We cooked up the “not the schedule” by making an inventory of definitions of joy (!) from the questions you articulated and the proposals you made. Here you’ll find some snippets we picked out in an attempt to clarify how threads interconnect, and to give an idea of the dynamics of the week.

sunday: opening joy

> … Intro
Melle Hammer

? … How could I not go? She has me thinking about joy.
> … I could teach you the name game.
John Hines

? … i want to participate because i never address joy in my work …
>… most interested in contributing to the journal …
Kimberly Counes (roving editor/journalist)

monday: framing joy

the discovery of joy / the joy of discovery
! … try to create joy for the masses and you are shackled by the lowest common denominator …
> presentation of examples of discovered joy and how the designer acted as navigator, ambassador or creator
Sean Wilkinson

! … designers are looking for joy and fulfillment in each other …
! … designers are looking to inject art into the everyday and to make it a social act …
Hot Sunday (Amelia Irwin – Nicole Killian)

? how design messages are to be heard by different political and cultural groups
> .conduct a discussion based on different parts of the book ‘happiness hypothesis’ by jonathan Haidt
Eve Faulkes

? investigate questions around motivations towards joyfulness
? what if joy were an option
> developing a taxonomy of joy
Debra Riley Parr

tuesday: locating joy

! … the design of spatial experiences, addresses in significant part the arrangement of a series of events that enables moments of joy for the user …
? to investigate the evidences of joy in the design process
> to perform a study of interactions of the group
! … i believe that joy is not an inherent quality of a designed object …
Meghna Pathak

! … that joyful moment where time stops but the moment is fully present …
? explore interventions that attempt to enchant urban spaces
> presentation and discussion
Lynn Osgood

? joy must be derived from knowing your lifes work
> presentation of the book in all its various forms
Rick Griffith

> font of joy, or not
Satoru Nihei

“Joyful Tweeting”
> I would like to gather a small group of volunteers to experiment with Tweeting from the few spots on Vinalhaven where we can get cellphone/internet reception.
Peter Hall

> proprioceptive writing
Charles Melcher

wednesday: ¿yOJ?

! … i believe that joy cannot exist without some level of pain and that joy can be attained from the pain often associated with a creative process …
> present outcomes – how by bouncing back and forth between the digital and the physical i have been able to find the joy in design i had been looking for.
Kevin Sweet

? does joy represent absence
? is joy the equivalent of recognition of loss
> exhibition ‘bittersweet’
Margo Halverson

! … i believe in the value of play, and that embodied experimentation and the everyday are highly relevant design methodologies …
> i will argue that indeterminacy and conceptual drifting are the root of joyful states of being – where the unfiltered randomness of everyday life creeps in.
Christopher Moore

! … enjoying the process of design itself …
! … using design to create social change …
? to explore the influence play can have on our communities through design
> cliff jumping
Beth Taylor

> presentation about the politics, power, and use of Beethovens Ode to Joy, as demonstrated in Allora & Calzadilla’s performance ‘Stop Repair Prepare: variations on joy for prepared piano’
Rosalind Carnes

? can we empty our mind and be joyful at the same time?
? what is the correlation between joy and sound
Monica Chau

> the joy of creation
Elliott Earls

thursday: designing joy

? is it a problem to be solved or a solution to be experienced
> hands on workshop
Alec Drummond

? i am interested in how joy relates to design and how it can be utilized
! … what brings you joy is a matter of personal preference …
? can better understanding our own experiences and how they relate to others help us produce our own profession
John De Gore

- the topic joy appeals to me because it is at the core of why i teach design
- i have been developing a design pedagogy that aims to better enable student to engage self expression and to develop conceptual and sensory driven intellects. a methodology in which joy is defined as the resultant discovery of freedom and identity
Tonya Stewart

! … Early inquiries into the topic reveal that joy is a moving target. Comprised of X examples, the presentation will attempt to sneak up on joy, throw a butterfly net over its head, and take it back to the barn for some rigorous design exercises
> the x factor
Emily Luce

Low tide gallery

friday: publishing joy

DesignInquiry 2010: Joy, Vinalhaven, Maine, June 20-25

here are your proposals to share

SUNDAY EVENING OPENING JOY

MH,MH,PH

Melle Hammer
http://www.mellehammer.nl/
intro

John Hines
Positon: No positons
Company: University of Southern Maine

Answering your questions: Not-a-philosopher, I have taught philosophy at the introductory level since 1965. I write poetry. I’m going to designinquiry because Margo invited me. How could I not go? She has me thinking about joy. Last week a student wrote this to me: “an amazing course!” An expression of joy. How can I improve on that? How can I design a better course? I want every student to write “amazing” at the end of the course.

What would I contribute? Hmmm… Multi-colored, many-cloaked joy may be a misnomer. We somaticize, we visceralize, joy. I aim low. I could teach you the name game. I could describe how I design a class. I could talk about Rembrandt’s ‘St. Matthew and the Angel.’ This won’t take much time. I could listen. That might take all of my time.

Kimberly Counes
Positon About to be gainfully unemployed
Website http://www.kim2point0.com

Born in New York, I spent most of my adult life in Washington, DC before making the choice to go back to school to reintroduce myself to my work and the design community. After spending two years at Cranbrook developing my own work and interacting with many DesignInquiry alums, I am curious and excited to participate. I’m a consummate nerd, madly in love with politics and the news. I’ve worked for both. My design work explores the dance between reportage and propaganda and how the story-telling art from each faction is woven into the mythos of American history.

TOPIC: For me, the subject of JOY is a bit of an anomaly. I want to participate because I never address this in my work. I think it will be a difficult challenge for me as I transition out of grad school and a good way to keep me from reverting back to the habits that inspired me to head back to school in the first place. My tree could use a good shaking, too.

I’d be most interested in contributing to the journal. Incorporating writing into my design practice is a goal of mine and I am would like to chart how the experience affects my thinking and perspectives, as it will force me out of my comfort zone.

Monday: Framing Joy

Sean Wilkinson
Solo designer, soon to be co-principal of a small design/brand collective in Portland.

I attended Maine College of Art in the 90s, knowing that I would be a designer, but not fully appreciating the love I would discover for design and typography. While at MECA, I started working for the ancestor of DesignInquiry, Maine Summer Institute in Graphic De-

sign, as assistant to the director, and I resumed that role last year as assistant to the undirectors of the non-hierarchical founders/board.

As a designer for the past 10+ years, I have worked in firms and as a freelancer, with agencies and with individuals. I’ve developed simple flyers for local musicians and designed new buildings and complete signage systems for ski resorts. No matter what the scope or size, though, the most satisfying design endeavors for me include some notion of Joy. Whether for myself as designer—through the satisfaction of the simplicity of form and communication—or for the consumer/audience as communicated “joy.”

THE DISCOVERY OF JOY / THE JOY OF DISCOVERY

I think that the idea of Joy can be very subjective. We have focus groups, test audiences, and terrible middle-of-the-road unchallenging movies and television programming that all attest to this. Try to create Joy for the masses, and you’re shackled by the lowest common denominator.

However, discovery and surprise are elements of Joy that can transcend through multiple demographics. We see it as the fly in a plastic ice cube from a 1950’s joke catalog. We see it in the insightful, tongue-in-cheek political commentary within Banksy’s covertly executed public art. The designer creates the elements containing the potential energy for Joy.

The consumer creates the reaction when they introduce the catalyst: discovery (and, theoretically, surprise).

I would like to show a short presentation of examples of discovered Joy, and how the designer has acted as navigator, ambassador, or simply creator in the example. How have they created a situation in which discovery will produce joy? Have they led the audience to the moment of discovery? Or have they left it entirely up to chance, relying on the audience to discover Joy themselves, risking that it won’t be found at all?

Then I would like to assign an ongoing project for the remaining time on Vinalhaven. Each person (or team) should create a moment of discoverable Joy. It could be in the living/ workshop quarters. It could be on the road. It could be in the grocery store. Each creator will have the choice of leading their audience to the moment, or leaving the moment to be discovered. The audience (or projected audience) could be a selection of a few people or the entire group. Each creator should also document the moment in some way (writing, photography, video), either undiscovered or during discovery. These can be shared with the entire group at wrap-up, time permitting, or become part of the journal entry.

Does allowing the audience to self-discover create more Joy?

Designer’s Joy vs. Designing Joy vs. Joy Designed

Hot Sundae / Amelia Irwin & Nicole Killian
Positon: A: Art Director N: Student
Company: VIACOM and Cranbrook Academy of Art

Hot Sundae is 50% Amelia Irwin and 50% Nicole Killian. They met 3 years ago while working their design day job at Nickelodeon. After realizing they both had the same beliefs over Degrassi Junior High they decided to join forces to create a new super-powered design duo. Amelia had already been trained at Cranbrook Academy of Art and Nicole decided to do the same. Nicole is currently finishing up her first year of graduate school in Michigan. 50% of Hot Sundae is from the trails of Appalachia and the other half is from the snow piles of Buffalo. 100% of them like kittens, ice cream, drawing, typography, and pizza.

Our work is always a 50/50 collaboration where we try to instill happiness, fun, and positivity into everything. Recently, we created the entire identity system for the Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Awards. We are also teamed up with a not-for-profit group, FIERCE, and the Center for Urban Pedagogy in NYC to create an awareness campaign about keeping West Village parks public. Having heard great words about Design Inquiry from our friends who have been involved, we have always wanted to jump in. The collaborative and intimate nature of the program is something we strive to create for ourselves. The opportunity to work, converse, and get to know a group of designers who share the same desire for community and dialogue is exciting. The theme of JOY seems perfect for us. We love what we do and could never not do it. It’s part of us and makes us happy. We hope to share that happiness with others.

COLLABORATION SENSATION

Collectives and collaborations are par for the course this day in age. The prevalence of the modernist myth of the individual solitary genius is slowly declining. Designers are in-

stead pairing up and sectioning off into small groups of like minded creators. Leery of the loss of autonomy one finds in corporations and agencies, yet finding the lone wolf lifestyle less than desirable. Designers are looking for joy and fulfillment in each other. Stemming from a rejection of the alienation of contemporary modern life, designers are looking to inject art into the everyday and to make it a social act. Living, working, conversing, learning and having fun all at once. What a life.

A good collaboration is like a good conversation with a friend. You can ease into it, it can get heated, different view points are shared, you listen you talk, you agree you dis-

agree and then finally you come to a stopping point. Each one more informed and challenged by having gone through the process. This exchange is not something that can occur as a single designer. By collaborating you open yourself up to learn and to be challenged. The act of designing turns into a social exchange and a social occasion. We believe that the route of joy is found in each other and in our ability to relate to one another. We hope to help people find this joy through our workshop.

