Author: Design Incubation

Color, A “Conflict Mineral”

Grace Moon
Adjunct Professor
Graphic Design, Dept of Art
Queens College, CUNY

As many artists and designers are moved to take up social practice in their works, considering social, environmental and economic inequalities, have we paused to consider the very materials used to express our values? Our printing ink, paints, and dyes are products produced and sourced through a vast international supply chain controlled by the colorant industry with raw materials often originating in conflict zones. Many of these raw materials are considered by the U.S. State Department, “conflict minerals” (Section 1502 Dodd-Frank Act).

The colorant industry, run by multinational corporations in the developed world, profit from unregulated mining practices in developing countries. Much like “blood diamonds”, “conflict minerals” originate in destabilized war zones, in which corrupt local governments and/or armed militias control and profit form the mineral trade, exacting human rights abuses and perpetuating extreme poverty. Nowhere is this scenario starker than in Africa, host to the largest mineral industry in the world, yet home to ten of the poorest countries whose extreme poverty index runs between 57% – 88%.

While Artist colors make up a tiny fraction of the overall colorant market, these very colors are procured from the same chemical corporations that supply the automotive, plastics, coatings, pharmaceutical, and textiles industries. The following is a very brief description of a few minerals used in color making and where they are mined. Cobalt, used to make blue and violet colors, and Tin, used as a mordant in dyes are mined in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Rutile the ore, which makes Titanium Dioxide is mined in Sierra Leone. Copper mined in the Congo and Zambia is the chemical base for phthalocyanine colors. Zinc mined in Namibia is used to make white pigment and its by-product, cadmium, is the basis for reds and yellows.

While I focus here on color, “conflict minerals” are used in digital devices, and almost everything in our fabricated industrial world. As social practice becomes more important for artists and designers who are moving toward environmental, social and communal concerns, the key ingredients of our very materials must also be take into consideration.

This research was presented at the Design Incubation Colloquium 2.4: CAA Conference 2016, Washington, DC on Wednesday, February 3, 2016.

Design Practice Intervention: Experimental Approaches to Mapping Different Data

Rachele Riley
Assistant Professor
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

As a graphic designer and researcher, I am focused on probing the visual language of maps and developing experimental strategies for representing geographical space, myth, and the dynamics of meaning. In this presentation, I will share two current design research projects in which different methodologies are used. Ranging from the poetic and language-based framework to precision in mapping and library/archival research, my interests lie in uncovering official and unofficial data, and in mapping ephemeralities at multiple scales. The first project I will present is The Evolution of Silence, which visualizes the information and location of over eight hundred nuclear detonations that occurred in Yucca Flat of the Nevada Test Site. The project embodies a shifting perception of conflict and control, and visualizes the environmental and mythic transformation of a contested landscape. The second is a series of projects called Different Data (a collaborative research project with Joshua Singer and Dan McCafferty) in which critical design methods are applied to the collection, manipulation, and interpretation of data of various environments. The Different Data project is executed in real-time as public working demonstrations and involves a high-degree of fluidity and in-the-moment discussion among ourselves, as collaborators—as we work to combine layers that are evolving, imaginary, emotional, and disorienting. Both projects intervene in the traditional understanding of graphic design. By working to situate the viewer in a reflective space, these projects provide open-ended experiences and ‘seamful’ (as opposed to ‘seamless’) constructions. My presentation will offer insight into these projects as examples of graphic design as a critical design practice.

This research was presented at the Design Incubation Colloquium 2.4: CAA Conference 2016, Washington, DC on Wednesday, February 3, 2016.

Alterpodium: Performing Disability

Amanda Cachia
PhD Candidate, Art History, Theory & Criticism
Department of Visual Arts, University of California San Diego

The Alterpodium is a custom-made, portable disability object conceived by curator and scholar Amanda Cachia in order to “perform disability” during international and national conferences, symposiums and lectures. Podiums, like other architectures of an ableist world, are often inaccessible to Cachia’s 4’3″ stature. In 2015, Cachia commissioned artist and scholar Sara Hendren and her students at Olin College of Engineering in Boston to design a podium. They developed a podium inspired by Victor Papanek’s “nomadic furniture” of the 1970s. The design collapses easily for transport and requires no hardware. This kit-of-parts makes it possible for Cachia to literally perform this prosthetic technology, pointedly building the disability object in front of an audience before she begins to speak from it, and thereby questioning the myth of neutrality in everyday furniture. The title of the disability object, Alterpodium, is a departure from

Nicholas Bourriard’s portmanteau conception of Altermodern, which contextualizes global art-making practices with an emphasis on individuality, singularity and autonomy as a reaction against standardization. While most architectural accommodations for atypical bodies are created for seamless, even invisible integration, the Alterpodium amplifies its structural workings, elongating and emphasizing the user’s opportunity to create an alternate, provisional world in public.

