American and European Design in the 40s-50s

 

 

-International Style
-The Machine Age
-Streamlining
-Organic Design and Biomorphism

In the 40s and 50s, multiple design movements overlapped with and existed simultaneously in America, some of which originated from Europe, namely the International Style, Machine Age, Streamlining and Organic Design. Such movements were prefaced by historical circumstances that gave people reason to use design as a common language to assert their opinions in order to drive society towards a new direction towards a more orderly and organic design language after the chaos of World War I.

 

Following World War 1, the Machine Age (1920s) saw to the celebration of technology, machinery and the mass production of transportation during the Industrial Revolution. household items and other electronic devices. During this time period, Henry Ford perfected his assembly one automobiles, creating affordable, mass-produced cars for the average person. Literature during this period such as Brave New World highlights efficiency, production and consumerism as the most important values in society. Exponential scientific discovery motivated more exploratory and innovative designs. Designers such as Peter Behrens and Marcel Breuer designed buildings, home appliances that were functional but unobstructed designs which featured exposed screws and undecorated surfaces. (Donald J. Bush, 2017) Many designs resembled parts of the machines that produced them and were devoid of an individual’s touch.

 

The International Style (1920s to 1930s), one of the first styles to emerge post-war, which was a largely architectural modernist movement coined by European architects Henry-Russell Hitchcock and Philip Johnson at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. This style saw to the construction of rectilinear buildings using mainly steel, concrete and glass, light and the removal of excess ornamentation from buildings, giving it a sense of architectural integrity. (Clericuzio, P. 2018) Some of the most prolific designers who contributed to the International Style are Le Corbusier, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Walter Gropius and Oud. Frank Lloyd Wright. Le Corbusier’s design of Villa de Savoye was a quintessential example of the movement. (“Modern architecture: International exhibition”, MoMA catalogue, 1932). There was also the use of cantilever construction that lessen the need for bulky, heavy structural columns and made open interior spaces more feasible. Consequentially, there was also rapid erection of skyscrapers during this period of time, an example being the Philadelphia Savings Fund Society building (1932), the first International Style building to be built in 1932 during the Great Depression, which featured practicality in the prioritisation of volume over mass and balance over symmetry. (Dupré, J, 1996)

 

While the machine age successfully introduced the mass production of transport and goods, it also caused many people to accept the “haphazard, disorderly look” (Carma. R, 2000) of such inventions and Streamline Moderne (1930s), which was popularised by Norman Bel Geddes in his book “Horizons” (1932),  served as a movement to re-introduce appreciation for the aesthetics of mass-produced goods. Streamline Moderne products often resembled forms of fast-moving transport machines such as trains and cars that took into account factors of laminar and turbulent flow of the wind and combatted wind resistance since the movement was driven by the desire for speed and efficiency such as with Buckminster’s Dymaxion car (1933) and Burlington’s Zephyr Train (1934). There many curves included in designs to exude dynamic functionalism in static structures as inspired by the Futurism movement that preceded this movement. The motifs of reductionist and continuity were adopted as speed and efficiency were desirable goals during the chaos of World War 1 and the Great Depression.(Donald J., 2017)  The acknowledgement of the women proportion of consumers was also evident with the increase in streamlined household products (Kowalik, W., 2017), such as with Henry Dreyfuss’s Streamline Iron resembling a typical streamlined train. The modernising of domestic surroundings allowed for the celebration of progress in technological advancement while enjoying forms that are more curvilinear and colourful compared to designs of International Style and symbolised economic growth in society.

 

Following streamlining the rise of organic design and bi-morphism. “Organic design” (1930s – 1960s) was coined by the architect Frank Lloyd Wright who was interested in the relationship between buildings and their surrounding environments and designed buildings that used incorporated natural elements such as light, plants and water with open spaces that provided a place for natural foliage to grow, and is most evident in his design of Fallingwater in southwestern Pennsylvania. (“Organic Architecture”, Guggenheim, 2016) Organic design borrowed its philosophy from the art movements of Surrealist and Art Nouveau movements that preceded it, including many curvilinear forms and nature motifs (Alloway L., 2005) while staying true to the motto of “form follows function” as coined by Louis Sullivan. Designs that incorporated Biomorphism, coined by Geoffrey Grigson in 1935, highlights the importance of anthropometry, which puts the human user at the centre of design. Designers like Charles Eames and Eero Saarinen who created the Womb Chair (1946) and Alvar Aalto who created the Paimio armchair (1932) created chairs that were made of natural materials and fit the shape of the human body. Ideal body measurement charts such as Modulor by Le Corbusier and “Joe” and “Josephine” by Henry Dreyfuss were also developed for product designers to design their products in a more ergonomic manner. Organic design was able to incorporate the human psyche into their designs and which made it more appealing to consumers and helped to drive the economy during the Great Depression.