COLLABORATION CONVERSATION

These ideas could be realized in lecture and/or in workshop form. The lecture will cover the points discussed above. In the workshop portion we would like to bring together unlike designers to create collaborative work. In the workshop we will introduce the participants to contemporary collaborators working in the design field today. We will discuss the value of such a methodology, its successes and its pitfalls. Giving tips and collaboration techniques along the way. We will then break into small groups. Each group will be given a word, phrase, topic that they will act as a starting point for the collaboration. The groups will then go about the collaborative process using techniques that we have shared with them. At the end of the process each team will have created a piece together that is reflective of the groups shared or bitterly opposed beliefs about the given topic.

This collaborative exercise will be documented and put into a independent publication that we are working on concerning design collaborations today. The publication will be a combination of essays, interviews, and work from Design Inquiry as well well known contemporary practitioners whom we are in dialogue with. The end result will be a publication that celebrates, questions, encourages and showcases the awesomeness of collaboration in the design world today.

Eve Faulkes
Coordinator/Professor of Graphic Design
Division of Art and Design, West Virginia University
artanddesign.wvu.edu, some work can be seen at www.behance.net

I am the coordinator of Graphic Design at WVU where I have taught for 30 years nearly since graduating with an MFA from RISD. This means I have lived through a number of joys and sorrows and have seen a myriad of the same through students and clients.I choose the joys for focus.I like writing into my art pieces. I am a book artist as well and a would-be sculptor with a penchant for the magic qualities of paper and paper engineering. My books have circulated farther internationally than my design work,and they become a personal voice that allows my graphic design to focus on the voices of the ultimate audience for clients. I am a big naturalist, kayaker, biker, and bring half of the woods back home with me to make work with or just admire.

I am really interested in another step forward in ethnography and how design messages are to be heard by different political and cultural groups than my own. I have been following research of social psychologists who have some theories I feel are exciting for us in this regard. I would love the chance to chat about these over beers or tea. I feel that communicating with those on the other side of issues that affect our ecosystems and human systems are the only way we can make a positive solution. As designers we preach to the choirs oftentimes. I have a couple of ideas about contributions. I should ask about the time you would like an offering to take.

JOY Idea 1

I have been working on some paper headdresses. I think that it would be fun to introduce some basic techniques and then allow the group to use them to translate personal symbols for joy into headgear.If this is too lengthy, then a similar idea could be translated into paper fold cards that pop out surprises of joy. I have knives, cutting matts and could make “kits” that would be pretty portable.

Idea 2

I have been following the work of Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist who was one of the TED speakers. His book called the Happiness Hypothesis, is an excellent read and I feel is terribly pertinent to designers at many points throughout. A couple of ideas that come from his study of all cultures include the ideas of “work”(that feels like a calling) and “love” (that includes giving and receiving) being all you need for satisfaction in life. I would love to conduct discussion based on different parts of this book as it relates to joy and see if we can reach our own hypotheses… perhaps on the model of IDEO brainstorms.

Debra Riley Parr, PH.D.
Associate Chair
Art + Design Department
Columbia College

I grew up in New England, attended college in the west and then graduate school in Boston. I’ve been teaching at Columbia College for the last decade or so, living and working in the middle west city of Chicago. It’s a great place for design thinking and I’ve developed a number of courses that investigate a range of design issues, including those of sustainability and what French theorist Jacques Ranciere calls the distribution of the sensible. Recently I chaired a panel at the College Art Association on the Intersections of Art and Design—this panel brought together historians, theorists, graphic designers, and artists. I am currently completing a book manuscript on youth culture and design, so in that context I’ve been attempting to theorize the idea and practice of joy in design. I’d like to be a part of a collective discussion that pushes design knowing and production beyond the pragmatics of the market (though the market is insidiously creative in its fashioning joy for consumption). I’d like to investigate questions around the motivations toward joyfulness in the face of its other (terror? melancholy? depression?), and think through what the drivers of joy in design might look like. I am particularly interested in the idea of developing a taxonomy of joy.

A QUICK VISUAL/AURAL SURVEY OF THE CULTURE OF JOY (and perhaps its many discontents). From the dishwashing liquid and to the programming language, “joy” as a word and a concept has a curious history. It has been the subject of philosophical inquiry and the theme of many pop songs. The term is even part of the name of my favorite, most melancholic postpunk band, Joy Division (1976-1980). According to Slavoj Zizek, depression—not joy—proves to be the perfect posture for surviving globalized culture. But what if joy were an option? Would it be crass to be joyful in the face of the effects of credit default swaps, in the face of global warming? What would joy in the age of climate change, in the age of transnational economic collapse look like? In order to define (or design) a joy that wouldn’t make us feel all the more depressed, I’d like to stage a friendly competition between different kinds of joy in the same space, at the same time: to determine whether joy is always in visible; whether joy can have a form; whether joy can ever be more than celebratory of the present; whether joy could be a critical strategy.

Tuesday: Locating Joy

Meghna Pathak

I am a Graduate Student in Design at the University of Texas at Austin. I have worked for four years in Branding and Design for Retail Environments, in Mumbai and Singapore respectively. The design of spatial experiences, addresses in significant part the arrangement of a series of events that enable moments of Joy for the user. Working extensively as an environments designer has led me to begin to look keenly upon the attributes of spaces that enabled them to transcend their physicality. I am interested in the study of the elements that transform a space into a place – rich with diverse meanings to its users.

My graduate research explores primarily the arena of place making for communities, the study and design of places that enable users to situate themselves within their larger socio-cultural context. With this purpose, I am currently working on designing a ‘Third Place’ for a student co-operative, and on developing a web application that enables users to reference places of meaningful association to their communities / networks. The process of synthesis for both projects looks intimately at the relationships users form with places – both physical and virtual – and the elements that enable organic interaction. I have realized, that the most effective places hold social identity over spatial form – and in this offer the users a multitude of organic relationships that hold the potential to afford users joyful experiences.

TOPIC: If offered the opportunity, I would bring to the conference my experience as a designer of spaces – and the intent to investigate the evidences of joy in the design process. I would like to perform a sketched & photographic study of the interactions of the group at the site – looking specifically at these with reference to the spaces they occur around. The intention of the study would be to observe and document the unique place identity of this design inquiry that is enabled by its site and participants concurrently.

I would also like to conduct a small workshop with the participants of the conference if possible, that explores using ‘available’ elements to organize / create a temporary place installation that is meant for their interaction – and extended porch if the analogy be drawn. The exercise would encourage the group to interact with the island, its geography, material and their own story to create a place meant uniquely for their experience. This merging of designer and consumer into one, enables an opportunity to examine the entire process of the place’s life – from conception to use – and at first hand record the evidences of joy therein and what they imply to the larger topic at hand.

It is in this avenue that my interests in the topic of JOY and indeed place-making lie, for the purposes of this workshop / conference. The site of the conference is rich ground for studying how the group chooses to interact, and the specific attributes of the place that enables / appends these interactions. The group of participants becomes a community brought together by a common purpose, and the site of the workshop a unifying form that each participant will relate to with regards to their experiences for years to come.

As a student, I believe that I stand to learn much from interacting with the community of design practitioners and educators at the conference. The topic of the conference holds the potential to inform my graduate research immensely.I believe that Joy is not an inherent quality of a designed object. However, a designed object holds the potential to enable its users to encounter and create joyful experiences. Concurrently, the potential of a designed object is rarely removed from the process of its making – and it is this process, that holds the greatest potential for joy – for the designer as well as the user.

The works of Carlo Scarpa, Geoffery Bawa and Andy Goldsworthy, are examples of a methodology of design (and art) that enables and requires the designer to be intimate with the very material of the designed solution. It is a methodology of site responsiveness that enables the designed object to be a solution that is completely specific to its physical & social context. I believe that this is when the designed experience, enabled by its contextual references, is able to address its larger program. It begins to be more than an effective solution; a unique indelible experience for the user – redolent with potential for ‘joyful encounters’.

Lynn Osgood
Position: landscape designer and planner – currently interdisciplinary doctoral student at University of Texas, at Austin

The focus of both my work and play is ENCHANTMENT – that joyful feeling where time stops but the moment is fully present – that area of space and time when thinking only seems to get in the way. In my research I look at the ways in which enchantment creeps into (or more overtly tries to take over) our public spaces. Whether it is a 200 person rendition of the Sound of Music in an Antwerp train station or the creation of small dioramas in a neglected streambed – enchantment has become a very public mode of engaging our urban spaces.

TOPIC: During JOY I will lead a presentation and group discussion that will explore a number of different contemporary “interventions” that attempt to enchant urban spaces. After looking at the events in terms of the experiences they intend for their audiences (both far and near) we can compare them to historic “interventions” done at the height of picturesque landscape design in Europe where designers and theorists also attempted to help their audiences achieve a certain state of reverie through their words and designs. By looking at the two together we can examine what is timeless and what is “time-full” about today’s performances and the digital realm though which we experience them.

Gabrielle Esperdy / Anita Cooney

Gabrielle Esperdy is an architectural historian and critic and Associate Professor of Architecture at the New Jersey Institute of Technology . Her work examines the intersection of architecture, consumerism, and modernism in the urban and suburban landscape, especially in the U.S. She is particularly interested in minor or everyday buildings and in the ways that social, economic, and political issues shape the built environment, both historically and today. Her first book, Modernizing Main Street: Architecture and Consumer Culture in the New Deal, was published by the University of Chicago Press in 2008. She is currently at work on her second book, tentatively titled Architecture’s American Road Trip, which examines how architectural discourse absorbed the ideals and concerns of commercial sphere after World War II. Gabrielle’s articles have appeared in the Journal of Architectural Education, the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Perspecta, the History of Photography, and Architectural Design, among others . She has also contributed to Design Observer, Core77, and the DesignInquiry Journal. She blogs at www.esperdy.net.

Anita Cooney is Chair of the Interior Design Department at Pratt Institute where she is s professor in the School of Art and Design. Her design firm, acoo designs, focuses on the space of the everyday with projects ranging from residential to the workplace.

ARCHITECTURAL JOY, ARCHAEOLOGY + TAXONOMY

Our collaboration will explore architectural joy by uncovering and organizing its infrequent historical and contemporary manifestations. Our premise is that architecture, as discourse and practice, has been so preoccupied with its responsibilities to health, safety, and welfare that it has generally overlooked concerns that are the domain of joy. By focusing on the pragmatics of problem solving around program, structure, cost, etc. architecture frequently fails to engage emotion, pleasure, and the sensual realm. Whether intentionally or accidently, architecture has excluded joy from its critical project. As a result, those rare instances of deliberate architectural joy are regarded with suspicion by architecture’s dominant culture. By revealing joy’s architectural archaeology and taxonomy, we hope to provide a manual for making the built environment more joyful.

