What is Theory? (Class Overview & Discussion)

So What is Theory? was an intense class. Jonathan Cutler does his best to describe theory in language that anyone who doesn't have a PHD in English Literature can grasp. Here are some of his bite sized pieces:

The Four main points of theory:

• Theory is interdisciplinary—discourse with effects outside an original discipline

• Theory is analytical and speculative—an attempt to work out what is involved in what we call sex or language or writing or meaning of the subject” [or what we call graphic design]

• Theory is reflexive, thinking about thinking, enquiry into the categories we use in making sense of things, in literature and in other discursive practices.” [graphic design anyone?]

• The intimidation factor of theory is that it cannot be contained and is always being revised.

As a class we were able to digest most of this, but it was hard to see how this murky, speculative thing called theory could apply to our own practice (and more specifically our theses). What we discovered was that it is pretty hard to have a conversation about theory itself. Because it is a moving target, because it spans across so many disciplines it becomes almost impossible to talk about theory in concrete terms.

For me it felt like a meta-coversation. We kept talking in circles and the discussion kind of imploded on itself. Maybe you all feel differently? We kept trying to use past CalArts master's theses as examples and it got pretty heated. Were we analyzing the projects’ expression or their theories?

Culler's brief outline did give me the satisfaction of knowing that theory is a slippery creature. You are supposed to realize it is an ever-shifting organism with it's tentacles in just about everything. Sounds kind of like graphic design to me...

Comments

[Steph]

Interesting and thoughtful post, Silas.

In regards to why it was so difficult to talk about theory, I wonder if we merely fell into the trap that so many in modern liberal arts academia do - to obsess over the relevance and nature of theory rather than seeing it as a tool.

Perhaps it's more productive to talk about theory in relationship not just to theses topics, but in terms of real-world projects.

I often think that theory ends up being a scapegoat - we use it to support our own need to validate our point of view, instead of utilizing theory as a way of seeing new possibilities.

So if Foucault is talking about upturning power relationships, I would have liked our class discussion to turn to real-world examples that are just as complicated to pick apart (e.g. is the "Truth" campaign a resistance to the power of the media, or simply playing into the game that "the media knows best"?).

[Silas]

Good points Steph.

I do think theory is often a scapegoat. Largely because it is misunderstood. You say theory and it sprouts to mind navel gazing, and William Drenttel and Jessica Helfand’s old rant of grad thesis about dryer lint, and how a graphic designer feels on a given day.

I think a discussion of the Truth campaign could be a fruitful one. It's definitely a memorable campaign, mostly because of it's guerrillaesque approach, but I think Focucault would say that it's just playing within the sandbox that mass media defines. And what little territory that was expanded has been coopted again since. This morning I saw "guerrilla sidewalk" ad for Fox's new series "'Till death." So even a communication space that was carved out to be subversive, hip, or underground becomes mainstream. Blogging is great example of this.

But how would could a discussion like that help your practice as a graphic designer? It tells you what not to do? What’s been done? If you buy into Foucault's argument it just means anything you do is bound to be co-opted and add to the collective meaninglessness of any one message. That's rather depressing. If that's theory, I think I could do without it.

[Steph]

Okay, here's me trying to put my money where my mouth is:

Let's take the Truth campaign - I could advocate that despite it exploiting a kind of "youth language" - it's effective. And whether or not you agree, the fact that style has a meaning connected to it can be seen as productive.

It's surely a more morally productive exploitation of style than Barry Deck's "Stardusting" of Coca-Cola.

And does the "stylizing" of it make that campaign "inauthentic"? I don't have an answer - it seems better than asking skaters to proclaim "I don't smoke" as they may have 50 years ago, but maybe there is a more effective and "truthful" way to execute the campaign - giving kids video recorders to represent their own experience instead of being didactic with the stunts they put on.

---But in the end, I feel like the above questioning moves us forward - "so if it isn't working, what will?" I don't believe everything has been tried yet - it may have been THOUGHT about, but not actually tried.

That's what I worry most about theory - it paralyzes more than it creates.

[Silas]

Okay I'll suspend the morbid aspect of theory (we have plenty of nay-sayers to theory)

I think the Truth campaign is great. I think it works. It does expand the notion of what an ad campaign is. But I think your idea to put the cameras in the hands of young people is better (maybe they did this in some form of the Truth ideation process, but it seems too glossy/polished for that to be the case, any correct me if they know otherwise). I think your idea is a good example of how theory can expand the notion of graphic design.

One assumptions your idea questions is that graphic design is a visually crafted message from a designer to an audience. In your proposal the audience becomes part of the design process (not in a focus group way, and not a superficial contest a la a recent campaign from Converse ). It's a lot like some of the ideas in Sheila de Bretteville’s essay from 1973, “Some aspects of Design from the Perspective of a Woman Designer” where she manipulates the top down hierarchal notion of the designer shooting messages down to the audience from their quiver of form.

So this is not a new idea, but it could support your theory about a different (and perhaps better approach) can reinvigorate the practice of graphic design. So there. Theory can (and does) evolve practice.

