Dear Clive,
When one announces a project, a shiver runs through your spine. Will it
attract interest? Will the interesting people be interested in it?
When we, the local editors, send the CFC before the weekend we thought: at
least we will have the weekend to forget about it. I, at least, did not get
near a computer the whole weekend. When I arrived today I run through my
emails and found some encouraging letters about it.
I must thank deeply your letter because it goes intensely to the core of the
project, especially when you wrote:
“For too long design theory has lived under a self-inflicted burden of
thinking design in absolute terms—the ambition of producing, it has
sometimes seemed, almost a mathematics of design. But few phenomenon are as
historical as design. Even the capacities with which design deals, though
deducible in the archaeological and anthropological record as capacities
belonging to what it means to be human (what disposition imposes on us)
nonetheless take precise historical form. To write a theory of design is
therefore also to write a history of design.” (my bold)
I say to some of my colleagues, in moments of great anger and despair, that
there is no Design Theory other than Design History. This is a bit more
radical. My question is that historical ignorance, or mistreatment of
historical facts can be very dangerous when you try to build a Scholarly
discipline.
Well, I just want to thank you for your post. It sure lifted our spirits
here in Lisboa.
Thank you very much,
My best regards,
Eduardo Corte-Real
----- Original Message -----
From: "Clive Dilnot" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>; <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, July 30, 2006 11:01 AM
Subject: History and Theory
I hope I'm not the only one on this list delighted by ThRAD's call for
papers on the "Golden Age of Design Culture (1950-1990)" —not because one
takes this title literally (far from it—one hopes the editors mean it also
ironically and with a critical dimension) but because this theme might allow
for something very necessary in design studies, and that is a movement
towards being able to think design (i.e. think it theoretically) in a
historical context.
For too long design theory has lived under a self-inflicted burden of
thinking design in absolute terms—the ambition of producing, it has
sometimes seemed, almost a mathematics of design. But few phenomenon are as
historical as design. Even the capacities with which design deals, though
deducible in the archaeological and anthropological record as capacities
belonging to what it means to be human (what disposition imposes on us)
nonetheless take precise historical form. To write a theory of design is
therefore also to write a history of design. The converse is, or should be,
equally true. Unfortunately, at the moment the history of design appears to
eschew theory to precisely the same extent that theory turns its back on
historical comprehension. I see the ThRAD project therefore, in however
small a way, as an opening towards a much more subtle dialogue between
history and theory—a dialogue which to my knowledge has not yet begun.
>>> Eduardo Corte Real <[log in to unmask]> 07/28/06 11:06 AM >>>
- "Apologies for cross posting,
NENIKIKAMEN!", Said Phidippides, the soldier from Marathon, to the Athenians
on a hot 490 BC afternoon.
Even with the risk of contributing to the ozone gap here goes one more CFC
Call for Contributions:
"The (radical) Designist" (ThRAD) online journal of Design Culture asks for
contributions about the Golden Age of Design Culture (1950-1990)".
The contributions may take the form of papers up to 7777 words.
ThRAD welcomes papers about Design inside other cultural manifestations.
ThRAD welcomes papers focused, with short lists of bibliographic references.
Out of ThRAD, annually, UNIDCOM and CEIADE will publish in paper "The
Reader's Designist Magazine" (ThREAD).
ThREAD papers will be published according to the advise of the international
advisory board.
For ThREAD we welcome contributions in the form of epigrams, short or shot
stories, anecdotes, interviews, book reviews, images or visual portfolios,
all you can imagine possible to print in a reader's magazine. Some of this
material maybe published also in ThRAD.
We also look for reviewers or people willing to be members of the
international advisory board willing to work on the homely atmosphere of
their homes for the glory of Design Culture Scholarship.
For the time being you can take a look at the zero issue available at:
www.iade.pt/designist
ThRAD is affiliated to the Theory and History of Material Culture research
track inside UNIDCOM/IADE, Unidade de Investiga**o em Design e Comunica**o
do Instituto de Artes Visuais Design e Marketing funded by FCT, Funda**o
para a Ci*ncia e Tecnologia. ThRAD will be a journal about Culture in
general with a Design motto.