Peter Hall
Senior Lecturer in Design, University of Texas at Austin
Framer, DesignInquiry

Peter Hall is a design critic, and teaches design theory, history and journalistic methods of research and writing in a transdisciplinary design program at UT Austin. His research focuses on mapping as a design process. He has been a contributing writer for Metropolis magazine since 2000 and has written widely about design in its various forms, including gaming, elevators, building graphics, bridges, neon lights and office chairs, for publications including Print, I.D. Magazine, The New York Times, and The Guardian. He taught a seminar class on design theory and writing at Yale School of Art between 2000 and 2007. He wrote and co-edited the books Else/Where: Mapping – New Cartographies of Networks and Territories, Tibor Kalman: Perverse Optimist, Sagmeister: Made You Look and Pause: 59 Minutes of Motion Graphics.

“JOYFUL TWEETING”
I would like to gather a small group of volunteers to experiment with Tweeting from the few spots on Vinalhaven where we can get cellphone/internet reception. The aim would be to spend a few minutes in these places making observations of the things around us, and sending them, via twitter, with a #DIJOY marker. The writing mode would be inspired by the Mass Observation group founded in the UK in the 1930s (I’ll bring examples), but with a slightly more Buddhist take, that joy is to be found in the act of observing the unremarkable, everyday things around us.

Rick Griffith
Director, MATTER
www.morematter.com /deisgnartartdesign.com

I’m a British West-Indian born and raised in London, with 15 years in Denver and the ten years previous on the East Coast DC/NYC (80’s punk). I’m a self-trained designer/typographer, who has been submersed in a type centric practice. I’ve been teaching type and design since 1996 as an adjunct for the various universities in Denver. CU Denver and DU.

The studio is based in part in Taliesen West (FLW) and the early incarnation of Muriel Cooper’s Lab at MIT, (with 5 creative staff, 4 admin), we have 7 printing presses in the studio—2 offset, 3 letterpress and 2 screen printing (textile and paper) we are a stable staff and we are getting traction from both our local community and the type community to have more dynamic conversations regarding design practice and the application of design thinking in our civic lives. I curate and design exhibits, make books, print, design and cook.

I’m coming because it’s a good time for me to incubate with other professionals with broad experience and broad models of professional practice, there are few practice driven conferences that offer the types of conversations I need right now. Last year I found myself asking what’s next in this? My interest in the topic Joy connected to the idea that — Joy must be derived from knowing your life’s work? mustn’t it?

TOPIC: Firstly, I can cook, I admit that cooking is a fourth love to my appreciation for design, film, and music. I enjoy talking and cooking. I have tools/skills worth collaborating with, both on a secluded island and later in real life.

I’m working on a book/exhibition about letterpress collections, collectors and printer designers. I’ll be starting the book in video. I’d like to present the book in all of it’s various forms for critique, and discussion it is very much concerned with the men and women who love letters. Their joy and mine with type. The models of their lives and the breadth of their influence.

Satoru Nihei

Here is my brief bio below and the longer one is on my site www.beautifool.jp (just refresh the browser until you get the right background to be able to read the text on it).

Satoru Nihei is a graphic designer, currently a MFA candidate in the 2D department at Cranbrook Academy of Art.

For the topic, I will bring something to the table, but I haven’t decided yet. What I want to do may not be even about a font or graphic design.

Charles Melcher
Associate Professor, Graphic Design, Maine College of Art
Designer, Co-owner, Alice Design Communication
Alicedesign.com

Charles Melcher studied graphic design at Yale University School of Art to broaden and amplify his experience making ideas come to life in visual form. His first professional connection to communication comes from his experience teaching creative writing since 1991 while he exhibited his photography nationally and internationally. He is currently Associate Professor at Maine College of Art and chair of the graphic design department. He received his BFA in photography from Massachusetts College of Art, his MFA in graphic design from Yale. Charles continues to do commercial and personal photography, teach writing, and together with Margo raise Jack and Cora, now astoundingly busy and independent kids who mostly need chauffeurs and cooks.

TOPIC: Workshop: Proprioceptive Writing is a writing method that helps synthesize emotion and imagination generating authentic insight and joy.

Wednesday: ¿yoJ?

Kevin Sweet
Assistant Professor of Architecture
American University of Sharjah
www.shinyobject.org

I am a registered architect from New Mexico who is currently teaching architecture at the American University of Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates. I received a Bachelor of Arts in Architecture from the University of New Mexico and my Masters of Architecture from Columbia University. Having been involved in both professional practice and academia, it became clear to me that the joy I experienced in the design and creation of a building was surpassed only by the act of teaching others how to achieve the same. As invigorating as practicing architecture may be, nothing has compared to the academic environment where creativity, inspiration and the love of design is raw and pursued with genuine passion.

TOPIC: My interests in the topic of “Joy” are twofold: First and foremost is the dichotomy of joy and pain. I believe that joy cannot exist without some level of pain and that joy can be attained from the pain often associated with a creative process. Design and the objects born of the design process often endure growing pains in their attempt to find fruition. The search for ideas and inspiration, the frustration of a process that risks the possibility of never yielding desired results, and complete failures can certainly lead to pain of one sort or another, whether emotional, physical or financial. But it is the endurance, the perseverance and the emergence from a painful process as well as the recovery from bitter failures that provoke a unique sense of joy. Perhaps this is joy in achievement or self-satisfaction, or perhaps this is joy in simple creative potential, innovation and a celebration of human ingenuity.

My second interest in the DesignInquiry topic of “Joy”is that it offers the perfect compliment and transition to what will be the most joyous day of my life: I will be getting married to a partner with whom I share joy in design, teaching and life. Having struggled through the pain and failure of previous relationships, I have found my joy in the success of this one. It is only because of enduring pain and failure that I truly know, without a doubt, that June 26 will be the most joyous day of my life.

Topic of discussion:
Digital tools have always provided me with a quality of perfection that I could never manage to achieve through analog, hand-working methods. My interest in digital design has motivated me to continuously seek new digital methods that satiate my obsession to achieve this state of “perfection”. Over time, however, I have come to understand that this perfection is in fact an illusion as physical creations manifest themselves differently in reality than they do in the virtual environment. The reality of imperfection results from tolerances incurred during construction, variable material properties, and the erosive processes that alter the “precision” of the computer. While digital fabrication techniques provide a tremendous level of complexity in process and outcome, machines have their limits. Typically speaking, limits are expressed in a lack of precision of craft and what could be considered to be blemishes in the final product.

Recently, in a moment of clarity, I had the realization that the imperfections of craft –both in digital and analog outputs–were not in complete contradiction to my obsession but in service to it. Embracing the “imperfections” of construction, materials, and the human hand as a welcome sign of individuality and creation, I have come to learn and appreciate that the transition from the virtual to physical realm adds a layer of tactility or sensuality not possible with digital tools. Through embracing this philosophy my methodologies have seen a vast transformation as I began to move my work from the digital world out to the physical world and back again. By bouncing back and forth between the digital and the physical I have been able to find the joy in design I had been seeking for so long.

Within the discussion of “Joy” at DesignInquiry I will present examples of the outcomes of this philosophy through my own work and through the work of my students who I encourage to find the same sense of satisfaction and joy in this process.

Margo Halverson
Professor, Graphic Design, Maine College of Art
Designer, Co-owner, Alice Design Communication
Co-founder, Framer, DesignInquiry
Alicedesign.com Portland, Maine

I am co-owner of Alice Design Communication 1998–present with Charles Melcher. My love of words together with the narrative power of the photographic image led me to the world of typography and graphic design. I received a BFA and MFA in photography from Arizona State University where, post-graduation, I studied graphic design with Rob Roy Kelly. I am currently Professor of Graphic Design and Program Chair at Maine College of Art. I grew up in North Dakota and, after moving to the east from Arizona, I still miss living in grids within the landscape of flat, white, horizontal bands interspersed with telephone poles and shelterbelts. This space taught me that the subtle shapes, colors, and rhythms of a rural Scandinavian life may embody JOY, but it is transitory and found only from within.

BITTERSWEET JOY
William Blake wrote that two opposing emotions such as fear and joy “expand and contract in direct relation to the presence of the other.” He suggested that we cannot feel joy and total fear at the same time and this is why real joy is the absence of fear. Does JOY represent absence? Is JOY then ‘without’? Is JOY simply the equivalent of recognition of loss? Do we agree that JOY and its opposite may not be embodied as simultaneous, or does joy exist only in presence and amplification of its opposite? What might a photograph hold that suggests a transient connection to unrestrained gestures that evoke JOY?

I want to propose an introduction and exhibit of photographs that represent a dichotomy between joy and opposites — joy & fear, joy & sorrow — bittersweet images that represent the simultaneous presence of a freeing experience and its opposite that recognizes and embodies JOY.

The pain I feel now is the happiness I had before. That’s the deal.
C.S. Lewis

Yet from those flames
No light, but rather darkness visible.
Paradise Lost, John Milton

Christopher Moore
Position: Assistant Professor of Design & Computation Arts
Company: Concordia University
Website: www.disintermediator.com www.learnmegood.ca

I am a maker of things, a storyteller, an educator, and a student full of questions. These roles manifest in a practice that ranges from commercial publication to sculpture and media-based installation—a liminal research profile that challenges the traditional disciplinary classifications of academia. Throughout my 11 years of teaching, I have been fortunate to locate like-minded colleagues who share a passion for social engagement, and who eschew the narrow definitions and historical baggage of what constitutes “legitimate” research. I believe in the value of play, and that embodied experimentation and the everyday are highly relevant design methodologies. The topic of “Joy” is a natural connection to my philosophical approach to design scholarship.

TOPIC: Joy is elusive, fleeting, and unexpected. It desires to be found, but provides an incomplete atlas to those who pursue its presence.

Using a variety of Internet applications—Google Maps/Images, Second Life, Twitter, Facebook, Youtube and other social media applications—I have embarked on a journey to locate, isolate, and study the phenomenon of “joy.” My presentation will focus on how emerging interfaces are increasingly designed to streamline, disambiguate, and anticipate our desire without the “useless” distractions of unrelated content diversions. I will argue that indeterminacy and conceptual drifting are the root of joyful states of being, where the unfiltered randomness of everyday life creeps in. Joy to me represents wonder, amazement, and a renewed sense of creative urgency—the kind which transcends corporeal impulses in service of a design nirvana.

A follow-up activity will emulate the online search process using an enacted, analogue model. Participants will be assigned individual “joyful” destinations on the island, but lack specified directions. Following an idiosyncratic route, each member will record moments of joy—both macroscopic and microscopic in scale. In reference to Zen k?ans, labyrinths, and myriad traditions of spiritual journeys, participants will discover arrival at one’s prescribed destination to be less fulfilling than the experience.

Beth Taylor
GD MFA Candidate
Maryland Institute College of Art
Principal: Longstocking Design
www.longstockingdesign.com
www.longstockingdesign.posterous.com

I truly value the simplicity of evoking feeling in a viewer/client/participant, as do I find importance in enjoying the process of design itself. I strive to make my work friendly and approachable, and am deeply invested in using design to create social change. I work in a wide variety of media, including folded paper, thread, textiles, letterpress, silkscreen, digital, and stop-motion animation.