In regards to your question of authenticity, I don’t think form or styling by itself is inauthentic. It has to be consider in the context it’s presented. Of course the dark interpretation of Derrida is that nothing is out side of “text” everything is complicit to it’s sign, and therefore the world is only as authentic as you let it be.

Society as a whole and design society has created frames of understanding, so a train of thought like this doesn’t get out of hand. We have ethics and morality. We have the First Things First manifesto. Yada Yada Yada. Graphic design as a practice involves some kind of manipulation of signs (visual, verbal, strategic, ideological), so I’m less interested in this question. But maybe someone can suggest a trajectory where this could go?

[Stephanie Chen]

Great thoughts, Silas.

I like your invocation of Sheila de Bretteville because I think that we underestimate where we are in theory - everyone is rushing to have the next Marxist revelation, when perhaps we have yet to really play out the theories that were already available to us.

In other words, despite the 20 year lapse from the Ms. de Bretteville's work, have we truly tried to put her ideas into practice?

And I think once we do, it'll be natural for new theories to spring up, because we'll have some evidence as to what does or does not work, and new ideas of how to move forward.

In many ways, this parallels the change in how our own thesis process is being managed - it is not enough for us to simply theorize and then make, but rather to theorize WHILE we make, that they work hand-in-hand to bringing us forward.

So I agree, that theory can evolve practice, but really only when it works WITH practice.

[Lu]

Oh my god! I feel terrible. This theory thing has taken a curious trajectory. It's getting WAY too complicated and sounds like such a nasty thing we should exterminate as soon as possible. But I think there's still some fundamental confusions about what theory is.

Let me try to parse some of the confusions.
First, and very important to this conversation, Culler was using Foucalt and Derrida as examples of theory, NOT definitions. I almost think all the confusion would have been avoided if we'd stopped the reading before these examples. (Or maybe not ;-))
What's so funny about the banter between you and Stephanie is that Culler wrote What is Theory? to address the"accusations" and confusion. Oh well.

All Culler is saying (and that Teira perfectly packaged) is that theory is the inquiry that pushes the practice. Every idea that has pushed graphic design forward in this century was a theory.
If you consider every ground-breaking designer you can name, the reason their work cut new territory, was interesting, and is part of the "canon" was because they had a different "theory" about what graphic design could do or how it should do it and that was manifested in the work (and sometimes in their writing).

But to return to the question of theory and your thesis, let's say you want to make a typeface. The minute you ask yourself what it should it look like you'll be theorizing. What you make IS your theory. So theory isn't necessarily writing or some grand explanation meant to dazzle the masses, it's the arguments you make (because you're thoughtful designers)– whether quietly in your head or aloud – that drive what you make.

Is this getting any more clear? Hope so!

[Silas]

It's clear that Foucalt and Derrida were examples.

“If you consider every ground-breaking designer you can name, the reason their work cut new territory, was interesting, and is part of the "canon" was because they had a different "theory" about what graphic design could do or how it should do it and that was manifested in the work (and sometimes in their writing).

I’m not sure that every ground-breaking designer that EVER WAS thought about their work in a theoretical context. Some of them probably were just making work they thought was good. Or at least was attempting to be. They may have had manifestos, or opinions, but not necessarily theories.

“But to return to the question of theory and your thesis, let's say you want to make a typeface. The minute you ask yourself what it should it look like you'll be theorizing. What you make IS your theory.”

I think you're being slightly loose with the difference between an idea and a theory. Your statement seems to say that the two are synonymous. What about the theories that didn't pan out? Those weren't theories because they didn't push the practice or lead to anything fruitful?

Though I love Tiera's quote and it's an apt expression of what theory can do, I’m not sure every inquiry is suddenly theory? Like your example of wondering what a typeface should look like when starting to design it, is me wondering what I want for breakfast a theory?
As disjointed and off topic as our banter seems, it really helped my understanding of what theory is in my head and how I can apply it to making things.

I think you calling a theory an argument makes much more sense. That opens up theory into a realm beyond ideation without breaking down the meaning of the the word too much. Now, when an idea becomes an argument (verbal, visual, textual, or a combination of these) is up for debate.

[Stephanie Chen]

Silas, you really articulated what I was mulling over in regards to Louise's thoughts, namely the difference between an idea, an argument and a theory.

When we have ideas that we make into design, it's very different then forming (or having it formed for us by critics) an argument using that design. It is furthermore different when that argument, or what may become a series of arguments espoused by different designers, is collected into a theory (by a critic), or a manifesto (by the makers themselves).

Although I understand Louise's argument, I cannot agree with it - by allowing the framing of "breakfast" (to use Silas's example) as a theory, we disintegrate the possibilities of theory as a useful tool.

In other words, allowing theory to be anything makes it mean nothing.

[Lu]

Great arguments and challenges, Silas and Stephanie!
More to say later, but for the time being, to clarify I was trying to polarize the dicussion of THEORY as a monstrous intrusion on the creative process to something much smaller and more "natural."

As grad students, as designers, the theory happens synthetically – as you so aptly put it, Stephanie, it's the tool that allows analysis, questioning, and a thoughtful proposition.