The infinity of design

“Design is the planning that lays the basis for the making of every object or system. It can be used both as a noun and as a verb and, in a broader way, it means applied arts and engineering.” Wikipedia nails it – design includes way too many things. It can refer to the planning process or to the final solution, and the fields of application as well as the forms that the end results may take are infinite. Some designers define their area of expertise very carefully whereas others assume the role of a generalist. In the latter case, evaluation of the design outcomes becomes harder, and there’s a distinct danger of a professional identity crisis. On the other hand, who came up with the idea to separate fields like design, art and science to begin with? The idea of designers being able to escape the world of design into other areas of life and work is actually very interesting.

Post-materialist design

The contemporary design industry is built on post-materialist needs (belonging, esteem, and aesthetic and intellectual satisfaction) instead of material needs (hunger, thirst and physical security) immediately linked with survival. Design for self-expression often lacks the functionality which originally distinguished the field from art. However, this kind of design is typically also missing the criticism that art provides. Instead of asking questions, design usually answers them, at least those asked by the market. Sometimes it feels like designers wishing to steer clear from making a profit aren’t considered designers at all.

Open design

Helsinki’s strategy for the World Design Capital year is to “embed design in life”, involving citizens in designing a better city. Opening up the field of design for critical discussion among the common public, as well as among professionals from other fields, could move the focus away from the glossy surface of the design industry. Yet, in practice, sharing the actual act of designing with the public is no less problematic than other crises design has recently come across. To overcome this dilemma, Helsinki needs to create intelligent tools and strategies for participation – and think beyond the word and the world of design while doing it.

Napa Gallery, Jani, Lotta and Martti.

Science Poems mini exhibition and Anni.

Books, Maija and Stella.

Paris photos and herbal drinks.

Jenna making drinks.

Benjamin and the party on the street.

Nene listening to DNA Junk by Martti Kalliala. On the left: Faraday Suit vest by K.I. Kinnunen. On the right: Higgs Boson by Anna Ahonen and Katariina Lamberg.

Kaira looking at Brain Forest by Nene Tsuboi.

Nene, a Science Poems artist and typographer for the Helsinki party.

Order Science Poems online through Napa webshop.

André Breton, an autoportrait (ca. 1929) | Still image from Alphaville by Jean Luc Godard, 1965

AM: Firstly, I would like to ask how you came up with the idea to curate an exhibition that deals with natural sciences in relation to art and design and vice versa? What kind of inspirations and motivations are behind the exhibition?

JS: We’ve both been operating somewhere in the borderlands of design, touching on both art and science in our work. For instance, interaction and communications design, information visualisation or design research all call for transdisciplinary interest. We’re curious about exploring different systems and theories, and things like electromagnetics, or the brain – a bigger picture beyond one discipline. I think that design or art, for us, is about trying to develop strategies of understanding and showing. A lot like science. And it’s interesting to mix the different ways of looking at things, the ways of an artist and a scientist. Like André Breton [a surrealist theorist] said: “To change ways of being, one has to first change ways of seeing.” Or, we could also look at seeing from a Steinerian perspective and say that just like the eye perceives colours and the ear sounds, so thinking perceives ideas. Rudolf Steiner considered this to be the premise upon which Goethe made his natural-scientific observations – looking at ideas as “objects of experience” and thinking as an organ of perception. I think we need design, art and science, and both the real and the imaginary, in the same stream of thought to understand the world better.

“We need design, art and science, and both the real and the imaginary, in the same stream of thought to understand the world better.”

AP: We think that the theme of mixing science with visual disciplines is definitely in the air right now and one of the reasons for this could be that you don’t need to be a scientist to have access to a profusion of information nowadays – as well as to tools to handle it. Different professionals are also very open for co-operation these days: it’s an adventure to jump outside your own field. The idea of Science Poems was very much inspired by existing design and art that deals with the topic of natural sciences. In addition to the contemporary examples, like designer and professor duo Anthony Dunne & Fiona Raby and Marc-Olivier Wahler, the director of Palais de Tokyo – whom we’ve interviewed for the Science Poems book – we have many idols who have operated in the borderlands of design, art and science in the past. Having previously discussed the topic with Jenna, I got really into it after seeing Alphaville, a 1965 film by Jean-Luc Godard . Like Alphaville, in James Monaco’s words, “prefers to see the poetry of science rather than its mathematical logic”, we also wish to dig into the lyrical and visual sphere of science, making subjective interpretations and questions about it.

AM: Talking about the big picture and interdisciplinary thinking, Jenna, I remember that your MA thesis at the University of Art and Design Helsinki was inspired by the Whole Earth Catalog, a counterculture publication from the 60s and 70s. Stewart Brand’s catalogue aimed to give people the tools to better understand the world through different ways of affecting one’s environment. Has it had an effect on Science Poems, too?