I would like to attend the Design Inquiry’s Joy workshop in order to engage with other designers who value the importance of play, and to explore together the influence play can have on our communities through design.

I am currently enrolled in an MFA program in Graphic Design at MICA. I am deeply engaged in design thinking, and am working hard to figure out how design fits into a world outside of commerce.

I work to maintain a joie de vivre, and remain constantly aware of the temperature of my perspective. And I strive to play fearlessly, and encourage others to do so too.

The piece I can contribute then is an attitude. A romp on the beach with my dog Whiskey, the late-night climb of a tree, or a bike across town to find the breeze from the east are the things that feed me. And from these my design work develops.

PRESENTATION ABSTRACT: Jumping into water from cliffs bridges the line where fear and pleasure cross. I will lead the group down to the quarry. While there, program participants will engage in a curated cliff-jumping project. I will document the experience thoroughly through photography and word play.

Though one of my favorite summer activities, I am unable to jump anymore due to back injuries. At once defeating, I am able to transcend that disappointment by appreciating everyday function, and will similarly experience joy by creating a new experience of enjoyment for others. The additional documentation of this project will hope to inspire the viewer to enjoy their physical freedom and, well, just jump right in.

Elliott Earls
http://www.theapolloprogram.com/
the joy of creation

Rosalind Carnes

I initially thought that my summer would take me to either India or Austin, but I just caught word that I received the Stewart W. Thomson Fellowship to attend a workshop at Hay stack Mountain School of Crafts in Maine. I’ll be taking the paper workshop with Beatrice Coron July 18–30. Super excited. I know it might be a little late, but I was wondering if I could make it the perfect summer by coming to DI this summer. If there is a spot for me, I could come early and stay late to help with any of the administrative/ logistical details— I would have plenty of downtime between DI and Haystack for helping where help is needed.

As far as the DI theme goes, I’ve been thinking about putting a presentation together about the politics, power, and use of Beethoven’s Ode to Joy, as demonstrated in Allora & Calzadilla’s performance Stop, Repair, Prepare: Variations on Ode to Joy for a Prepared Piano. I can get into further detail with the presentation description if you like— right now I am just in the beginning stages of research.

Monica Chau
Positon: Installation artist and web designer
Website: http://monicachau.com

I am a project-based installation artist with an MFA in photography from CalArts. With the exception of Western Colorado, I have lived near coastal areas (Houston, L.A., NYC) for most of my life. These days I’ve been more actively working as a web designer than cultivating my true passion, art, since I moved to Maine four years ago. Because I have not been as deeply, nor actively engrossed in my art, about two and a half years ago, I decided I would spend at least one week of every year engaged in an intense creative endeavor. One summer I received a scholarship to attend a Golan Levin workshop at Anderson Ranch Arts Center to learn the programming language especially tailored for artists called, Processing. This class was inspirational and I feel there is great synergy when creative people gather, so if chosen to be a DI participant, I’m interested in recapturing the spirituality and essence of what I experienced, whether it was from an art workshop, from when I was in grad school, or artist residencies I’ve been participated in. Though in DI, I’m also looking forward to being part of, as well as a contributor to, that creative energy.

TOPIC: I would so love to travel to the Being Here session, but feel I would either not be organized enough in advance, have sufficient funds, or the time to adequately appreciate that special place, Marfa. Instead, I request to participate in the Joy session. I am always trying to insert visceral qualities into my artwork, so on Vinalhaven, I would be interested in exploring…

• the question, “can we empty our mind and be joyful at the same time”?
• the connections between viscerality and visuality?
• how joy is sparked/influenced by the 5 senses?
• what is the correlation between joy and sound?

Though photography and installation are my usual mediums, I am especially interested in discovering the nature of joy through sound during this one week endeavor. I propose to record a series of sounds, perhaps taken from my time on Vinalhaven and other sounds I will have previously recorded using a small portable audio device, eg. DAT recorder or iPod with recording capabilities. I have also worked collaboratively with artists and within artist collectives, so depending on the willingness of the group, if there were enough recording devices, perhaps others would desire to collaborate on collecting sounds. Sound can have a myriad of cultural references, so it would be interesting to see what transpires through this exploration. The collection would then be edited (using my Mac laptop) and be presented as individual, single pieces or could be accompanied by spare visuals. I’m particularly interested in the process of making work, rather than the final outcome, so I’m not sure if the final iteration would be as a web/Internet piece, or an installation, but certainly I would make a brief presentation of the work-in-progress at the end of the week.

I had difficulties accessing the DesignInquiry site (there are broken links to the archived sections) to further brainstorm how I could contribute, but skill-wise, I’m fluent in a variety of mediums and have taught web design and digital media courses for many years. Should there be additional interest in my organizing a workshop (topic to be further discussed?), I’d be glad to lend my skills in any of those arenas.

I learned about DesignInquiry when my former studio mate, Broo Temple, spoke of it, then participated in the 2007 workshop. Since then, I’ve desired to attend as well. I’ve always been seduced by the enigmatic topics, camaraderie, ghosts (or so I’ve heard), and lure of a week-long interval on a beautiful Maine island, but time, scheduling, or (the lack of) money, always got in the way. I’m hoping, however, that 2010, will be my lucky year.

Thursday: Designing Joy

Alec Drummond
Positon CoFounder
Company: BioLite Stove
Website Stove: www.biolitestove.com
Paintings: www.alecdrummond.com

I am an painter and product designer. Before moving to Austin I worked for Smart Design part time as a prototyper and general mechanical engineering and design problem solver while painting the rest of the time. Before Smart Design I designed and build sculptural lighting and helped found Shinola Lights in Brooklyn. Before and during my 20+ years in NYC I lived in Denmark for a few years as a guest artist. Before I left Smart for Austin I developed wood burning camp stove that used a semiconductor to generate electricity to increase the combustion efficiency. My partners and I are currently working towards getting funding to design a stove for developing countries where the need for high efficiency low emission cook stoves is great. Please see articles for general information.

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/04/biolite-ultra-efficient-camping-stove-generates-electricity/?utm _ source=feedburner&utm _ medium=feed&utm _ campaign=Feed:+GearFactor+(Blog+-+Gadget+Lab+(Gear+Factor))

http://gizmodo.com/5512420/biolite-camping-stove-charges-gadgets-and-cooks-beans

I was invited to DesigInquiry by Peter Hall who suggested that because of my “hands on” approach to design I might offer a different perspective to the creative process of design. For me the retreat also seems like a great opportunity to meet other like minded people and be exposed to their ideas and approach inspired by the idea of Joy. As a designer and artist I have found that my most inventive or inspired moments are when I get lost to the creative process and allow things to happen with the materials and process that no amount of preconception could suggest. This is why I still often rely on working with my hands and the immediacy of the materials to find solutions and ask questions. Maybe one of the biggest questions for me is with discipline of design where when one is asked to solve a problem within certain constraints how do you balance those demands with chance and self expression which is where I believe is the basis to that moment surprise and joy.

FEELING ONE’S WAY TOWARDS INSPIRATION.
Question: Is it a problem to be solved or a solution to be experienced?

Start with a brief presentation of past and present design and art work that was particularly inspired by the uniqueness of the material and process. Along with the slides I would like to explain the circumstances and ideas behind these projects and talk about how I find inspiration and that moment of what could be described as joy in the process and how it manifests itself in the object.

If time and circumstances allow it might be fun to organize a hands on project that utilizes and finds inspiration in what’s available. For example, using a simple votive candle as a light source find materials at hand around the farm and island and create a holder that plays with the light from the votive.

John Degore
Positon: Graphic Designer (on site at Heinz North America)
Company: Prisma Inc.
Website: www.degore.com

I’m a board member of the AIGA Pittsburgh chapter, and I work as part of an in-house team for Heinz North America. We workon a variety of project from product concept to in-store displays. The majority of work is print marketing materials. The in-house environment usually does not offer you a chance to work on an abstract thought provoking subject. My reason for coming is to interact on a project out side of my comfort zone and learn. I’m interested in how joy relates to design, and how it can be utilized.

TOPIC: Most accounts of experiencing joy are on a personal level. What brings you joy is a matter of personal preference. This preference is built from your own experiences in life. These experiences forge how each individual experiences joy . Everyone will be asked to share a moment of joy from their childhood and one from their adult life. Each individual will receive 2 4” x 6” note cards to express their moments. How each individual chooses to express these moments of joy is up to them and only limited by the supplies on hand and the size of the cards. Once finished everyone will post his or her post cards. On the left side will be the childhood moments of joy and on the right the adult . We will take some time to observe everyone’s experiences. Then each person will asked to connect their moments of joy with a piece of purple string. The next step will be to make connections between our childhood moments, using pieces of blue string to connect similar experiences. Then repeat that step with our adult experiences using red string. Finally we will analyze the information and have a discussion. Joy is a motivator, does how we express it relate to we perceive it? Can a better understanding of our own experiences and how they relate to others help us produce in our profession? I would plan on photographs being taken once the cards are hung up and after the connections are made. Also key points and discoveries made would be recorded, and if space permits, displayed with a projector next to our wall of joy.

Tonya Stewart
Position: Assistant Professor of Design
Company: American University of Sharjah, UAE
Website: http://www.aus.edu/arcdes/

I am an artist/designer and Professor of Design at the American University of Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates. Having taught in the U.S. for a short while before relocating to the Middle East, I have been teaching at the American University of Sharjah for three years where I currently teach courses in Interior Design, Materials and Processes and the Foundation Design program.

My professional and educational background includes exhibition design, furniture design (BFA: RISD) and sculpture (MFA: Cranbrook Academy of Art). Creative pursuits as of late have been limited to the production of drawings and various forays into academic research.

The topic “Joy” appeals to me because it is at the core of why I teach design, and because, for whatever reason, I have never before consciously explored these ideas. While I adamantly place value on teaching the cultivation of joy in the design process I do not foresee having the opportunity to discuss these ideas with my colleagues at the American University of Sharjah. The potential outcomes of these discussions feeds intrigue. I believe that my experiences as both a designer and design educator will provide a positive addition to the discussions, interactions and projects that occur at Design Inquiry in Vinalhaven.

A side note: I feel as though I stumbled upon Design Inquiry and the topic of JOY as a matter of serendipity. My fiancé, Kevin Sweet (also a professor at the American University of Sharjah) and I will be getting married in York, Maine on June 26. I can think of no better way to start a marriage together than to have the opportunity to engage in a community of like-minded people with the focus of JOY at hand .

The students enrolled in the College of Architecture, Art and Design at the American University of Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates come from many places: They come from Iraq, Iran, Kuwait, Sudan, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, Afghanistan, India, Egypt and from the UAE itself. Whether the students have been brought up in a pampered existence, or whether they have fled as refugees from a war-torn country, their creative and expressive capacities are overwhelmingly undernourished when they enter into the Design curriculum. While the teaching methodologies that formed their pre-university education have typically been founded on rote memorization and have entailed a lack of encouragement in regards to individuality, a comprehensive design education requires students to venture into unmapped territories where they are asked to resolve problems that do not have specific answers; where solutions elude the systematic, linear and prescribed craftiness of a mathematical equation and, instead, rely on creative approaches and the foresight of locating new possibilities.

