What were you exploring, how were you exploring it?
We are questioning the connection between people and design to understand how meanings changed depends of the positionings. Our anti-homeless spikes exploration was prompted by the Rapid Response Collecting exhibition at the V and A museum on Wednesday, 9 February 2022 at 10 am. We have different ways to explore the collections. Personally, I like to scan through whole collections rather than focused on an object in the first time, then going back to the first room to find objects that interest me and to read the description. By reading how the collection flows, it helps me to understand the whole context of the exhibition. We saw two architectural objects that shared a visual language and seemed superficially similar, but had opposing functions: the first was a textural block designed to notify blind people of approaching hazards. The second was a block of spikes designed to deter homeless people from resting. The title of this set was ‘design to inform and instruct’. We became interested in trying to combine objects with opposing functions, but that shared a common visual form. At the moment, we did not know what would be the outcome. But we keep exploring the collection in four different aspects:
- Materiality: How can we translated the object using different materials such as clay, 3D modelling, paper, sculpture of ordinary things.
- Circulation: How this object can be presented in a design scope.
- Communication: How perception can be changed depending on how an object is treated.
- Positioning: How objects generate different understanding for particular audiences
In response, after a long discussion, we did an experimental exploration by translating a set of 3D objects that have opposite functions into 2D/publication which has messages that can be decoded iteratively. As a group, we generated a promotional catalogue that contains subliminal contradictory messages using the braille system. The printed catalogue has posters and spike studs modelling that has a positioning if it was made by Kent Stainless, the company that produces spike studs. In other hand, the messages in braille letters are taken from the articles and videos on the internet about the anti-homeless movement in 2014. The outcome of our explorations is also divided in four aspects:
- Materiality: How we used different material to generate different message.
- Circulation: How we used posters and 3D renderings to present
- Communication: How we used different methods of design to communicate messages
- Positioning: How we designed two positionings and combine them in a publication
In this project, we tried to adapt how people perceive the hostile architecture in public spaces. There are people who see it only as ‘an aesthetic furniture’, but there are also people who see it in a critical lens as ‘how people control other people using design’. Moreover, we tried to adapt how the curator build the context by juxtaposing the braille tactile block with the spike studs by over-layering the catalogue with the hidden messages.
On the first week, we did not think that we will make a publication like what we did, we developed it separated way and did not have something in common yet. But, after last week crit, we try to find a way to connect each other’s works and see which iteration is working and not working; The posters, the braille system, and the surface design. By sitting together as a group, we found a way to translate our different iterations into one body of work. In the end, it was compelling to see the outcome turned into something that unexpected before.
What key insights did you generate?
Refer back to the collection, by reading the description, it is clear enough that this collection talks about the connection between people and design, but why do they put those objects there—what makes it special? What are the reasons behind every collection? What decision that makes the curator(s) selected a particular object? How can design represents the civilisation at a certain time? It was interesting how they did not sort the objects in a precise time chronological order, but they used 6 main themes instead, to categorised the objects that highlight what happened in the certain decades. These are key insights I generate from the exhibition:
- Automation and Labour: To portray the love-hate relationship between human and machine
- Housing and Living: To talk about how people preferences were changing as they faced new problems
- Crisis and Conflict: To speak about neglected rights and the consequences
- Consumption and Identity: To show how human faced another human with their own statements
- Sustainability and Subversion: To create a dispute in people behavior of things that already exist in a long time
- Data and Communication: To expose how technology helps, but, in other hand makes privacy became a new wealth
The following insight emerged from the project is how interpretation can be designed by selecting whom the message is aimed to. In our projects, we acted like the curator in the exhibition: we collected things and juxtapose them so they can generate different context.
The catalogue will only be a catalogue, the braille can only be a letter for visually impaired persons, but to put them together over-layering each other gives a new meaning that cannot be ‘read’ if they were standing alone.
