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Art Center Open Discussion Club Week 10

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Open Discussion Week 9 poster by Tatiana Cardenas

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Week 8 Recap

This week the Art Center Open Discussion club met at the design fair put together by OTISMFAGD 2017 class. More info here.

The conversation began by students talking about who was their favorite speaker at the fair. A few expressed their like for the Rodina presentation. They thought her talk was engaging and fun. Another student disagreed with them. While the talk was very entertaining, was the Rodina’s presentation empty? In the lecture, she went through the steps that make up performance design, while giving examples of her own practice. Is the Rodina’s practice selfish? Should a graphic designer put themselves in the forefront like that? The conversation then shifted to Mike Jakab’s presentation. We all want you to know that Mike Jakab works at Google.

Stephanie Specht showed her ‘Half Hart’ project made by the feeling of not belonging. A few students came up with an idea for a sweater project of their own. ‘Brand Sluts’ because we (millennials) are not loyal to brands. Another student really enjoyed the Atlant presentation. While the speakers were a little shy, going in depth into two projects felt more natural than just showing a slideshow of all your work and/or pitch a workshop to improve the donut buying experience. Two students talked about Actual Source’s robot voice intro being awkward. Specially because they used their own voice a few minutes later. Should they have used a computer voice for their entire presentation to be cohesive? Does it matter? Who knows. The one thing I can tell you is that every member of Open Discussion did not know Actual Source did spatial work. The idea of building a building is wild! We were all impressed and want to hear more about that.

A student mentioned the lectures being really short, and the whole thing feeling like speed dating. Another student was mad at a piece of text in the back of the program. Why can’t Art Center have programs sponsored by other cultural institutions? Why can’t Art Center have its own design fair organized by the graduating class? Why is Art Center a dialysis center?

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Art Center Open Discussion Club Summer 2017  Week 8 Otis Design Fair

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THURSDAY FEBRUARY 2ND (WK3)

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_Debord)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_godJrlfP4

PROMPTS

- We talk about a yearning to discuss our work more critically in the classroom and studio setting, let’s open up this space to talk about people’s projects and maybe use the group as a way to discuss ideas and analyze different ways of approaching.

- How do we think about the idea of ownership in relation to value, creation, and language?

ACTUALLY DISCUSSED

- We begin discussing Jimena’s + Bryan’s + Karlo’s independent study project. Part of the idea consists of a list of actions that can be challenging or socially awkward to perform. With the help of Dante as a faculty advisor all three will have to perform some of these actions. The goal is to break walls between the three and therefore create together more liberally. - We talk about the power of actions to solidify where you are/react/think at this very moment. - We interact with each other though action. How does this relates to other types of language? (Visual/Written/Auditory) - Writing as a step away from actual reality - Performance as a type of liberation and exploration into who we actually are? - There is a commitment to not worrying about the final product in this project - A reference is made to Swedish schools removing the idea of subjects from their classrooms. Instead focusing on the different tools that would be needed to solve a problem, whether that includes math, reading, or art. - How would that affect the way that we approach an idea? How would that affect our confidence in school? - We critique the intense structure that ArtCenter provides and compare it to European ways that undergraduate and graduate graphic designs are organized. With European school having much more emphasis on the individual and the interests that that person has. We talk in relation to Austin’s work with Werkplaats. - “Sometimes I don’t trust my consciousness” - We talk about the importance of finding your MAGMA ZONE and finding the most productive time for you. We demand for siestas to be more common. We need siestas. Fuck fatigue. - How does saying that you own something differ in value as opposed to something you bought and therefore it is assumed to be yours but you never spoke of it? - Does pure ownership come from creation? - How does ownership relate to responsibility? Does it have to do with inanimate vs. animate? We own dogs but not humans, how big does something have to be for it to be a responsibility? - We talk about the artist’s way of experiencing the world in their own unique way and visualizing it or recreating it with our own unique filter or version. We want to own the things that we like. - The argument is made that everything has a political backbone when artists take photographs of cultures that are not theirs and take them out of context by exposing them in a gallery show for example. Who owns that image? - Where does ego come in? At the core of ownership there is a sense that “I can benefit from this” We almost always consider the audience of who will see the work as we create it. - We mention the documentary based on the book No Logo and Guy Debord  - The idea of nostalgia is brought up. What we do are reflections of ideas we have seen. The media has affected this greatly, to the point where we are searching for a specific ideal of what a moment should be because we have seen it in a specific way so many times. - We refer to this happening at the Women’s March - What is a pure/unique experience? Can we have one? - As many have stated and the show Black Mirror visualizes: we are addicted to our screens - The example of screens at restaurants and cafes is brought up, how do these spaces affect the way that we interact with people? - We make a case for starting TECHNOLOGY ANONYMOUS (TA)- We finish off with the proposal of not being discouraged by the weight of pursuing something that you are interested in but ma know nothing about. - Awkwardness being a feeling we always shy away from but what can we learn from being in those space?- Abandonment is just as an important ending to a pursuit.