It is within this context I have been developing a design pedagogy that aims to better enable students to engage in self-expression and to develop conceptual and sensory-driven intellects. “Joy” is perhaps the best way to articulate the effects of this methodology in which joy is defined as the resultant discovery of freedom and identity achieved from engagement in the creative design process .

Citing examples of methods applied to the creative process from studio courses involving students of Architecture, Interior Design and Visual Communications at the College of Architecture, Art and Design where this pedagogy was explored, I intend to locate and reflect on ways in which joy is achieved in design education. A discussion to this end will invariably encompass more than a focus on the pedagogy itself as it is inextricably tied to issues of cultural awareness and self-reflection. I look forward to sharing these ideas with the participants at Design Inquiry and learning from their insights and observations.

Emily Luce
Position: Professor, New Media
Company: University Lethbridge

Emily Luce prefers to work within the margins of typographic and cultural research. Previous projects have included typography of U.S. Car Number Plates, the graphical language of protest posters; and ongoing commitments as a member of Hupačasatč First Nation Language Team of British Columbia. This work has led to the publication of ten language preservation projects in Nuučaančuč as well as the Confederation of Alberta Faculty Association’s Early Career Award.

Emily spends her time in western Canada, where, when she’s not teaching New Media at the University of Lethbridge, she is restoring a Westman & Baker letterpress.

JOY: THE X FACTOR

Early inquiries into the topic reveal that joy is a moving target. Comprised of X examples, the presentation will attempt to sneak up on joy, throw a butterfly net over its head, and take it back to the barn for some rigorous design exercises.

low tide gallery

Friday: Publishing Joy

The post Not-The-Schedule appeared first on DesignInquiry.

http://www.aiga.org/embrace-the-strain/

http://observatory.designobserver.com/entry.html?entry=13428

The post Residual Works appeared first on DesignInquiry.

“Surely joy is the condition of life.”
- Henry David Thoreau, Philosopher (1842)

“The absence of joy is the biggest threat to our society.”
- Will Alsop, Architect (2003)

Does design create or embody joy, or does it merely create conditions for joy to emerge? Is there joy in the designed artifact or in the act of design? Is a designer’s joy the same as a user’s joy? What is the relationship between joy and play and how might design conjoin the two? What might a taxonomy of joy look like?

There’s more content from Joy here.

The post Joy: Summer 2010 – Vinalhaven appeared first on DesignInquiry.

How does a workaholic find joy?
Does the fact that design is never done until the deadline (no matter how early you start) mean that designers can never turn it off?
Is design an addiction requiring “DA” support groups?
Should two ex-husbands be an object lesson?
Is our joy futile if what we design is ignored and we are only adding weight to the landfills?
Or even more to the point, can design cause or create joy for the designer?
And, can design bring joy to the viewer?

Joy may be seen as a peak point on a scale in which despair is a low point beneath satisfaction, and with happiness somewhere above the midpoint. Design as a carrier of messages could be seen as contributing to the well-being and happiness of people when messages they need connect with them. Those connections can create relationships, and meaningful messages are often passed on. Like radio show hosts, designers have a relationship with unseen viewers. The timbre, careful wording and visual messages may invite a passerby to engage the design in mental conversation. If we have taken on a project in which we really believe, we may feel that spark of joy as we send the file to press like a message in a bottle, hoping it will reach the right reader and provide them with something of value. Perhaps we plant seeds, facilitating an environment for joy to sprout at some point. Of course, that depends on our message, our own relationships, and stars aligning. I began to set my sights just a bit lower on the scale and thought about happiness, which may be a more likely consequence of valiant effort. If the ability to feel that one’s work is worthwhile is a pathway to joy, then determining how our design work has the best chance of being effective may bring us more than a paycheck.

What’s in it for our audience?

I have long been interested in adding theories of social psychologists to the designer’s toolbox in order to give us better contexts, more targeted research and empathetic connections to our audience. I have found the transtheoretical model of change by James Prochaska and colleagues to be a really valuable approach for tailoring messages to readers in different stages of readiness to hear a message. Changing a habit, or changing your mind, each require six steps and six contexts where helpful or discouraging behaviors by supporters can affect successful movement to the next step. The stages of change include Precontemplation, Contemplation, Planning, Action, Maintenance and Relapse.[1]  Often messages about behavior change, such as anti-smoking, give viewers reasons to quit or threaten dire consequences for continued poor behavior.

Replaying some great ideas from Jonathan Haidt and other psychologists in order to unearth Joy in design.

Those ideas work only in one step for someone attempting change. Just as we have moved from the notions that everyone shares the same need for one generalized magazine to targeting special demographics, we now need multiple ways to connect to people on an emotional journey. A second source I have found to be a good resource for designers wishing to couch messages appropriately comes from the authors of Crucial Conversations: Tools for talking when stakes are high. Kerry Patterson has a PhD in organizational behavior and Joseph Grenny is a cofounder of Unitus, a nonprofit assisting the world’s poor to become economically independent. These authors discuss communication skills that make it safe for dialogue to occur[2] — facilitating (designers in our case) to better craft messages and to help them communicate in work and personal settings. These psychologists are well known to the health care industry and to business, the audience they most cared to influence. They have not, however, had an influence on affecting overall service design planning or even the delivery of messages within visual materials of those industries. As designers move to the inception end of projects, we can be better ethnographic researchers, improving our numbers of listeners taking action and hopefully moving them up that satisfaction scale.In addition to the risk of missing our audience at the place they are in readiness to change, we can potentially miss them by failing to connect to values they hold dear. As we know, there are many thousands of messages bombarding us every day from all forms of media. We likely only see the ones for which we are intentionally searching or the ones that speak to our values.

Jonathan Haidt, one of the TED speakers, provided some insight that corroborated this thought and also gave qualitative evidence of how it worked to do so. He was gracious enough to provide a chapter of the original manuscript of his book, The Happiness Hypothesis, to attendees of the DI: Joy conference to be used in my session. Haidt has researched all cultures and religious faiths to determine which value systems they support. I believe that one of his findings has great implications for designers. His model of the five foundations of morality that cause people to make decisions has been a guide for projects in my classes and my practice.These are Harm/Care, Fairness/Reciprocity, Authority/Respect, In-Group/Loyalty, and Sanctity/Purity.[3]

As it turns out, liberals use only the first two sets in making choices, while conservatives use all five. When liberal designers create messages that step on the values of the other three foundations, they can turn off viewers before they hear the intended message. According to Haidt, this fact goesunnoticed because most liberals were educated in colleges where only fifteen percent of the professors were conservative.[4]  One can extrapolate that art and design departments were even more highly populated with liberals. It is quite possible to design using metaphors and copywriting that tactfully elicit empathy in viewers with different values than our own. but we may not be aware that there is even a need. Liberals are most aware of injustice and the underdog, but may pay little heed to familiarity or mistrust that emotionally motivate poor behavior.

What’s in it for our us?

How can we have joy when the world is falling apart around us and corporations are ruling the universe, putting profit ahead of environment, education and poverty? We can follow the mantra of Mother Theresa, who was happy to contribute one drop at a time to the bucket of need.[5]  Each message made more effective is our droplet. If getting in right relationship with our clients and our audience provides them with a measure of joy, then design may contribute some happiness to the world. Haidt relates a cycle of expectations and disappointment that designers may find familiar. It is the Progress Principle:You work every waking hour, perhaps imagining how happy you’d be if you could just achieve that goal. Then you succeed, and if you’re lucky, you get an hour, maybe a day, of euphoria, particularly if your success was unexpected and there was a moment in which it was revealed (… the envelope, please). More typically, however, you don’t get any euphoria. When success seems increasingly probable and some final event confirms what you had already come to expect, the feeling is more one of relief—the pleasure of closure and release. In such circumstances, my first thought is seldom “Hooray! Fantastic!” it is “Okay, what do I have to do now?[6]  Haidt explains that rather than getting a long lasting high from achieving an important goal, we are more responsive to the pleasure of making small steps toward the goal that feels like we are moving in a right direction. Another principle that prevents our work from directly bringing us joy is the Adaptation Principle, which, according to Haidt, is the phenomena that no matter how high or how low we set our expectations; we will adapt to the outcome and reset them. We are always, then, returning to our natural biological range of happiness set by our genes. He relates that enough proof is now in place so that the question of nature over nurture is now resolved in relation to one’s innate sense of positivity. We actually have a range of happiness in which we operate that is largely unaffected by our living conditions. Three psychologists (Sonja Lyubomirsky, Ken Sheldon, and David Schkade) describe this relationship in a “happiness formula” that Haidt calls one of the most important ideas to be posed in positive psychology.

In this equation H=S+C+V

Happiness equals the biological set point [or range] (S) plus conditions of your life you can and can’t change (C) plus the voluntary activities you choose (V).[7]  He describes that Buddhists and Stoics emphasize voluntary activity such as meditation and detachment from material things as ways to raise levels of acceptance with one’s lot in life. Haidt then shares a finding from one of the co-founders of positive psychology— of a high people enjoy more than food or sex (which satiates). Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi calls it flow—the effortless movement that occurs when one is totally immersed in a task that is challenging but also closely matched to one’s abilities.[8]  This flow can come from solitary creative activity or from close intense conversation and has the attributes of delivering flash after flash of euphoric feeling that correlate to steps in the progress principle. M.E.P. Seligman adds the concept of balance to this idea. He says that gratifications such as those that come from activities that fully engage and allow one to lose self-consciousness are different from delights or pleasures that are the strong emotional sensory activities such as food, backrubs or light breezes. Either of these can be overdone (like a quart of ice cream ingested at one sitting) and can lose their potency.[9]  He says that ideally, one’s day and environment should be arranged to increase both

I have come to realize that like Walter De Maria’s Lightning Field, just being in the profession of Design may increase the probability for strikes of Joy.

pleasures and gratification to achieve maximum happiness. To me, that means periods of uninterrupted solitary design tasks punctuated by conversations or interruptions that make us come up for air and recognize the impressiveness of nature, exercise, lunch or other people. More often, flow is broken up by paperwork and phone calls that are distracting, causing delay in that gratification. But nevertheless, pauses space out the flow so we won’t be deadened to its attending bursts of happiness. Much of this train of thought came from chapter five of The Happiness Hypothesis. Each of the ten chapters held useful parallels to design — my message in the address to the Design Inquiry Joy participants. A final thought from Haidt’s chapter ten describes us as social creatures who need love and attachments, but who also need vital engagement to feel a sense of purpose and meaning. Work that feels like a calling is that which we can sense contributes to a purpose beyond ourselves for the greater good. Jonathan Haidt quotes the poet Kahlil Gibran in speaking about work as love made visible. Gibran gives words to what vital engagement with work as a calling might be like in the following poem:

“It is to weave the cloth with threads drawn from your heart, even as if your beloved were to wear that cloth. It is to build a house with affection, even as if your beloved were to dwell in that house. It is to sow seed with tenderness and reap the harvest with joy, even as if your beloved were to eat the fruit.”[10]

Reinforced in my addiction, I will no longer apologize for being a workaholic in this profession that I love despite its frustrations and long hours. But I have come away feeling that it can be managed with more savoring and more directed pauses to keep the joy or at least happiness as part of the process. And I am also made aware of the responsibility to tread just as lightly on the values of those I would reach as I might on the flora beside the path toward which I once was also oblivious. Then there may be more joy all around.