In conclusion, under historical circumstances, design played differing roles that served to help society. As such, design trends responded to the state of society at any point of time. From mass-produced products with no personal flavour to the development of a design-thinking methodology which is user-orientated. Even today, it is hard for designers to divorce the concept of their design from human psyche in order to appeal to the masses, as can be seen from the priority of user-experience in 21st century design.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bibliography:

“The International Style Movement Overview and Analysis”. [Internet]. 2018. TheArtStory.org.  Content compiled and written by Peter Clericuzio. Edited and published by The Art Story Contributors. Available from: https://www.theartstory.org/movement-international-style.htm [Accessed 06 Nov 2018]

ALLOWAY, L. (2005). The Biomorphic ʹ40s. In Landau E. (Ed.), Reading Abstract Expressionism: Context and Critique (pp. 250-256). Yale University Press. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org.ezlibproxy1.ntu.edu.sg/stable/j.ctt32bk1z.37

Carma R. Gorman. (2000). “An Educated Demand:” The Implications of “Art in Every Day Life” for American Industrial Design, 1925-1950. Design Issues, (3), 45. Retrieved from http://ezlibproxy1.ntu.edu.sg/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edsjsr&AN=edsjsr.1511815&site=eds-live&scope=site

 

Donald J. Bush. (2017). Streamlining and American Industrial Design, (4), 309. Retrieved from http://ezlibproxy1.ntu.edu.sg/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edspmu&AN=edspmu.S1530928274400049&site=eds-live&scope=site

Dupré, Judith (1996). Skyscrapers. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers, Inc. p. 41. ISBN 1-884822-45-2.

KOWALIK, W.. Streamline Moderne Design in Consumer Culture and Transportation Infrastructure: Design for the Twentieth Century. New Errands: The Undergraduate Journal of American Studies, North America, 5, sep. 2017. Available at: <https://journals.psu.edu/ne/article/view/60475>. Date accessed: 07 Nov. 2018

Modern Architecture: International Exhibition | MoMA. (1932). Retrieved from https://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/2044

Organic Architecture. (2016, November 17). Retrieved from https://www.guggenheim.org/arts-curriculum/topic/organic-architecture

Tisc, Jonathan M.; Karl Weber (1996). The Power of We: Succeeding Through Partnerships. Wiley. p. 175. ISBN 0-471-65282-2.

 

 

Artist Manifesto: START WARS; GROW ART!!

History of Design – Artist Manifesto: START WARS; GROW ART!!

 

My current main Manifesto is “START WARS!!! Grow art!” (Disclaimer: No we should not start actual wars). It takes the form of a propaganda-looking poster that was using during regimes to grab the attention of and communicate ideas to the masses.
The idea behind it is that design is by humans, for humans. Throughout history, artists and designers have used their works as a form of universal language to challenge an ongoing mindset. This is evident in movements such as Dada, where even Dada went against himself, Streamlining after the Machine Age, and even today we are trying to marry the idea of using technology into human-centric designs. Usually after periods of dispute, strong assertions were made using art to communicate to the masses and propose to them potential directions they could drive society towards as fellow members of society. They may not have been the most aesthetically pleasing (even that is subjective), but what mattered was the philosophy behind the works and the process of creating them. The most successful movements often differentiated themselves with stark contrasts with movements before, or coexisting with them.
So my vision statement and call to action would be for designers to aim to have a larger outreach and get more people to participate in expressing their personal opinions and owning their rights to having an opinion and making them feel that it that matters in society. As such, they have to be well-informed about the world around them and investigate disputes and their underlying reasons and encourage discussion about the current state of society and not just accept society as it is.

b a u h a u s

|| For this creative response assignment, we had to do a bauhaus-inspired design while putting the context of Singapore into consideration.

 

Something that is really iconic to Singapore is the void deck space. In the past, void decks used to be places where residents could gather and conduct social activities, but with the myriad of rules of placed on permitted activities and control of the usage of this space, most residents would not choose to spend their free time chilling in the void deck and bonding with their neighbours. Coincidentally, a while back I took a photo of a void deck at my house which reminded me of how barren and boring void decks are. Being a resident of the HDB high rise flats community, I have always wished for residents to be given a chance to exercise creative freedom in our own living spaces.

voiddeck(); photo by me

This led me to think about a potential place to start: l e t t e r b o x e s.