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FRIDAY JANUARY 27 (WK2)

*MAKING ART DURING FASCISM PAPER*

QUESTIONS THAT BEGAN DISCUSSION - do we want to address the political situation? How is everybody feeling?

- who does graphic design leave out? when we target an audience we rarely think about the people that we are excluding when doing so. How does this relate to gentrification?

- Do we as media producers have a moral responsibility to disprove and call out fake news?

- How do you think media is going to change under this new administration? re: steve cannon’s comments on the role of the media.

IDEAS ACTUALLY DISCUSSED - the importance of self care in a political climate such as this - importance of discussion and pursuing your passion, or what you are good at “ keep making cupcakes!” - 3-5 people can change the world according to reading. We believe this to be true - current status of how trump is dealing with immigrants in similar to how hitler kept a rule of jewish actions? - accurate facts / gas lighting - post truth = alternate facts - privilege in voting - women’s march wants to avoid intersectional feminism as a word? - designing for the lowest common denominator - marginalized communities create their own language without “education” and then we appropriate it onto our work - who do we include when we talk about “graphic design”? - there is a very important thing to think about when we talk about a historian’s job, who writes history books and what do they leave out (as we have mentioned before Howard Zinn is a good example of a historian attempting to tell the other side of history in his book “ A People’s History of the United States”) - artifacts as way to introduce history in graphic design? - how will saving files on a cloud affect the way that we think about history? How does it affect us now? - how do we think about the idea of time on saved clouds? How will history be chronicled? - think about the way that museums and institutions are already calling and memorializing the women’s march and it’s signs, it has a history of two weeks. Is history contained by time? Retrospect? Perspective? - there was the argument that the internet is simply speeding up history and because of this we see things like possibly fascist regimes appearing in a similar way to the past. - trump supporters that regret their vote? - why do we have this idea of absolutes when it comes to our political system? Loyalties to a party. We could make the argument to mix more views, get out of our comfort bubbles and try to see the argument form the other side? - we are desperate for conversation. The way and place that you grow up can have a significant effect on how you view the world. - we look at history and many social movements were led by students, a call for art center to not be neutral in this political situation. Which they are attempting to do. - is the amount of work that art center pushes a reason that we do not unite and engage in more socially demanding ways as a student body? - what is our role a tthis point in time? how do we build up momentum about the causes that we care about? It takes an army of people or pebbles to get stuff done. - reluctance to think about the intersection between religion and graphic design. - history of superstar designers, do we now have so much digital and visual access to other designer’s work to the point where there is a homogenization of the work? - Do you pull from the internal or external when making work? How does that affect the audience? Is more personal work more relatable?

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Open Discussion Spring 2017 Week 3

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Open Discussion Week 3 poster by Tatiana Cardenas

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Open Discussion Spring 2017 Week 2

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Polaroids by Froyo Tam

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Open Discussion Poster for week 2 / Spring 2017 designed by Froyo Tam

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Final poster of the term by Ben Schwartz (benschwartz.co)

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Open discussion week 10 poster by Juan Karlo Muro

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Open discussion week 9 poster by Jimena Gamio

(there will be no Open Discussion this week in observance of thanksgiving)

Hope everyone has a nice holiday

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Week 8 Notes

In response to the election results last week, different feelings have been surfacing individually and throughout the campus. After having a week to reflect and feel these feelings, it felt like a smart idea to discuss plans of action and activity as a means of acting on the feelings as opposed to allowing for withdrawal or apathy. The meeting this week was a means of creating a dialogue of problems faced and possibilities of progressing forward. 