This research was presented at the Design Incubation Colloquium 2.4: CAA Conference 2016, Washington, DC on Wednesday, February 3, 2016.

CAA Conference Session: Panel Discussion

Communication Design Scholarship: Opportunities and Approaches

Time: 02/04/2016, 12:30 PM—2:00 PM
Location: Hoover, Mezzanine Level

In collaboration with CAA Task Force on Design at the 104th Annual Conference in Washington, DC.

Chair: Dan Wong, New York City College of Technology, City University of New York

  • Mike Zender, University of Cincinnati; Visible Language
  • Elizabeth Guffey, State University of New York at Purchase; Design & Culture
  • Aaris Sherin, St. John’s University; Design Incubation
  • David Cabianca, York University

Discussant: Kathryn Weinstein, Queen’s College, City University of New York

Design programs in American colleges and universities are adding design research, contemporary practice, and publishing that demonstrates rigor and impact factor to the requirements of design educators’ scholarly activities. With these changing requirements, the need for reputable and established modes of dissemination has reached a critical mass.

From practice to theory, this panel examines research formats, forms of investigation, representation of research, venues, organizations, and publishing opportunities available to Communication Design educators and researchers. It will discuss contemporary design research approaches and formats, and note various organizations and publishing outlets accessible to educators, researchers, and practitioners of design. In conclusion, the panel will explore where practice fits within academia.

Design Incubation Colloquium 2.4: CAA Conference 2016, Washington, DC

Wednesday, February 3, 2016
Time: 9:30am – 12:00pm
Location: Hoover, Mezzanine Level, Marriott Hotel

In collaboration with CAA Task Force on Design at the 104th Annual Conference in Washington, DC.

Chairs: Steven McCarthy, University of Minnesota; Aaris Sherin, St. John’s University

Abstract submission deadline: January 17, 2016. Email abstracts for peer review to submissions@designincubation.com

Open to all 104th Annual Conference, Washington, DC attendees.

Presentations

Teaching Timeless Theory in Interactive Design through a Multidisciplinary Approach
James Pannafino
Associate Professor
Interactive and Graphic Design
Art and Design Department
Millersville University

Who Does This Internet Artwork Belong To? A Study on Art Appropriation and Youth Identity in a Digital Age
Laura Scherling

GreenspaceNYC, Co-founder

The New School, Design Lead
Teachers College,
Columbia University, Doctoral student

Conscious Interventions With The Personal Beasties Breathing Mobile App
Paula Murgia
Co-Founder Personal Beasties Group, LLC

Marianna Trofimova
Adjunct Professor
Communication Design Department
New York City College of Technology
City University of New York

Principal at Marianna Trofimova Design

A Plan for a National Communication Design Educator Award
Steven McCarthy
Professor
College of Design
University of Minnesota

Never Use Futura
Douglas Thomas
MFA Candidate in Graphic Design
Maryland Institute College of Art

Commute 2 Brooklyn: Visual Exploration Along Interstate 278
Mary Ann Biehl
Associate Professor
Communication Design
New York City College of Technology, CUNY

Maria Giuliani
Associate Professor
Communication Design
New York City College of Technology, CUNY

Alterpodium: Performing Disability
Amanda Cachia
PhD Candidate, Art History, Theory & Criticism
Department of Visual Arts, University of California San Diego

Design Practice Intervention: Experimental Approaches to Mapping Different Data
Rachele Riley
Assistant Professor
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Color, A “Conflict Mineral”
Grace Moon
Adjunct Professor
Graphic Design, Dept of Art
Queens College, CUNY

The Art of Mutable Mergers: Collaborations Between Designers, Artists, Curators, and the Plastics Industry, 1960 – 74
Grace Converse
Adjunct Instructor of Art History
Purchase College, SUNY
St. Joseph’s College, Brooklyn

Teaching Timeless Theory in Interactive Design through a Multidisciplinary Approach

James Pannafino
Associate Professor
Interactive and Graphic Design
Art and Design Department
Millersville University
Undeniably interactive design is becoming a growing part of design educators curriculum each year. While technology persuades us to think differently about design education, how can we balance theory and the tools that allow designers to solve problems. Is it possible to teach timeless approaches to design thinking in this new dynamic of interactive design education?
Interactive design has many dimensions to it. It addresses how people deal with words, read images, explore physical space, think about time and motion, and how actions and responses affect human behavior. Various disciplines make up interactive design, such as industrial design, cognitive psychology, user interface design and many others.
This presentation will give the audience a starting point for creating a visual language to enhance the understanding of multidisciplinary theories within the interactive design field. It will use concise descriptions, visual metaphors and comparative diagrams to explain each term’s meaning, such as Affordances, Cognitive Load Theory, Signal and Cue and others.
What You’ll Learn:
  • That there is more to learning how to teach interactive design than simply mastering technology.
  • Various terminology from different disciplines, with a cross-comparison to interactive design processes.
  • How to use this new terminology to enhance their interactive design point of view.
  • How to learn more about this topic (as there’s much more to explore).
This research was presented at the Design Incubation Colloquium 2.4: CAA Conference 2016, Washington, DC on Wednesday, February 3, 2016.

