Dear Ali,
Which is to say that design is fascinating, and we still have a lot to learn!
Your fellow traveler,Heidi
From: Ali Ilhan <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Wednesday, June 28, 2017 3:30 PM
Subject: Re: Design and aesthetics
Dear Heidi,
Great points. You are correct, wrong word choice! I do apologize. But my
point is still relevant. Modernism became possible only through modernity,
and there are strong links between the two. And in some other circles,
(e.g. sociology) the word modernism is sometimes used interchangeably with
Modernity, there is a great deal of vagueness and confusion, it is one of
those contested concepts like power or social. And "Modernist" approaches
to art and design, are still abundant in some parts of the world,
especially outside the global west. It is all about the context.
That said, my point was to simply say that there is not always a essential
link between aesthetics and design (or the strength of the link varies
considerably). Sometimes designers create something that gets many awards,
but the general public may find it simply ugly or hideous (there was a
famous study about the public perception one such many award winning
public building in the US, but I cannot remember it). Designers and their
intended audiences have different cultural capitals, and more often than
not, they do not see eye to eye, especially in terms of aesthetics.
Or sometimes, things which were designed with no aesthetic concerns become
really beautiful. Or more interestingly, in some areas like systems design
or service design, the end-product simply defies our traditional concepts
of beauty, aesthetics etc. Many physicists find their complex formulas
"beautiful" but one of the fathers of String Theory, Leonard Suskind states
that the Standard Model in physics is simply messy and ugly with its
abundance of sub-atomic particles and countless coupling constants (The
name of the book is The Cosmic Landscape: String Theory and the Illusion of
Intelligent Design). I do write (read design) complex codes for data
management and mining all the time, and sometimes they are beautiful and
parsimonious, and sometimes they are messy and ugly, and at the end they
all do their intended jobs, and journal editors really do not care about my
codes.
I think there was a code in the list about how much one can write in a
discussion (but sadly I do not remember it), but I feel like I talked too
much in this thread. So now , I think I have to stop :)
Best,
ali
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