The conversation began firstly by recognizing that these feelings are real and that this reality is something that we need to confront rather than dismiss. As well, the need for a conversation which empowers the women and cultures directly targeted by negativity that have not only been highlighted by the results of this presidential election but have existed as an undercurrent long before. 

What are positive actions in response to the presidential election? Now that we have been able to feel our emotional responses in the last week or so, what action do we take to move forward and progress through tangible/ physical methods/ direct? Is protesting a positive or lasting method? As well, how do we feel about the marginalizing of women and other cultures within our own community? For example, within a school that offers an abundant history of male designers, but nearly no curriculum on the histories of women? Or design accomplishments from non-euro/ predominantly white cultures?

Firstly, it is upsetting that we would rather choose misogyny over a female president. This shows that we are still as a country more willing to choose a man who was publicly outed for his prideful talk of sexually assaulting women rather than giving power to a woman. Obviously the conversation does not start and end here, it is much more complicated, though at a base clearly outlines a desire for patriarchy and a hesitation (put nicely) towards equality. As well, how many white women voted for Trump severely displays that misogyny is not only accepted but held as a belief. This can in some way be attributed to gender roles and the classification of action based on sexuality. As an obvious example, disney’s description of woman in need of a hero. Trapped in a castle with no ability to escape on her own. In reverse, this also establishes ideals of masculinity and encourages a strong polarity between men and women. It seems as though these polarities have yet to evolve or expand with the evolution of technology / culture / society. The classifications may at one point have existed for a social reason ( possibly during the times of hunter gatherers ) though now in such an entangled and progressive contemporary state seem to hold little to no meaning, though are still proliferated..embedding into a collective psyche. One student brought up the film she held a screening for recently titled The Mask We Live In (which was advertised on this blog) which discusses how gender roles affect boys &  men as well. Teaching them things such as to display femininity is weakness; to cry is weakness; to love another man is ultimately gay. This is seemingly antithetical to the natural emotional feelings we have until they are so deeply embedded that we believe them. Thus only being left with the socially accepted means of displaying emotion as a man: through anger. As Angela Davis describes in her book, Women Race & Class, these classifications of femininity and masculinity exist typically in a domestic setting and had no reality in the lives of the slaves. Where women in the slave-owning family were held to a standard of femininity, slave-women were treated as harshly as men - if not worse (with the threat of rape as punishment), and were also expected to complete just as much work and work as long of hours as slave men would. These two realities co-exisiting shows irrefutable evidence that it is a societal fallacy. 

This then led into a conversation about defense as a woman. The threat of personal harm to women or POC is ever-increasing in the face of open-fascism / sexism. How are we equipped as an american people to face the problems that come with it ? Women are not told to take self-defense courses, rather they are told to ‘buddy up’, be cautious of their clothing choice, etc. Women do not get encouragement towards maintaining their own self-agency. In Kenya, girls are taught self defense to combat the daily potentials of rape. Here there is no discussion of the realities of this threat. Now more than ever is the time to start discussing and openly encouraging strategies towards combating these harassment's.

One student quoted another person whom she’d had a conversation with about the recent election results, “I’m not scared, I’m angry” to which was replied that it is a privilege to be angry rather than scared. Think of all the people who are now fearful of their lives walking down the street. Of being harassed, raped, murdered. The problem now that faces us is that hate speech is normalized. Just because a person of power expresses certain ideologies, opinions does not make it right, but it does mean that this person has mass-influence. The power to influence comes with the power to re-shape the structure of the world we live in. If hate speech is proliferated, it’s reverberations may be felt in some direct ways in the beginning, but it will also begin to effect and re-shape entirely the direction we take as a culture / society / etc. due to the power it has over the psyche of the individual and collective. 

There is also now a division of femininity. White femininity black femininity, etc. Two students recently went to a lecture on feminism and were surprised to see that not a single speaker was any race other than white and that nearly the entire crowd was white as well. 