In addition, if we did not have limitations, we would like to develop this project further using different materials such as fabric, plastic, metal. To see if there is a way to make the project communicate stronger than what we have done. We also want to test the project to broader audiences, which aspect would they notice first? Is the poster/visual or the braille/texture? Would they be interested in decoding the hidden message using the braille system? Would they care enough about our arrangement and material decision?
- 2 TEXTS FROM THE READING LIST
Francisco Laranjo, Critical Graphic Design: Critical of What?, 2014
Carl DiSalvo, Adversarial Design, 2012
In Critical Graphic Design: Critical of What? Essay, Laranjo cited the Ramia Mazé suggestions of criticality in design (The Reader, 2009). The first thing Mazé argues is to be a reflexive designer who questioning about his or her positioning within their practice. Laranzo also noted that the critique is not targeted at a designer’s own discipline, practice or even at design in general, but at social and political phenomena. Rather than criticizing the elementary design principles, Rapid Response Collecting at V&A Museum are generally being critical in how design affects society in many aspects: social, economy, culture, politic, environment.
Our chosen object, the spike studs, specifically criticize social phenomenon against the anti-homeless spikes in 2014 where design is used for controlling marginalised communities in order to hide poverty, but in contrary, the curator(s) also revealed how design is used as a tool for being coexist with other people by displaying the braille tactile block next to the spike studs. In our work, we tried to adapt how the Rapid Response Collecting curator(s) criticize the connection between people and design by juxtaposing two contradictory objects to build different meaning. We use the poster to communicate the message of the company using their positioning, to create a good image for their product. While beneath the posters, we rose the paper texture to mimic the braille system to communicate messages from the #AntiHomelessSpikes movement. The texts were taken from articles and videos on the internet that talked about the impacts of the street furniture to the society who live in the world that is not designed for them.
This is also supported by research written by Carl DiSalvo in the book Adversarial Design, he inspects how provocation is used as a design tool to challenge beliefs, values, and what are perceived to be facts. The curator(s) designed the exhibition in a certain way and put the objects in a set creates new values which invites different interpretations. DiSalvo stated that agonism is a condition of forever looping contestation. (DiSalvo, p.5, 2012) The #AntiHomelessSpikes phenomenon in 2014 shown us how design can be used to questioning values, and how society divided into different positionings. This ad I found from meme page on the internet is documenting what we believe as inhuman street furniture framed as an object to support certain issue: preventing kids from sleeping on the streets. This ad somehow tried to become less threatening by changing their positioning. To compare, the defensive street furniture descriptions on the Kent Stainless company also use the same positioning, to raise a good image in society by showing the benefits of the goods and hid the controversial spike studs out of their website. Androu stated that defensive architecture is revealing on a number of levels, because it is not the product of accident or thoughtlessness, but a thought process. It is a sort of unkindness that is considered, designed, approved, funded and made real with the explicit motive to exclude and harass. (Alex Androu, theguardian.com) How was the designers’ thoughts of authorities who had been through the thinking process of creating street furnitures that can marginalised minority and keep realizing them? Can’t the designer’s position be completely intolerant? Would design be an enough space to represent each group’s contestation in an equal way?
- 2 TEXTS OUTSIDE THE READING LIST
Lupton and Phillips, Graphic Design the New Basics, 2008
In Graphic Design the New Basics, Lupton and Phillips (2008, p. 101) mentioned that ‘boundaries and fences are used for marking the frames of private property’. Referring back to the collection, architectural spike studs are commonly used for ‘marking’ the territory of a space, deterring loiterers, and to prevent thieves from entering property. The same design is used globally for the same purpose: defence. However, the way the spike studs were treated in the exhibition creates a strong different interaction between people and design which changes the whole meaning of the spike studs. I was interested in how the curator sorted and selected objects in a set and some of the objects are under the same title and description. Lupton and Phillips (2008, p. 101) noted that ‘The caption of a picture is a frame that guides its interpretation’. By including a piece of braille tactile paving slab next to the architectural spikes, it builds different context to the display set, as seeing that pave block in an art gallery is not what I was expecting before. The interesting part of the set is to portray opposing design positions amongst the society in a tangible way. The similarity between two objects, even though their function is contradictory, can interpreted as how design can be there as a helper, or an enemy for a (in this context, marginal) society.