______________________________________________________________________________________

[1] Prochaska, 2002.
[2] Patterson, 2002, 49.
[3] Haidt, 2007.
[4] Haidt, 2002.
[5] Vardey, 1995.
[6] Haidt, 2006.
[7] Lyubomirsky, et al.,2005.
[8] Csikszentmihalyi, 1990.
[9] Seligman, 2002.
[10] Gibran, 1997/1923,27.

______________________________________________________________________________________

Csikszentmihalyi, M.(1997). Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. New York: Harper & Row.

Gibran, Kahlil.(1977/1923).The Prophet. NY: Alfred A. Knopf.

Haidt, Jonathan. (2006).The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Truth in Ancient Wisdom. NY: Basic Books.

Haidt, Jonathan. (2007). When Morality Opposes Justice: Conservatives Have Moral Intuitions that Liberals May not Recognize, Social Justice Research 20, 98-116.

Lyubomirsky, S., Sheldon, K.M. &

Schkade, D. (2005).Pursuing Happiness: The architecture of sustainable change. Review of General Psychology, 112-116.

Patterson, K., Grenny, J., McMillan, R., Switzler, A. (2002).Crucial Conversations: Tools for talking when stakes are high. NY: McGraw Hill.

Prochaska, J., Norcross, J., DiClemente, C., Collins.(2002).Changing for Good: A Revolu tionary Six-Stage Program for Overcoming Bad Habits and Moving Your Life Positively Forward. NY: Collins Publishers.

Seligman, M.E.P. (2002). Authentic Happiness. New York: Free Press.

Vardey, Lucinda. (1995).Mother Theresa: A Simple Path. NY: Random House

The post Love & Work appeared first on DesignInquiry.

CODA
The impulse to make a photograph begins with my recognition and connection to a particular moment — of JOY — of watching, of noticing, of stopping time, of love, of understanding that the life around me is fleeting and in motion, ending. I am rejoicing. My impulse to notate gestures into concrete and lasting images also forces a swell of a kind of sorrow. I am aware — of loss — of time, of habits, of particular relational experiences that will change. I become a spectator of the past.

Photographs accept the whole moment, these record joy & fear, joy & longing, joy & loss; a bittersweet that is simultaneously freeing and sad. I can’t intercept the viewers reaction to these particular images, but I can try through the prompt of one simple word to introduce a tension that might move us into open ground that includes opposites—the dichotomy that moved me to make the image in the first place.

Just like a tickle hurts, JOY is being alive with all that comes with it.

© Margo Halverson, DesignInquiry 2010

The post Joy appeared first on DesignInquiry.

INTRODUCTION
This guide uses the term built joy to describe occurrences of exultation and pleasure in the built environment. This guide uses the term “built environment” to describe those landscapes deliberately and intentionally constructed by humans for human use and occupation. Once the fundamental need for shelter was satisfied, it seems likely that some among the earliest builders endowed the spaces they made with joy. It also seems likely that some among the earliest occupants felt joy in those spaces. By the Roman era, the existence of built joy was a certainty, evident in the famous triad of virtues that Vitruvius articulated in De Architectura (written about 25 BCE). After firmitas and utilitas—dealing with pragmatics of durability and function—Vitruvius argued that all good building required venustas. Though it is generally translated as beauty, venustas is understood to surpass mere aesthetics, moving towards a thing fully felt by both designer and occupant. In the 17th century the British theorist Henry Wotton identified this as delight. In the 20th century the American architect Louis Kahn identified it as joy.

While most architects and theorists argued that the joyful intention of a space’s designer was a prerequisite for the joyful experience of a space’s occupant, Kahn believed that joy had its own a priori existence. For Kahn, joy was an “impelling force that was there before we were there” and “this force of joy” was constantly “reaching out to express.” It was the work of the designer to seize this joy and give it form. It was the work of the occupant to be receptive to this joy and to feel its power. But no matter how much Kahn was committed to the primacy of the architect as creator, in his formulation the occupant was not reduced to mere passivity. In experiencing built space the occupant was an active participant in uncovering “that which joy is made of.” [1]

Louis I. Kahn, The Making of a Room, 1971 & Philips Exeter Library, Exeter, New Hampshire, 1971, interior

This guide is premised upon the agency Kahn recognized in each of us: every encounter we have with the built environment is a potential experience of joy. Finding that joy is not always easy—Kahn calculated that only 5-10% of those who make buildings could be counted on to make joy an architectural priority. The rest are preoccupied with responsibilities to safety and welfare, and focused almost entirely on problem solving and value engineering of program, structure, etc. As a result, too many of our buildings exclude concerns that are the domain of joy, and deliberately refuse to engage emotion, pleasure, and the sensual realm.

Lest joy seekers become disheartened at the outset, it is important to note that even buildings lacking intentional joy are not devoid of discoverable joy. As physical objects, they could hardly be otherwise: a building’s manipulation of materials and space, orchestration of light and movement, and transformation with age and weather are all opportunities for joy. When the physical intersects with the social, the potential for built joy multiplies almost infinitely. Thus, no matter how much building culture regards joy with suspicion, “really, joy will prevail.” Users of this guide are encouraged to keep this—the conclusion of Kahn’s 1973 lecture—well in mind as they venture into the field in search of built joy.

HISTORY
In the long history of architecture, joy hovers just below the surface, waiting to be probed and exposed, identified and deciphered, as in archeological excavation. The historic episodes that follow reveal this joy by exploring key concepts that have informed joy’s built manifestations through the ages, all of which remain relevant in the contemporary landscape of the 21st century.

Gothic Cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris, 1163 – 1345

Monumental
Though built joy has undoubtedly existed for as long as there have been buildings, the most frequent historical manifestation for which we have evidence is in monumental structures. Writers across the Empire expressed their delight with the rich appointments and expansive spaces of Roman baths. The devout, from theologians to pilgrims, described the ecstasy they felt when confronting the stained glass and soaring heights of Gothic cathedrals. These were aspirational buildings, intended and experienced joyfully. These were also propagandistic buildings. But however oppressive the institutions capable of producing monumental buildings, their monuments can still produce joy. Indeed, despite centuries of religious wars and abuses, the buildings of the sacred realm have been the most consistently joyful. Perhaps this is because in sacred buildings, unlike in most other types, transcendence is very nearly a functional requirement. Across the great religions, sacred buildings are designed as sites of contemplation and demarcation, separating the everyday and spiritual worlds. While this is no guarantee of joy, it is a useful precondition, deliberately setting the stage for a vivid emotional experience.

“Primitive Hut” frontispiece from Laugier’s Essai sur l’Architecture, 1755

Quotidian
Though the specialness of sacred space contributes to its joy potential, quotidian or everyday spaces can also produce joy. This is a fairly recent phenomenon, dating only to the 18th century in Rousseau’s romanticizing of the homme sauvage in On the Origin and Foundation of the Inequality of Mankind, and the subsequent canonization of the primitive hut as an architectural equivalent in such treatises as Marc-Antoine Laugier’s Essai. While those Enlightenment theorists were primarily searching for figures (human or built) uncorrupted by civilization, they inadvertently provided a foundation for finding satisfaction in roughness and simplicity. A century later, this idea reached its maturity in the thinking of John Ruskin and William Morris and their celebrations of pre-industrial craftsmanship, from The Stones of Venice to the Red House at Bexleyheath. When Ruskin declared in 1857 that “joy, humility, and usefulness always go together,” he could have been describing the ideology of Arts & Crafts designers and the desires of Arts & Crafts consumers—then and now—who learned to take pleasure in the bungalow and the cottage rather than the manor and the villa. [2]

John Ruskin, “Surface and Surface Gothic,” plate XII from Stones of Venice, 1853

William Morris and Phillip Webb, Red House, Bexleyheath, 1859, garden façade

Valorizing the joy of humble authenticity continued into the 20th century when modernists like Walter Gropius and Le Corbusier added the industrial vernacular to a growing list of everyday built joy. In their embodiment of the zeitgeist of the Machine Age and especially in their elegant, but utilitarian resolution of form and function, the grain elevator, the daylight factory, and the airship hangar produced sighs of pleasure after the aesthetic excesses of the fin-de-siècle. And the modernists intended their own buildings, derived from those industrial forms, to have the same effect. Contemporary joy seekers can approximate that early modernist thrill by locating buildings made from our post-industrial equivalent—shipping containers.

Shigeru Ban, Nomadic Museum, New York City, 2005

Pop
From here, with Reyner Banham, Tom Wolfe, Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown as tour guides, it was a short step to finding joy in the exuberant everyday landscapes of Main Street and the Strip. The zeitgeist of late capitalism in the 1960s and after may have produced less lovely forms but it was possible to revel once again in aesthetic excesses, now of the kandy-kolored-neon variety.

Susan Sontag’s “Notes on Camp” offers an important theoretical foundation as it attempts to explain “the sensibility of an era” that made an appreciation of Las Vegas possible. The Notes are suffused with manifestations of joy and what it means to be in a joyous state. From Note 54: “The man who insists on high and serious pleasures is depriving himself of pleasure; he continually restricts what he can enjoy.” From Note 55: “Camp taste is, above all, a mode of enjoyment, of appreciation—not judgment. Camp is generous. It wants to enjoy.” From Note 56: “Camp taste identifies with what it is enjoying. People who share this sensibility are not laughing at the thing they label as ‘a camp,’ they’re enjoying it.” [3]  Though “camp” was a far more complex and transgressive practice than Sontag presented in her essay, in upending cultural hierarchies and collapsing dichotomies of taste, it broadened the possibilities of joy, built and otherwise.

Louis Sullivan, Wainwright Building, St. Louis, 1894, detail of piers and spandrels

That Dare not Speak its Name
It is worth observing, however, that while joy is everywhere apparent in “Notes on Camp,” nowhere does the word itself actually appear in the text, unless accompanied by the prefix “en-.” This is not mere semantics: joy’s implicit sincerity meant that it could not be expressed explicitly in an essay dedicated to toppling high seriousness. This omission has a direct parallel in architectural discourse in the mid-20th century and by extension in manifestations of built joy into the 21st.

