Desma 10 Design Culture - an Introduction Meeting 7 (Nov.7, 2008) Pop Art and Design Alternative Design Movements ***** Pop Art and Design - Pop art emerged in the late 1950s, first in Britain and then in the USA. It was a reaction to the post World War II consumer culture, mostly associated with the developments in the USA. - Leading artists: Richard Hamilton, Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenburg, Roy Lichtenstein... Term “pop art” coined by British critic Lawrence Alloway. One of the founding moments - This is Tomorrow exhibition, London, 1956 by the Independent Group. -Ambiguous relationship to consumer culture and product design: complex combination of irony and reverence. Everyday objects became “second nature” for artists. Art became an essentially semiotic activity (artists depicted pre-existing “signs”, rather than painting the nature, etc. ***** Blurring the Boundary Between Art and Design -Pop art began to blur the traditional boundary between art and design (art was transformed from unique objects to ’multiples’ by Andy Warhol and others). - Pop art claimed to have no “message” - it just recycled the ‘surface’ imagery and gadgets of the time (but not so simple!) -Influenced by commercial graphic design and product design. Soon became itself a powerful influence for design (posters, furniture, textiles...) Andy Warhol’s multiplication of popular media ‘icons’ and consumer objects can be seen as a comment on mass production based on design. ***** Design and Psychedelia -Psychedelia= ”relating to or denoting new or altered perceptions or sensory experiences, as through the use of hallucinogenic drugs”.-Design trend of the late 1960s, influenced by pop, underground, but also by Art Nouveau, Art Deco. Associated with lifestyle awareness, hippie culture, but also became mainstream fashion. - Prominent in graphic design: record sleeves, concert posters. Also in interior design for discotheques, ‘multimedia lightshows’ for discos, concerts. Utopian projects (concept objects). -Seemed new and unprecedented, but began the ”Nostalgia Movement” of the 70s. Became a stylistic formula, revived recently (Austin Powers, etc.) ***** Alternative Design Ideas / Movements of the 1960s -Megastructure: ”A single, vast, unified structure, encompassing all areas of human activity”. Buckminster Fuller’s ”Old Man River’s City” (1971), Archigram-group (UK), Syd Mead: Megastructure (1969), etc. -Paolo Soleri: ”Arcology”, a visionary alternative to Megastructures: dense, smaller model communities (Arcosanti in Arizona desert) - ”The Small is Beautiful”(E.M. Schumacher); influential book - Ecological design, design for sustainable development: the use of recycled material, search for appropriate design for the Third World (the ”bible”of the alternative design movement is Victor Papanek’s Design for the Real World) ***** Archigram, UK, 1961-74: urban utopianism meets pop, play, cybernetics and social need: “Walking Cities”, “Plug-in Universities”, “Suits that are Homes” ***** Design as a Weapon - Design often identified with creating commercial products. However, this is only one part of design culture. There are many radical design practices and philosophies, ideas about “sustainable development”, ecological design, alternative design, guerrilla design, design meant to question the political and ideological hegemony of the western world, design for “fair trade”, design in the service of sexual minorities, etc. - Graphic design can serve corporate identity and branding, but it also can be used as a weapon to fight against political corruption, racial and gender-based discrimination,economic exploitation, social injustice, pollution, war, AIDS... - The possibilities are endless.The origins of many such strategies can be found from the 1960s...