Conscious Interventions With The Personal Beasties Breathing Mobile App

Marianna Trofimova
Adjunct Professor
Communication Design Department
New York City College of Technology
City University of New York
Principal at Marianna Trofimova Design

Paula Murgia
Co-Founder Personal Beasties Group, LLC

A common definition of an intervention is to interfere or intercede with the intent of modifying an outcome. To that end, we designed the Personal Beasties Breathing mobile app with a very specific therapeutic intervention in mind.

Adapting mindfulness techniques for the stressed out, millennial, Internet generation via a minimal viable product (MVP) mobile app interface.

The Personal Beasties Breathing mobile app design personifies the amygdala glands of the primitive brain using animated characters. Appropriate character themed music is provided for each short “breathing session”.

To help our stressed out Millennials develop the emotional intelligence skills of the rational brain, necessary in the modern workplace, we made sure to provide them with goal setting and tracking functionality.

While promoting our app, we hit a crisis of confidence dilemma…

  • Really, just who cares?
  • What were we doing?
  • Making more compliant workers for the digital age?

We questioned our original design intent, and found it lacking… until Eric Garner died on July 17th last year, and his infamous last words were “I can’t breathe…”

Informed by a broad range of visual, spatial and cultural experiences, Personal Beasties is now taking its therapeutic mobile app into the streets, in the spirit of the Interventionist Art movement.

Personal Beasties Breathing is currently working toward raising awareness of injustices and social problems, specifically, police brutality and racism.

By attending and participating in the plethora of public events and protests in New York City, where NYPD officers are guaranteed to be working, we are engaging directly with police officers… discussing the value of using ‘simple’ relaxation techniques while under stress.

Learnings from these very public interventions are documented regularly on our blog.

This research was presented at the Design Incubation Colloquium 2.4: CAA Conference 2016, Washington, DC on Wednesday, February 3, 2016.

Who Does This Internet Artwork Belong To? A Study on Art Appropriation and Youth Identity in a Digital Age

Laura Scherling
GreenspaceNYC, Co-founder
The New School, Design Lead
Teachers College, Columbia University, Doctoral student

This pilot study explores meaning making in art appropriation practices. As practices of appropriation continue to expand with Internet use, the disciplines that fall under the umbrella of visual arts education also widen. Contemporary Internet artists, such as Ryder Ripps, are influencing changes in artistic production, by experimenting with new media and methods of appropriation. These emerging practices inspire youth to reframe their compositions through the lens of reinterpretation and remix. In order to understand these changes in art appropriation practices, I collect interview and survey data. I present these research findings through a method of constant comparison. Responses suggest a growing intersection between media consumption and production, and contemporary remix culture. In this research, I advocate for dialogue around participatory remix culture and deeper consideration of how it can transform traditional schooling environments.

This research was presented at the Design Incubation Colloquium 2.4: CAA Conference 2016, Washington, DC on Wednesday, February 3, 2016.

Envisioning South Africa’s Global Struggle Against Apartheid

Steffi Duarte
Curatorial Research Assistant
Product Design & Decorative Arts Department, Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum
Decorative Art & Design Department, Cleveland Museum of Art

How can materiality and visual communication provide insight, however fleeting, into histories of past struggles?  Drawing on the ephemera and visual language of the global struggle against South African Apartheid, from 1960 to 1990, this presentation is a critical investigation of the relationship between design and a struggle for one country’s freedom fought across vast geographical distances.

This research was presented at the Design Incubation Design Incubation Colloquium 2.3: St. John’s University on Saturday, January 16, 2016.

The Fine Art of Persuasion: Corporate Advertising Design, Nation, and Empire in Modern Japan

Gennifer Weisenfeld
Professor
Department of Art, Art History & Visual Studies
Duke University

This book tells the story of the birth of commercial art in Japan from the turn of the twentieth century through its global efflorescence in the total design event of the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. Until recently, there has been little systematic effort to analyze Japanese advertising and commercial art production within the broader context of world design history, while also taking into account the wide-ranging cultural implications of Japan’s emerging consumer capitalism and the ideological formations of nation- and empire-building. Such a study requires the challenging integration of the disparate scholarly spheres of art, design, business, social, and political history as aesthetics are read back into the sociology of consumption. This integrative interpretation illuminates the immense creativity imbued in aesthetic responses to new business systems as well as the profound impact that consumer capitalism has had on the development of modern Japanese art and visual culture.

This research was presented at the Design Incubation Colloquium 2.3: St. John’s University on Saturday, January 16, 2016.