In his 1924 Autobiography of an Idea, Louis Sullivan wrote about joy unabashedly and unselfconsciously. “The Free Spirit is the spirit of Joy. It delights to create in beauty. It is unafraid, it knows not fear.” [4]  This is the same effusive spirit that animated his buildings; what are the entry, cornice, and spandrels of the Wainwright in St. Louis if not joy rendered in molded terra cotta? That building dates to 1894 and it’s a 19th century sensibility that underlies Sullivan’s autobiography, despite its Jazz Age publication date. Sullivan could be open about joy because his romantic inclinations tended backward not forward.

By the time Sullivan’s fictional alter ego made an appearance in Ayn Rand’s 1943 novel The Fountainhead, his pronouncements were meant to seem hopelessly old-fashioned and out of step with the times: architecture is “a consecration to a joy that justifies the existence of the earth.” Of course, that ideal of joy is precisely what make the buildings designed by Howard Roarke, the novel’s misunderstood architect hero so distinct, and despised: “Your buildings have one sense above all—a sense of joy. Not a placid joy. A difficult, demanding kind of joy. The kind that makes one feel as if it were an achievement to experience it. One looks and thinks: I’m a better person if I can feel that.” [5]  It hardly needs mentioning that in the thinly veneered fictional America of Rand’s novel, that kind of joy was the rarest of species of all.

Morris Lapidus, Fontainebleau Hotel, Miami Beach, 1952-55, stair to nowhere and lobby; Summit Hotel, New York, 1961, lobby

Just as The Fountainhead was hitting the bestseller lists, the architect Morris Lapidus was beginning to make a name for himself with buildings that embodied a very different kind of joy, one meant to be accessible and effortless in its evocation of “emotion in architecture.” In dozens of stores and especially in hotels, such as the Fontainebleau in Miami Beach and the Summit in New York, Lapidus produced the kind of shameless, dazzling commercial modernism that critics despised and clients and customers loved, all sweeps and curves and cantilevers overlaid with with riotous decoration. “They call my hotels corn but they’re better than corn. They make people happy, excited, titillated.” By 1970, the pop sensibility allowed those feelings to be freely expressed and, with equal parts irony and playfulness, Lapidus’s work was dubbed “the architecture of joy.” [6]  Built joy had not quite come full circle, but it had come close. If the past four decades have not occasioned more instances of explicit joy this is because architecture takes itself far too seriously to be serious about joy. Which is why this guide is necessary.

CONCLUSION
From the ruins of Rome to the ruins of Detroit, from the cathedrals of Europe to the Mall of America, today we are free to seek built joy everywhere, guided not by ideals of beauty or theoretical discourse or historical precedent, but by our personal sympathies and social circumstances. Of course those sympathies, however individualistic they may be, are invariably shaped by ideals, theories, and history. And those social circumstances, whether cosmopolitan or provincial, are always relative. Joy in the built environment is continually in flux as it moves from intention to reception and from form to content. All the joy that has come before will influence all the joy we have yet to discover.

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[1] Louis I. Kahn, “1973: Brooklyn, New York,” Perspecta 19 (1982), 89-90. This was one of Kahn’s last public lectures, delivered the year before he died.

[2] John Ruskin, “A Joy Forever (1857)” in The Works of John Ruskin vol. XVI (1880; rpt. London: George Allen, 1905), 155.

[3] Susan Sontag, “Notes on Camp,” (1964), rpt. in Sontag, Against Interpretation (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1966), 291-292.

[4] Louis Sullivan, Autobiography of an Idea (1924; rpt. New York, 1956), 258.

[5] Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead (1943; rpt. New York: Signet Books, 1996), 80, 518.

[6] Morris Lapidus, “A Quest for Emotion in Architecture,” AIA Journal 36 (Nov. 1961), 56, 67. “Crazy Hat, Bright Tie,” Time (9 May 1960), http://www.time.com/time/archive/, 49. See also Gabrielle Esperdy, “I am a Modernist: Morris Lapidus and his Critics,” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 66 (Dec. 2007), 494–517.

The post Précis for a Field Guide to Joy appeared first on DesignInquiry.

Joy is Timeless, Hollywood Blvd, Los Angeles

Meaning of some thing or place has become imprinted indelibly in my memory.  As a designer, I tend to identify the roots of an overwhelmingly joyful experience with a place, that has elements of the natural, historical, and sentimental. An exceptional place resides within and outside of time, in the same way that I think of joy as a timeless state of being.

Joy of place, is transformative.

Clock Face, Congress Street, Portland, Maine

I am vulnerable here, as I would typically justify insight from a purposeful almost proof-like basis.     However as I gain more life experience I am re-acknowledging the intuitive, and at dawn, when I begin to wake from sleep, I find the most potent images that strike their deepest course in my thoughts and obsessions, and therefore my work. For me, observing the most elemental aspects of existence provide joy.

Anasazi chimney rock site, Colorado

Here are some of my primary discoveries:  like harmonies and dissonances, exceptional architecture is timeless. It sounds or feels “right”, or exposes polarities, revealing a dissimilarity.  Transcendent architecture has similar qualities crossing all contexts that it occupies. The frame it sits within, the histories that the observer brings to that place and time, when it came into being (was built), how it existed during its passage through time, and finally, at the moment of observation. All effect how it exists—nearly a quantum relationship. An exceptional place will connect with our collective memory.

Sacred Building, Maine

These sites are containers. In ancient Hebrew, the letter Bet “ב”: that which surrounds or contains a presence,  provides boundaries both inside and outside, and allows for what the Swiss philosopher Eliade describes as sacred and profane characteristics of place. These places, that make an effort, contain humanity.  They hold together the connective tissue between time, memory, and light. In a concrete manor, light reveals the object, and shows it in its contexts.

Attributed to Louis Kahn’s; “An exceptional place must weave both natural and man made within the realm of the un-measurable”. I look for tectonic structure both seemingly natural and man-built. In the examples throughout this review, note the contrasts between light and dark, materials; both solid, transparent, and sandy. Observe the natural foliage, juxtaposed with the manmade, and set in its topography. Look for where the human in each scene appears.

Mountain Path, Oia, Greece

One mile from mountain path, Ioa, Greece

Now, from the distance of my studio and holding the un-cropped photographs,  I am removed from these geographic moments, and become the observer.  I can marvel at that place or path. One can identify the depth of human experience and conflict that has arrested these places. None of the images I present here are coincidental, all rise beyond merely the functional rational.

Exit, Osios Loukas near Delphi

Entry, Osios Loukas near Delphi

Context creates the boundary of the collage.  Joy can be found in the passage from the one place through to the next; this potential, allows for the discovery of the existential, realized after the fact.

Outer regions from palace, Versaille, France

Two trees woven together by the wind can imply shelter or define passage; a simple boundary between this side and the other. What makes it exceptional is how and why this gateway continues to exist for many generations.

I am myopic—I tend to look for the minute details that build a place where timelessness; that place’s fundamental construct and the evidence of the human hand reveal themselves.

New Mexico

Start of path Anasazi site, Bandelier, NM

Sea Level, Mt. St. Michael

early use of concrete

Defensive/Ritual Viewpoint Ansaszi, Bandelier, New Mexico

 

St. Mark’s Basilica, Venice

Abiquiu, NM

 

 

 

Ioa, Greece

 

Trail End, Ansaszi, Bandelier, New Mexico

The post The Lens appeared first on DesignInquiry.

Dan Clowes, detail from Art School Confidential

This essay originally appeared on DesignObserver.

Like the canary in the coal mine, there’s much that can be learned from careful observation of design school culture today. In education, students can easily be grouped into one of two categories: the Sentient and the Bag of Meat. The Bag of Meat, dead from the neck up leads Thoreau’s “life of quiet desperation” and is the embodiment of consumerist attitudes towards learning. The Bag of Meat is deceptively quick with an excuse, stupefyingly slow with an answer, and terminally late to accept responsibility for the content and the character of their education. Life is filled with Bags of Meat. And though, by my estimation, and corroborated by the musings of Thoreau and Nietzsche, they comprise the vast majority of students, they are not our concern.

It is the Sentient student with whom we are concerned.

In most cases, design education takes place within the larger context of this thing called “art school.” Art school culture is a unique subculture within American education. In Art School Confidential, Dan Clowes claims to “blow the lid off a million-dollar racket” whereby Clowes carefully exposes art school as a cabal of snake oil salesmen, has-beens and hirsute poseurs. Well, I’m calling bullshit.

Just as the smash hit films, Superbad, Knocked-up and She’s Out of My League, resonate deeply in American culture because they portray a re-balanced universe of pathetic couch-squatting, disempowered male losers [1] who magically win the affection of overachieving super-females, Art School Confidential resonates deeply with all of those sleep-walkingBags of Meat, who see any knowledge beyond their immediate intellectual grasp as illegitimate. Art School Confidential is a mirror that legitimizes ones’ intellectual, spiritual and physical laziness. Like the law of gravity, there are simple immutable physical laws that govern the universe. [2] Chief among these laws is: knowledge is power. This simple inescapable truth undergirds what Sentient students in real art schools are working so hard to achieve. These students strive to achieve agency and real power through knowledge. Knowledge begets power. Power begets a higher level of self-determination. Self-determination begets a better life.

Dan Clowes, detail from Art School Confidential

Clowes outlines two potential career paths for the art school kid. With this kind of pathetic attitude, what would you expect? It would seem far more productive to throw down with Busta Rhymes, “There never was a plan B.” Or to assimilate the kind of gangster-grind work ethic of 50 Cent. Come on kid, I’m gunna make something of myself “or die trying.” Clowes and Judd Apatow’s toxic ideology would have you believe that merit, meaning and success (yes, success) are the result of luck and the ability to talk a big game. Of course, verbal skills may be important, but I would posit the opposite. Merit, meaning and success are the result of the hustle, skill, knowledge, sweat and heart.

Jonah Hill (left) and 50 Cent (right)

The Heart of the Matter

Draw a conceptual line through art school, trace it down through design school, and then extend it out into life. The real issue, the heart of the matter, is all about “bliss.” Joseph Campbell’s much maligned and misinterpreted concept extrapolated from the Upanishads:

Now, I came to this idea of bliss because in Sanskrit, which is the great spiritual language of the world, there are three terms that represent the brink, the jumping-off place to the ocean of transcendence: sat-chit-ananda. The word “Sat” means being. “Chit” means consciousness. “Ananda” means bliss or rapture. I thought, “I don’t know whether my consciousness is proper consciousness or not; I don’t know whether what I know of my being is my proper being or not; but I do know where my rapture is. So let me hang on to rapture, and that will bring me both my consciousness and my being.” I think it worked. [4]

The real issue regarding life and work is the struggle. The struggle to transcend our own limitations. The arrow through the heart of the matter is the desire to achieve higher consciousness, greater power and meaning in life and work. This happens not through the anti-intellectualism, entitlement, sloth and the general existential malaise that pervades our culture. Disaffection, ennui and nihilism are for the weak. The pathetic characters populating Clowes’ art school landscape, and those they appeal to, are Thoreau’s great mass of men who “lead lives of quite desperation.” Campbell’s “bliss” is the eternal sunshine piercing the fog of this torpor. Bliss is the pathway that the Sentient struggles to remain on. Bliss, that feeling of being deeply at home in something, denies external pressure. It denies duty and expectation in favor of knowledge of self. It should have been a critical component of Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. It is in fact, the primary mechanism enabling and leading to self actualization. It is akin to the Jesuit notion ofmagis, Latin for “the more.” Bliss enables and engenders magis. [5] In its simplest terms the concerns of everyday life appear to be at odds with Bliss and with self-actualization. [6] Yet this simply reflects a failure of imagination.

