Rick's position in relation to the conference. He feels like a an interloper. He's not an educator and is an outsider and is viewing from the outsider. Educators take every single student seriously. As a journalist he's looking for something extraordinary. He has to see from two directions.
Refers to Living Principles diagramming placing First Things First manifesto on the ideological extreme. (Emigre 1999). Rick got a lot of feedback from students and it he was happy that it provoked discussion - which was the intention. Still evokes sceptical questions. What came of FTF is that it might be internalized. A reversal of priorities and A new kind of meaning where what the manifesto was a about -- politics. Perhaps we need to more political about it?
In the 90s there were a lot of books and documents reflecting this difference -- which was really about the critique of capitalism. Consumption and Consumer behavior is the condition -- an Empire of Signs.
We keep coming back to what are we really going to do to change ourselves.
Ken Garland- Keeps his FTF message going and others have put forth ideas of austerity - Vows of Chastity manifesto, Eatock's "No Manifesto." Represents a paring down -- like Experimental Jetset. Conviction of "preferring not too."
The New Panacea: Design Thinking
Rick is skeptical. Idea was popularized through Time and Bruce Nussbarum in Business Week. Designers don't know what design thinking is. If design is going to have a future it needs to become aware of design thinking. Rick is particularly skeptical of the rhetoric which in some way in packaging the obvious -- like "human-centered" or "design thinking" Understanding that the motivation regardless of how its packaged is about selling product.
There's a sense of vagueness about we're actually talking about. Bruno Munari talks about a balance life.
Design as Culture: An ethical imperative
The ethics that Rick want to raise is "in what way design culture?" Designers are not good at talking about in what way is design culture. The argument is not made fully. Rick is hearing rhetoric that designers were too occupied with form not taking the reader, the consumer, etc. now we have to involve people but what are we involving the user in? What is just giving an illusion of participation? Is it just giving a feeling of involvement without really giving agency. (He recognizes that he's being provocative.)
He thought design was saying interesting things and that why as a non-designer he became interested in design. It was not a passive experience he realized. No just about consumerism. A fully aesthetic and visualized culture is important and has value - a necessity in society! Don't lose sight of the visual dimension. What will happen next if we give up on the visual expression it will emerge somewhere else - it will come from someone else than designers. We would all be out of jobs.
Czech posters from early 60s. It was a close knit community. There was an outdoor exhibition as the posters were shown in a cluster. Vitality freedom exhilaration. What a graphic culture has accomplished historically and what it still is capable of accomplishing. It's about culture because it contributes to our visual lives. It demonstrates the possibility of c
"The true poltical potential of a designed object is foremost located in its aesthetic dimension." Experimental Jetset, 2009. The young designers are say its not in the participation but show the richness of life. This is a deeply empowering thing to do.
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