Uniform and made of cold aluminium (both figuratively and literally), their current design really does not do much but emphasise the desolation of the void decks. Some residents even choose to lock the slits of their letterboxes because they want to avoid spam advertisements from being shoved in. In my opinion, I think the saddest thing is that residents do not even send each other any greeting cards, or any forms of letters. :’D

http://www.namlee.com.sg/sites/default/files/styles/galleryformatter_slide/public/boonkeng_letterbox.JPG?itok=ot682C0l

 

Inspired by the features of Bauhaus design, which is the consideration of functionality with form, geometrical shapes that are simple for mass production, I came up with a potential design for letter boxes in void decks (below)! The letterboxes are in hexagonal shapes, which not only are a really strong structure based on physics, but also resembles a beehive and represents how residents are living in a community like bees would. (hexagons would also make a lot more space for slightly thicker mail). The shapes are all relatively rounded off so that they appear more organic and less stiff, and the use of vibrant primary colours would give a splash of liveliness and congeniality to the entire void deck area.

Bauhaus-inspired letterbox design by me (Yue Ling)

I would be so incredibly happy if this sort of design were to be a reality in the future. *shamelessly hypothetically patents own design* :’D

Although a void deck literally means empty level, I really doubt it has to remain as a purely empty space. Something like a Bauhaus letterbox design would definitely do much to bring a sense of playfulness and conviviality within the living spaces of Singaporeans.

A r t N o u v e a u

|| A r t N o u v e a u

 

 

This Art Nouveau abstract design is inspired mainly by the blue pea plant, which asides from its striking indigo colour, is also used for cooking Peranakan dishes. Other plant patterns featured are also related to the theme of food from different cultures, such as the pandan leaf plant, thyme and curry leaf plant.

 

(I took some photos but they are all too large to insert into this post but you can check some of them out on @noyumipic on Instagram. [ https://www.instagram.com/p/BoMjTJfna63/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet ] )

 

Noticeably, many of the plants featured an outward-growing pattern and so I incorporated that into my design using (almost) radial-symmetry. The botanical theme accompanied with symmetry serve to recall the Art Nouveau style.

 

Plant inspirations:

 

(taken by me) The blue pea plant is used to make a local desert called Nonya chang (see below) because of its natural blue pigment.
https://prod-c2i.s3.amazonaws.com/articles/1496108532592ccdf41b818.jpg

 

https://candy.com.sg/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Pandan-Leaves.jpg The pandan leaves of the pandan plant are used for their green pigment and fragrant taste and smell in local desserts like kueh salat (see below) and a bunch of other kuehs.

 

https://recipeswecherish.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Kueh-Salat-6.jpg

 

 

https://cdn2.bigcommerce.com/server3700/fxxw4to/products/187/images/2141/Herbs_Fresh_Thyme_pkt__78184.1434805304.500.750.jpg?c=2 Thyme is a Western spice used for dishes like spaghetti. There are small leaves growing outwards on a stalk.

 

https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0608/2413/products/Curry_leaf.jpg?v=1456769791  The curry leaf plant looks like the bigger version of thyme and is used for making dishes like… curry.

 

 

 

 

 

[Final Hyperessay] teamLab – Graffiti Nature: Lost, Immersed and Reborn (2018)

 

Image taken from: https://www.teamlab.art/images/pc-l/16315 (edited)
teamLab: Graffiti Nature – Lost, Immersed and Reborn (2018)

One of teamLab’s most recent art installations Graffiti Nature: Lost, Immersed and Reborn (2018) is situated in Amos Rex, an art museum in Helsinki, Finland. It is just one of the many exhibitions that teamLab has globally in countries such as France, Japan, and even Singapore. teamLab is based in Japan and is an “art collective” of “ultra-technologists” that consists of engineers, programmers, CG animators, graphic designers, editors and many more positions and is headed by Toshiyuki Inoko. The interdisciplinary nature of their team is well-reflected in their art installations that often deal with using light as paint and the world as their canvas (Mun-Delsalle, 2018). teamLab utilises interactivity and advanced technology used in the development of hypermedia to blur the boundaries between the physical and virtual world and elevate the extent of immersion in Lost, Immersed and Reborn.

 

Interactivity is a forte of this installation, and further enhances its immersive quality. In Nobert Wiener’s Cybernetics in History, he discusses about the role of an artist as a ‘steersman’; a designer of a ‘catalyst’ that enables a stable reciprocal exchange between human and machine (Wiener, 1954) and we are able to project this concept unto the context of Lost, Immersed and Reborn.