Apatow and Clowes are but two of a nearly infinite wellspring of sources, seducing the populace with the promise of short-cuts.They are pied pipers leading others down the primrose path of victimhood, they encourage the viewer to distrust fancy book learning and sweat equity. Go ahead park your ass on the couch all day and smoke some weed, somehow you’ll score a hot-chick with a great job. Oh, and if you don’t make it as a designer, blame your school: after all, those fancy polysyllabic words in those books were a con game anyway. Good luck with that and let me know how it works out.

Oh, by the way, next time you see Mr. Clowes do me a favor, and ask him how he likes working at the art supply store.

Notes:
1. Typically there is a corollary to every theorem, and in this case it’s important to understand the Jonah Hill Corollary. It is true that super-females will mate with men who appear to be disempowered couching, squatting losers. But there are two conditions that must be met in order to achieve the balance necessary to sustain this relationship. First, the aforementioned male must be hilariously funny. And second (and most importantly) the male must be fabulously wealthy. This wealth is reflection of drive, intellect, cunning, power, social capital or family connection. The problem with Apatowian films, and the reason why they resonate so deeply, is that they specifically leave this critical element out. They are specifically about the disempowered finding the short-cut, taking the easy way out, living the impossible dream. They buttress the viewer’s basest instincts and laziest impulse.

2. Most foundation studies courses contain a two-dimensional design component. This foundation usually deals with perceptual psychology, color theory and highly formalist issues. Form making can be traced back to simple principles dealing with the physical structure of the human eye and how that interfaces with perception. This is not some highfalutin city-slicker bullshit a beret-wearing intellectual made up. These issues have an evolutionary function and are tied to our survival as a species. Coming to a deeper understanding of these issues bolsters one’s ability to bring form-making under ones command — it gives one agency with regard to form. Ah, but obviously the art school snake-oil that Clowes is debunking refers to this thing called “Theory”: structuralism, post-structuralism, queer theory, post-colonial theory, linguistics, etc… The same issues are at play here but extend the conversation into what a work means. Struggling with Chomsky or de Saussures’ writings on the nature of language, as an example, do not make you a weaker artist. It makes you a stronger artist.

3. “I still say that you are overlooking the third type. I think you have bags of meat, robot sharks, and sentient beings. Robot sharks are quick with an excuse, like the bag of meat, but quick with an answer, like a sentient being. Robot sharks are aiming at a salary, but pretend to be concerned with meaning. They are the type that is most difficult to discern because the bag of meat has not, for the most part, the capacity to maintain the appearance of anything but a bag of meat; the sentient being cannot maintain deception for terribly long, because his conscience will not allow it; but the robot shark can mimic all the positive attributes of both when necessary. I think you could potentially acknowledge a third type and still make your concern the sentient being. However, as it is and as it will be misinterpreted regardless, the ultimate point of the essay does not REALLY hinge on these distinctions. The essence of your argument may be just as valuable for the bag of meat as the sentient being. But the design world is largely made up of robot sharks, so it may be a good provocative addition to include that type.” — Joshua Ray Stephens

4. Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth with Bill Moyers, edited by Betty Sue Flowers. Doubleday, 1988, p. 120.

5. I plan to explore these ideas in much greater detail at DesignInquiry:JOY in June 2010.

6. At the risk of seriously undermining my position, our culture’s primary spiritual leader Deepak-Opra reminds us that we should love what we do, and the rest will take care of itself.

The post The Sentient & the Bag of Meat (JOY 2010) appeared first on DesignInquiry.

DesignInquiry OATMEAL BREAD
(4 loaves)

Part 1.
6c lukewarm water
2T (tablespoons) yeast (2 packages)
1/2 – 3/3 c sweetening (honey or molasses-unsulfured)
4c white flour
4c whole wheat flour

Part 2.
2 1/2 T salt
1/2-1 c oil (or butter, melted)
5c rolled oats
4c white flour
4c whole wheat flour
2-3c white flour (for kneading)

combine 2T (tablespoons) yeast (2 packages)
6c lukewarm water, and
1/2 – 3/3 c sweetening (honey or molasses-unsulfured)
add 4c white flour
4c whole wheat flour
mix with a wooden spoon (100 strokes)
let rise 1 hour, in warmish place,
covered with damp cloth to keep draft out
(not too hot or you’ll kill the yeast)
add 2 1/2 T salt
1/2-l c oil (or butter, melted)
5c rolled oats,
4c white flour
4c whole wheat flour

The mixture should be sticky but manageable to begin kneading on a floured surface flour your hands and keep adding sprinkles of flour as you need to to keep it from sticking to the table or your hands knead it till it is smoother and has a strong elasticity.

Let rise 1 hour, covered with damp cloth in an oiled bowl and oil on top of bread to keep it from drying out punch down when double in bulk let rise 50 minutes

Preheat the oven, at 350° F
divided into 4 equal pieces
knead each about 5-6 times
shape into loaves
put onto baking sheets
rise 20 minutes
make 3 slits in top 1/2 inch deep

Bake 350° F, 1 hour
when done loaf will resound with deep hollow thump
when tapped with knuckles on bottom
remove from pans or off tray
let cool on rack, or eat right away
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DOWNLOAD PDF

The post Bread appeared first on DesignInquiry.

Yesterday, an inauspicious Friday leading into Valentine’s day weekend, it snowed in Raleigh. Today, puffy froth clings precariously to trees and wood railings. Unlike the disruptive January snows that shut down the town, this white sweep is but a flamboyant curtsy, the last bow before winter withdraws. It will disappear by nightfall.

This same Friday, standing in my kitchen, I opened a small envelope from Bowen Island, British Columbia. The ephemera inside was an original holiday greeting designed by Marian Bantjes. She makes and sends these trinkets at Christmastime, Halloween and Valentine’s Day. Among my most treasured is one of a hundred and fifty hearts she drew, for a hundred and fifty people. This one is mine:

For a 2008 mailing, she rendered flowing letters, each nestled inside a pastille pink heart. Marian assembled and inserted sets, printed on delicate, vellum wafers, into 300 individually addressed, glassine envelopes. In my case, a “D”, “N”, “I”, “S”, and two “E”s slid out of their sleeve looking as if they were meant to dissolve on my tongue.

Marian didn’t make a December greeting this year. I suspect increasing popularity interfered — the result of a 2007 AIGA national conference presentation that brought her international attention. The piece I received yesterday weaves vector hearts and cupids into an elaborate valentine, laser-cut out of a Christmas card. The envelope (which my neatnik husband must have thrown away) said “Merry Valentine’s Day.” Of around 500 cards, the enclosure explains, “This one is for you.” Here in my kitchen, from a continent away, her independently honed craft captivated; that infectious, sugarless sass spoke.

…

At nearly the exact hour Marian’s sliver of delight appeared in my mailbox, she was presenting at the TED 2010 conference. A photograph posted on the website today captures her addressing the audience from a sophisticated set. She is well lit. She is wearing gorgeous, decorated boots. A backdrop of her work cascades behind, like a technicolor Niagara Falls. Unanchored to a podium, she looks confident. She looks special. She looks, well, famous. Until I encountered this image, I had thought about her TED talk in relation to myself: Marian is the only first-degree-of-separation person I know, (I mustered), who has been invited to that stage! I had yet to recognize my envy.

The caption reads “On every job I ask: Does my work bring joy? inspire wonder? provoke curiosity?” She speaks of joy, and here I sit, obviously not in the audience, stewing. I can imagine the talk revealing her limitless curiosity, manifested in bits of ink and pigment, pulp and other ordinary matter. Countless marks laid down or manipulated, one by one, using the very same tools I use. I have been a beneficiary, on occasion, of these diaphanous wonders she floats out into the world. I have known that joy. And I’m not feeling it now.

One of Marian’s many projects was to design a small die impression for the Penny Smash project. She settled on the word “empathy” because, she reckoned, the sentiment just might cause a person, fingering the souvenir from time to time, to view a situation differently. Oh for the feel of a smashed penny in my pocket! I’m curious if she projected the wee charm on that massive TED screen.

My first-degree-of-separation, distant and thin as it is, prompts acute and faceted feelings — greater joy, and its ever-present complement, the threat of disappearing. I’m not the first to notice that the ephemeral nature of such things inspires the often fragile and uncommon sense of joy. Collusion between refiguring molecules and natural forces can catch us by surprise; and artifacts, when unfathomably crafted, can lift us up, pull us against gravity, how ever momentarily.

February 14, 2010

Today is Valentine’s Day. The snow has slipped away, unceremoniously. I confess that I didn’t make or buy a card for my husband. He, on the other hand, in sweet John Hartzog style, set out a modest stockpile of exotic chocolate bars on the kitchen table, topped with a hand-crafted valentine.

John is not a designer; in fact can barely scratch out a stick figure. Scissors and glue are anomalies to him. Yet pasted onto a three-inch white square torn from a notepad was a perfectly shaped, red heart. A clumsy arrow intersects it, one long line drawn in dark red ink. Riding its length to the left of the heart is the capital letter “D”; to the right, “G” and “C”.

I scrutinize the valentine, delighted and incredulous. The heart’s cut edge reveals care and concentration by an unskilled hand. I see no evidence of the technique that ensures symmetry: a faint crease down the middle. I am flummoxed. Meanwhile, John fishes something from the paper bin, then hands it to me. “Sorry,” he says, “I didn’t know you wanted to keep this.” I see a tell-tale hole in the remains. He had liberated Marian’s heart from its envelope.

…

I sit at my table, chocolate melting in my mouth. From a stack of stuff that has accumulated there, I pick out a music compilation disc — a Starbucks Christmas giveaway. Clusters of white vector doves form the word “LOVE” against a red ground. I don’t know who designed it. I suppose Marian could have. In any case, this free-gift-with-purchase is quietly converting to debris. Meanwhile, the newest TED talk videos are collecting on a site somewhere; will soon exist as replay versions of history, available to pretty much anybody.

At what point do designed things become prized? Experiences to be preserved? Can design elicit joy at all if disassociated from the making, or from the maker? Can the things we humans make really yield this kind of power? As I mull over these questions, John interrupts: “Did you get my graphic symbolism?” I study the valentine again, just to be sure. “D-GC has pierced your heart…zog?” He smiles.

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