Tomás Maldonado, Design, Nature, and Revolution: Toward a Critical Ecology, 2019
I am choosing this book because it is questioning the designer’s position during ecological crisis. In this book, Maldonado also talked about how designers’ work interacts directly with society. He combined philosophy, sociology, and countercultural thoughts to write a response to the utopias that made politically. He noted that if there be a consciousness that is disjointed by alienation, there will always be a corresponding environmental reality that is decipherable only in terms of alienation. (Maldonado, p.3, 2019) To me, it is how the alienation caused by the hostile architecture, it creates an environment that can only be understood how humiliating it is, by the homeless who became the ‘victim’ of the world that is not designed for them. We could always find things that have intention to isolate certain communities in an environment, which Maldonado says, concrete utopia. This triggers our thoughts toward the relationship of designer-user and which position we choose to play role in the society. Does it mean we—as a designer, are also responsible of our outcome’s ripple effects?
- 2 OTHER RELEVANT PROJECTS
Igor Grubić, East Side Story, 2013
Seeing juxtaposed contradictory objects in Rapid Response Collecting exhibition reminds me to Igor Grubić’s film East Side Story in Tate Modern. I found similar key ideas in both works: intolerance, marginalised, society. In his work, Grubić used television footages of Gay Pride marches that took place in Belgrade (2001) and Zagreb (2002), the alternated footages shown on the left-hand screen. While on the right-hand screen, he re-created the events in the same public spaces using four dancers which their movements are the translation of the extremists’ gestures. The naming of his project itself referred to American musical film in 1961, West Side Story, which focused on the contravention between two teenagers street gang of different ethnic groups. Through his works, he is showing to the audiences about what would happen if more people become intolerance by developing inquiries about minority rights in the society using the performance as the response to social issues. The side by side placements establish interrelation for the audience which has an intention to be discovered as a new narrative. In our project, this intention is what we want to try to build, we leave it up to the audience what meaning can be interpreted.
East Side Story footage (https://vimeo.com/64892049)
Igor Grubić, East Side Stories, 2013 (https://kadist.org/work/east-side-stories/)
Raphaël Dallaporta, Antipersonnel, 2014
For materiality, the catalogue is used for finding the beauty of strange hostile objects by rendering the 3D models of street furnitures into artistic visuals to make them less threatening. Although our purpose to keep the catalogue neutral is not yet accomplished,
our practice in glorifying these objects is similar to Raphaël Dallaporta’s work Antipersonnel in 2014 where he documented the antipersonnel landmines hidden underground using photography style which usually used in an advertising. He isolated the objects to explore the details of the landmines which surprisingly have hundreds of types with the shape, appearance, and design variety. I had never seen variety of street furniture until developing the Methods of Contextualising group project. It is interesting to see there are so many kind of street furniture that I have not noticed before. In addition, the Rapid Response Collecting curator(s)’ position somehow has the same position with Dallaporta’s work. They bring up the fact without adding subjectivity and leave it up to their audiences a space to analyze.
References:
DiSalvo, C. (2012). Adversarial Design. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
Laranjo, F. (2014) ‘Critical Graphic Design: Critical of What?’. Available at: https://designobserver.com/feature/critical-graphic-design-critical-of-what/38416 (Accessed: 21 February 2022).
Lupton, E. and Phillips, J. (2008) Graphic Design the New Basics. New York: Princeton Architectural Press.
Maldonado, T. (1972) Design, Nature, and Revolution: Toward a Critical Ecology, trans. Mario Domandi. New York: Harper and Row.