 

Cybernetics in the context of Lost, Immersed and Reborn.
(by Tan Yue Ling)

 

In this digital interactive installation, a virtual ecosystem made of projected light fills up the entire room. Participants invited to interact with the myriad of virtual flora and fauna within by colouring in templates with contours of animals and flowers and scanning their drawings. Once their drawings are scanned, they are immediately transformed into animated graphics that appear three-dimensional and join the rest of the virtual ecosystem where participants are then able to illicit responses by ‘touching’ them. The flora and fauna to which they react differently when ‘touched: the animals within the ecosystem can ‘eat’ each other, if participants do not move, more flowers will grow, if participants step on the animals, they explode into a splat of colours. teamLab uses light as canvas, essentially incorporating real life characteristics of nature into this virtual ecosystem.

 

How it works:

 

The idea of entropy within this piece is evident with how teamLab partially gives up ownership of the artwork to participants, who have the freedom to create and interact with whichever virtual element to illicit whatever response they chose to evoke. teamLab’s use of sensors reminds me of John Cage’s Variations series, whereby kinaesthetic sensors were used to record and evoke different artistic outcomes. In Variations V, the dancers were the participants who created different sounds using their movements while in Lost, Immersed and Reborn, the public are the participants who created different visual outcomes within the space using their movements which are similarly detected by sensors.

 

http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/assets/img/data/1785/bild.jpg

Since participants’ actions were unpredictable,  the visual dynamic of the room was constantly changing in an unprogrammed and indeterminate manner, in the sense that every other day, the change in the room’s appearance would be different from the day before. With reference to Roy Ascott’s quote on interactive art:

“Interactive Art must free itself from the modernist ideal of the “Perfect Object.” (Ascott, 1966)

teamLab has successfully facilitated an organic outcome in Lost, Immersed and Reborn resulted from the unpredictability of participant’s actions, something that would not be achievable without the participation of both man and machine. Giving participants the responsibility of creating the artwork heightens its immersive factor since participants feel like they exist in and are able to affect the virtual world.

 

Undoubtedly, technology is the backbone of teamLab’s artworks, including Lost, Immersed and Reborn. The state-of-the-art technological devices that teamLab employs bank on a long history of technological development. Earlier works such as Sensorama were limited by the level of advancement in technology.

Sensorama by Morton Heilig http://www.mortonheilig.com/InventorVR.html

In Sensorama (which was launched in 1960) although technological features such as chemical smell simulation and binocular vision was incorporated, interactive features like a knob or joystick which would translate physical force into a response in the virtual world was largely absent. This made the experience still rather passive and consequently less immersive.

A later example of Aspen Movie Map (launched in 1978) had a touchscreen function which enabled participants to make associative and non-linear choices along the drive route. However, there were still limitations such as only enabling the participant to view the route in intervals of 10 feet and only being able to move in a fixed number of directions and made it hard for participants to be fully immersed in the virtual driving experience.

Aspen Movie Map http://www.inventinginteractive.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Aspen_armchair.jpg

In contrast to these rudimentary works, the advancement of technology has achieved immense amount of success in enabling the recreation of elements of reality into the virtual world. Current new media is able to expand the physical world by transcending its boundaries. teamLab uses software such as Unity to generate three-dimensional graphics from the scanned images in Lost, Immersed and Reborn.  In this way, art is transferred from a physical medium to a digital medium that acts as a representation of participants’ telepresence in this virtual ecosystem. The virtual ecosystem also acts as an ‘informational surrogate’ (Fisher, 1989) that stores a large volume of digital data that helps to mimic nature in a digital medium, for example how the movements of a lizard are replicated in the virtual environment. The flattened three-dimensional graphics also showcase teamLab’s “Fold, Divide or Join” principles of viewer centricity inspired by the concept of Ukiyo-e as Japanese ultra-subjective space, essentially creating a stereoscopic and kinaesthetic visual within a physical room to better simulate a first-person immersive experience.

“Multiple points of view places an object in context thereby animating meaning.” – Scott Fisher in Virtual Environments (Fisher, 1989)

The hardware used in Lost, Immersed and Reborn, includes the use of stereoscopic sound devices, light projection and sensors, which allow participants to be immersed seamlessly into the organic virtual ecosystem, choosing where they want to go and where they want to touch to evoke a response. The pace at which the animals move or respond is controlled by the participants, and not passively moving in a programmed manner at a fixed time interval. With the help of technology, the potential for an installation to grow as an ‘informational surrogate’ becomes immense and the number of possible ways to duplicate reality increases as well.

