Dear Stephen,

Great topic for discussion. I have read some responses with interest.

I would like to take the conversation back to your account of the "move
away from the grand narratives of the late 20th century by doing what we
thought was more inclusive and Post-Modern.²

The concern I have, when teaching what I call Modern-isms to students, is
getting the foundational motives in perspective.

That is, when we look back, as you have, to the moving AWAY from
Modernism, we need to reflect on the so-called Grand Narrative of
Modernism.

There are many historical, cultural and philosophical streams that came
together in various forms of Modernism.

In terms of design and the related field of architecture, we need to
remember that these fields both have real world and pragmatic outcomes. A
door that does not open is a failed door in pre-Modernism, in Modernism
and in post-Moderism. A door that does not open may be an art work in all
three periods. The same can be applied to graphic design.

When we reflect that Modernism was a response to the catastrophe of World
War One, we can understand the urge for another narrative (grand or not)
to fill up the horrible gap of death and destruction.

The urge for a larger conceptual and methodical approach gives rise to
structuralism which is the foundation of Modernism. Disclosing that
structures exist in meaning systems and cultural systems and object
systems led, quite properly, to the desire to formulate rules that might
govern decisions that could be determined separately to the influences of
previous cultural models.

Gestalt theory is one such gesture - if perception itself has its own
rules, then we can design in relation to these disclosed rules.

If we take this view of Modernism, then we can reflect that post-Modernism
is an attempt to critique the structural rules such that post-Modernism is
flagrant in its abuse of structures that lend meaning to our world without
firstly being filtered by critics that gate-keep cultures. Again, because
design is pragmatic, a door is a structure regardless of
post-structuralist de-constructions of doors. And so, the flagrant abuse
of these rules sometimes leads to nonsense.

What we have seen in design, is a return to various preferred cultural
forms by way of de-constructing the ideologies of cultures that attend to
rules other than rules that have been generated by cultures that have been
approved. We have attempted to bring the warm glow of a wood fire to our
space ship.

Hence, lost cultural patterns are given a priority over ergonomics and
other knowledge systems that arise out of a scientific understanding.

Thankfully, this leads to stupid looking cars with intelligent mechanical
and safety features.

Cheers

keith







On 2/2/17, 11:12 am, "PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD
studies and related research in Design on behalf of Stephen B Allard"
<[log in to unmask] on behalf of [log in to unmask]> wrote:

>For the better part of the last 30 years, the profession of design has
>been discussing this move away from the grand narratives of the late 20th
>century by doing what we thought was more inclusive and Post-Modern.


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