enthused about the drawing/collage for the rich imagery within it, suitable for further development/transformation.
That black hexagon recalled the now-renowned (and much reported, all over the place) Sandia Report (SAND92- 1382 UC-721, November 1993), being Expert Judgment on Markers to Deter Inadvertent Human Intrusion into the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant :
link
scroll down to about 160 and thereabouts...
aside—
This is a locus classicus of the limits of communication, btw. How to create a sign, or message, that will be understandable to any form of intelligence, at any time, future or past. Bottom line : they abandoned the project.
—
Stacey showed two new collages. two hands at top, two at bottom. petals, fragments of photographs between. more of the palms visible (their lines, lives lived)...
beautiful, JM thought
something about the presentation reminded JM of Ishiuchi Miyako, her photographs of clothing found in the aftermath of the Hiroshima bomb. will bring book of same, on Tuesday. meanwhile, this —
Inside the Photography of Ishiuchi Miyako
70 years after the bombing of Hiroshima, the Japanese artist imbues women’s objects from the event with a ghostly presence
Amanda Maddox, Getty Museum (Art Stories, blog) August 6, 2015
link
interesting interview with Ishiuchi (in 2021, with Yuri Mitsuda; translated from Japanese) —
Ishiuchi Miyako’s Chronicles of Time and History
The pioneering photographer speaks about the evolution of her career—and how she negotiated a field dominated by men.
link
JM feels that not knowing identities of the wearers of these clothing items, owners of these hands, etc., lends power to them.
and so, put the personal in the “postscript” or “afterword”.
Three... four films, that JM never tires of (and, indeed, get better with each viewing, over the years).
Sergio Leone (director), Once Upon a Time in the West (1969), 166 minutes
great opening sequence for Saul Bass’s typography : link (youtube)
stay for Harmonica (Charles Bronson) his arrival : link
one of the greatest westerns. Charles Bronson, Henry Fonda (Frank), Jason Robards (Cheyenne), Claudia Cardinale (Jill McBain)... Woody Strode... Ennio Morricone (score)... as good as it gets...
You can jump to the end — link
and link
— and then know to go back, see the whole.
Uchida Tomu (director), Kigakaikyo “Fugitive from the Past / Hunger Strait” (1965), 183 minutes
preview at youtube : link
wikipeda : link
above, a moment in (long) last scene, of wake from the ferry. photo is of TV screen, showing film from VCR tape.
something JM wrote about Kigakaikyo, years ago : link (scroll down to end of first “Japan” post)
Michelangelo Antonioni (director), L’Avventura (1960), 143 minutes
wikipedia : link
and other Antonioni films of that period, including La Notte (1961) and L’Eclisse (1962)
Akira Kurosawa (director), Seven Samurai (1954)... Toshiro Mifune among the samurai... great great film... emotional... (207 minutes, with intermission)
link (wikipedia)
harkens back to Japanese chambara (fighting) silent films (musei eiga) of only 15 or 20 years earlier : link (wikipedia)
—
If you ever get a chance to see any film by David Gatten, do so. Tell him JM sent you. : link (wikipedia)
aside —
notice the title of one of his films : Film for Invisible Ink case no. 323: Once upon a Time in the West (2010)
screen grabs from Patrick’s compendium self-promotion video, below.
more
Tuesday, November 29, 2022
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