This can be best represented by the Reality-Virtuality Continuum (below) which presents the entire possible spectrum of immersive works as a category:

A representational figure of the reality-virtuality continuum as proposed by Proposed by Milgram and Kishino in A Taxonomy of Mixed Reality Visual Displays (1994).

It can be observed through previous VR works that as time passes, developments in technology allow for the creation of more complex systems featured in installations that expand the boundaries of computer-human interface towards invisibility, essentially pushing more VR works towards the direction of reality (i.e. augmented reality games like Pokemon Go or camera filters). As an installation that incorporates virtual reality (VR), Lost, Immersed and Reborn is eligible to be considered on the reality-virtuality continuum (Milgram, Paul & Kishino, Fumio, 1994) (Fig. 1) as augmented virtuality since it incorporates real time information into a largely virtual world. 

In Lost, Immersed and Reborn, there are various modes of interaction including scanning, touch sensors and sound by which physical force translates to digital response. However, many elements that could potentially make it “The Ultimate Display” (Sutherland, 1965) which is defined to be “a room which a computer can control the existence of matter”.  The perfect sandbox would give complete liberty in terms of decision making, engage all five senses and resemble reality so closely that there is suspension of disbelief without thought. teamLab’s design philosophy of bringing people together and co-creativity reflect extremely well in Lost, Immersed and Reborn, even if it’s within a virtual space. Perhaps in future artworks, teamLab might be able to explore the incorporation of other cues that engage more senses simultaneously such as smell and taste; the possibilities of immersion to explore are virtually endless.

 

Resources:

 

Careers | teamLab / チームラボ. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.teamlab.art/careers/

Mun-Delsalle, Y. (2018, August 13). Japanese Digital Art Collective TeamLab Imagines A World Without Any Boundaries. Retrieved September 7, 2018, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/yjeanmundelsalle/2018/08/13/japanese-digital-art-collective-teamlab-imagines-a-world-without-any-boundaries/#6d884bd554af

Wiener, N. (1954). Cybernetics in History. In Multimedia: From Wagner to Virtual Reality.

T. (2018, August 29). Graffiti Nature: Lost, Immersed and Reborn. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kccLykuaNSo&t=9s

Roy Ascott, “Behavioral Art and the Cybernetic Vision,” 1966, Multimedia: From Wagner to Virtual Reality

Ultrasubjective Space | teamLab / チームラボ. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.teamlab.art/concept/ultrasubjective-space

Fisher, S. (1989). Virtual Environments. In Multimedia: From Wagner to Virtual Reality.

Milgram, Paul & Kishino, Fumio. (1994). A Taxonomy of Mixed Reality Visual Displays. IEICE Trans. Information Systems. vol. E77-D, no. 12. 1321-1329.

Ivan Sutherland, “The Ultimate Display,” 1965, Wired Magazine

[Artwork selection] Teamlab: Graffiti Nature – Lost, Immersed and Reborn

Teamlab: Graffiti Nature – Lost, Immersed and Reborn
https://www.teamlab.art/images/pc-l/16319

 

It was tough choosing an artwork from Teamlab’s amazing range of works but I have settled for their Graffiti Nature – Lost, Immersed and Reborn that best exhibits the aspects of interactivity, hypermedia and immersion.

 

Medium:

Paper, crayons/colour pencils, Unity, projection mapping, sensors.

 

How it works:

 

Participants are able to colour in a stencil of aplant or an animal such as a lizard or frog. Their own personalised plant or animal will then be scanned and digitalised, essentially transforming them into virtual beings that join other animals in a virtual ecosystem that fills up the entire room, submerging participants with the experience of being in a whole new world. Participants are then able to interact with the digitalised animals and plants by making contact with them on the surface of the wall or floor, through the help of sensors. Within this virtual ecosystem, the animals can either replicate or be eaten up by other animals, simulating the nature of wildlife in real life.

 

Sources:

[1] https://www.teamlab.art/w/graffiti_nature_reborn/

[2] (Youtube video) Graffiti Nature by Teamlab

Artist Selection: teamLab

Universe of Water Particles on Au-delà des limites
https://www.teamlab.art/images/pc-m/14757

 

For my Final Research Hyperessay, I am stoked to find out more about teamLab, an artist collaborative group based in Japan that currently is having one of their exhibitions Future World in Singapore! Since I’m taking Viscomm and Programming, I find their works really relevant and hope to learn more about their design philosophy.