ThRAD will welcome especially narrow observations of Literature, Film,
Dance, Theatre, Sculpture, Architecture, with short lists of bibliographic
references. Meaning that we prefer deep plunges in texts or objects rather
than extensive literature reviews. We hope to find Design everywhere inside
the cultural production of the period considered being the golden age of
Designism (1950's to the early 1990's) by the local editors. This period is
also characterized for being the extreme expression of a tradition initiated
by the invention and institution of the word Disegno originator of the first
modern academies, just before the empire of digitalisation and the World
Wide Web. It corresponds, therefore to the last days of the contemporary
age, just before the hyper contemporary age. Time, fast galloped away from
those 'happy days' of pre-post-History so what we are proposing is an
archaeological attitude to prevent mythographies of being installed about
it.
Nevertheless, contributions not limited to that time frame are welcome.
We encourage also contributions about the Portuguese-speaking countries
golden age.
The zero Issue of "The Radical Designist, online Journal of Design Culture"
results from the contributions of some friends associated with the project.
When we asked for the zero contributions we had in mind a journal that could
publish different kinds of texts focused on Design outside the well-grounded
Design Research Areas.
A Design Culture was consolidated during the 20th century based on the
globalisation of the word that started meaning mostly "Product-Design". This
Culture was evident on Film, Comics, Literature, Philosophy, Sports,
Theatre, Dance, Science, Pottery, Television Series, etc. As an example we
may say that this culture is expressively documented in the MoMa gift-shop.
During the process of "designing" this journal, a research project presented
for funding at FCT about Drawing and the 20th century Portuguese Visual
Culture was approved. So we found a source of income to maintain this
Journal. Another pretext emerged: Compare and study the visual culture
production based on drawing in Portugal and the rest of the world with a
special emphasis in the lusophone countries.
Our invited friends knew nothing about these final developments but, in a
way, they constructed a fairly exemplary zero issue that we hope to trigger
further production.
Rosan Chow's paper replicates much what she presented in the EAD conference
in Bremen and signals the complexity related with accepting the global
definitions of design and Design instead of the universalised notion of
Design.
Ranulph Glanville gives us an exemplary exercise of what we would want for
ThRAD. His study of Piaget underlines the utmost importance of the Swiss
thinker in the construction of our contemporary worldviews about ideation
and reasoning. It also provides an example for what can be a focused text
that doesn't need extensive literature review to worth by itself.
Ranulph also did us the favour of checking the annotated Inigo Jones's copy
of Palladio's Treatise. Those annotations reveal a lost verb and noun: To
designe and Designe also written as desine and Desine, referring to
questions of projectual drawing. This is conceptually problematic and will
deserve further development. Remember that Palladio uses disegnare and
Disegno. We decided to print it with no comments. They are useful and
resourceful to everyone that are interested in identify the origins of the
word Design related with the practical arts.
Thomas S. Rasmussen exemplifies very clearly the kind of contributions that
we will also welcome, showing a commitment with what he likes to call the
meta-questions in very expressive few lines. .
Luis Carmelo is a Portuguese writer and thinker, adapted to cinema, a
semioticist starting to drive through the narrow paths of Design Culture.
His text signals the recent acquisitions of Design meaning inside what we
could call the "French Philosophical Tradition".
Finally, a text chewed and re-chewed by Eduardo C*rte-Real, someone
entangled in two traditions.
Last but not the least, Cameron Tonkinwise, arrived a few days later. It
will probably contradict all we have been saying but with extreme quality.
It also shows that we aren't THAT strict with deadlines.
The local editors
(ThRAD) is an on-line refereed journal with double blind reviewing system
devoted to the publication of texts about Design and Material Culture in
general.
For the two first launching years ThRAD will also make part of a research
project funded by FCT, Funda**o para a Ci*ncia e Tecnologia about Drawing
and the Portuguese Visual Culture of the twentieth century second half.
Cheers,
Eduardo C*rte-Real
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