We should also not be quick to judge each and every person who voted for Trump. There has to be a recognition that some people were voting because of circumstance. In California we are not typically faced with entire cities of people out of work - facing daily hardships, and so it can be difficult to understand but there are people who put aside their feelings of the presidents character for the gain of personal interests, the hopes of a job, etc. People who may not be directly facing racisms/sexism as a reality. There has also been this discussion of returning to “simpler times” what does this mean? Who was it simple for? What in this case does “simple” mean? Single POV as reality? There was another point made that some conservatives were asking the right questions but were given a poor option for the person willing to answer them. Or that the voice came with many negatives. 

This also may be the time to get away from passive liberalism. It seems that conservatives are for whatever reason, able to establish and unify more easily than liberals. What is this due to ?

What about the reality of our school ? what does it mean to be going to school and dealing with the state of political reality outside? how soon does this no longer become a safe space ? Do these things need to be addressed and by whom? Most teachers gave a short speech in the beginning of class and then went right back into the fiction of poster designs, etc. for fake events. How can we focus on these trivial matters when so much is taking place ? Is it a matter of the bureaucracy or an unwillingness to involve politics in school life? A need to fulfill requirements? Maybe we need to stop looking to teachers to create the change that we want to see but rather begin to find our own autonomy. Teachers are paid and rely on their paychecks and so may find it difficult to speak out without fear of reprimand, but as students, we pay for the education and so make of it what we want. The school is for us not against us, no matter what we may think. There feels a disconnection between what is happening in school and out of school - something similar to McLuhan’s ideas of education in a media-rich environment where the pace of school is much slower than the pace of information given across medias. In school children are treated their age but in media, there is little to no consideration for age restriction. 

It would be good to find out what actions are taking place on other campus’... what schools are doing more about this current situation. 

We offer yoga for harmonizing or fighting the stress of school-life, but what about the real threats now imposed? Do we ask the school to as well offer classes for self-defense? Promote autonomy and self-sufficiency to all students and staff.

A good question is where do we stand in common with republicans? what change do we want to see in harmony with one another? or are our views so us vs. them that there will never be any unity? One way to think about this is the rate of speed of evolution, partly due to industrialization / modernity. New York / California are seen as being modern through increasing technologies / economy / etc. our rates of transactions are far faster / greater than those in rural midwest. This can be seen as one way which a progression has taken place that in some ways has allowed for an evolving of opinion while the other has stagnated / homogenized / etc. Thusly we are no longer living in the same time periods as far as ideology is concerned ( this idea is primarily taken from the book Future Shock by Alvin Toffler ). Another could be the difference between those living in survivalism and those not. It is hard to relate to someone in opposite cases. 

In a society where we now seem to want full transparency why is it that we were such strong proponents for someone like Hillary Clinton who did her dealings behind closed doors or covered up her negative doings? Are we only asking for transparency to a certain degree? Trump is fully transparent, though the things that he says and does are not things that a lot of people agree with. At least this gives us a clear understanding of the problem that we face. There seem to be no secrets. All of the evils of trump seem to be shown clearly. Is this not what we want as a society begging for transparency? 

The letter sent by the president of Art Center was criticized during the discussion. As examples, UCLA and CSULB were said to have had good notes sent to their student and faculty in response. 

Here is the president of Art Centers address to the student body and faculty:

Dear Students, Faculty and Staff,

As most of you are certainly aware, there is a wide range of responses among members of our community to the results of yesterday’s election. I think it is appropriate for us to offer a compassionate word of care to those in distress, to reassert our commitment to diversity and inclusion, and to reassure our international students that they are a deeply valued part of our community.

The College is happy to convene a conversation to process yesterday’s developments and to explore how, as artists and designers, we can continue to develop our work as responsible citizens of the world. If this is of interest, please contact CSE, HR or the Provost’s Office (as appropriate), and we will take steps to coordinate the conversation. Each of these offices can also help guide you to the resources available to assist with concerns and questions.

For whatever your response might be to the election, we ought to remember how fortunate we are to be at a place like ArtCenter that celebrates the imagination and keenly focuses on the power of the creative individual to influence change. I reiterate our commitment to ArtCenter as a place of civility and respect where the dignity of multiple and diverse voices is essential to great learning.

Lorne M. Buchman President

One thing is certain, that we need to recognize fact vs. fiction. That we seem to have entered into a strange Orwellian-like state that is an actual reality and needs to be faced as such. In response it is a responsibility to take action towards and to hold true more than ever to your identity and to what you hold to be the truth.

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Art Center Open Discussion Week 8