JS: The Whole Earth Catalog has been inspirational to me when it comes to understanding what and how to design. It presents a lot of narratives of design in everyday life and provides means for the readers to find their own inspiration, shape their own environment and share their experience with whoever is interested. In practice, the catalogue contains information on different means for making things, listing artefacts from special-purpose utensils to informative books and courses, as well as early synthesisers and personal computers. So, instead of showing the end results – ready-made objects or products, like catalogues often do – it rather presents tools to spark ideas. Like my former boss at Arki research group would say, Brand’s catalogue is a classic example of “design for designability”. As a matter of fact, the Whole Earth Catalog has been described as a conceptual forerunner of web search engines. It blurs the boundaries of expertise and everyday, bringing information about different fields of activity closer to people of various disciplines. And this is what the Science Poems project aims to do, too – to function as a common point of reference (a boundary object) for interdisciplinary conversations about natural sciences, in this case.

Stewart Brand's Whole Earth Catalog, 1968 | A Wikipedia Reader by Mylinh Trieu and David Horvitz (eds.), 2008

AM: Being a graphic designer, I have noticed a tendency towards interdisciplinary thinking also in my own field. Glossaries creating connections between subjects from different sources have been a widely used approach in editing content to inspire people to look at things from a different perspective and to question certain “truths” or divisions into rigid categories. I assume that this linking of things partly derives from online practices, and using Wikipedia in particular. A publication called A Wikipedia Reader, edited by Mylinh Trieu Nguyen and David Horvitz, deals with this phenomenon by linking topics from different fields and hierarchy levels together. Wikipedia links subjects to each other in a way that breaks down certain traditional divisions and hierarchies – subjects with typically different value levels might appear on the same level… The ways to present information surely affect on how we perceive and use it. Operating mainly online, have you been thinking about these kinds of things now that you’re presenting something offline?

JS: Yes, the question about perceiving information and different value levels online, where everything is miscellaneous, is really interesting. There’s a risk that some bits of important information go unnoticed and, in time, vanish in the process of searching, copying and pasting. Or their original meaning might change when they travel through different contexts. For example, when someone googles ‘cosmology’ and finds our publication, or the stories about Cosmic Wonder art organisation and artist Yayoi Kusama, uninformed about the field of science, could they consider cosmology an art movement and write about it on their blog? The life of information is, definitely, one of the things we’ve considered during the Science Poems process – also from the point of view of us learning about natural sciences online. Another interesting issue to think about is the change of context from the online environment to a gallery space with limited access to Wikipedia, Google and other tools for interpretation. In the physical exhibition, we, together with the artists, can decide what kind of information to display next to each piece of work – and what to leave out. And making this publication, for us, is about linking the exhibition to a wider frame of reference and extending the show beyond the gallery. Umberto Eco recently used the expressions ‘the poetics of everything included’ and the ‘poetics of the etcetera’ when talking about lists, and I think we can easily say that Science Poems falls into the latter category. Our idea is to continue exploring the topic after the exhibition, too.

AM: Extending a show outside the gallery reminds me of Exhibition Prosthetics, a recent publication by Joseph Grigely which deals with the relationship of an exhibition and its catalogue. It argues that a catalogue can, in fact, be seen as part of the exhibition – instead of a mere extension.

JS: Last December, I met with artist Simon Starling who had done some research on the relationship between an exhibition and its catalogue for the MAC/VAL exhibition Thereherethenthere. He drew a parallel between putting up an exhibition and producing an exhibition catalogue, seeing the two activities equally important and integrally linked. He stated that books often carry research material, a sense of time and place, and/or a network of connectivity into the presentation of a work. He also said that in some instances the exhibition itself serves as an intermediary editorial process in the production of a book. I think this was a particularly interesting thought, and one that could be applied to the making of the Science Poems publication as well.

“We use both the print and web publication as symbiotic companions of the exhibition.”

AP: In our case, we use both the print and web publication as symbiotic companions of the exhibition. The website is a great tool for, as we suggested earlier, providing the audience with convenient access to the links related to the Science Poems project. We hope that people will come to see the exhibition because they read about it at www.ok-do.eu, and that they will go back to the website and read the book after seeing the exhibition, in order to go deeper.

Exhibition Prosthetics by Joseph Grigely, edited by Zak Kyes, Bedford Press 2010 | www.ok-do.eu

AM: Simon Starling’s work is indeed an intriguing example of looking at ways to open up processes behind art and design. His project brings to my mind a show, Archiving the Catalogue, that recently took place in Berlin. In fact, it was an open project space by artists Nicolas Y Galeazzi and Joël Verwimp. They had put up an experimental editing-laboratorium where the process of editing a publication was physically on display – exhibited as an ongoing and evolving work. This reminded me of the fact that editing is all about choices, and that there is in a sense no definitive truth.

JS: I remember there was a similar performance by Dexter Sinister at Proforma last autumn, where they organised a team to write, edit, print and distribute a newspaper twice a week during the event. The project was partly about how the news creates what we believe is true, yet its main idea was to show that the activity of editing a newspaper is as much about process as it is about product. And this is totally the case in our work with Science Poems, and the fact that it is our first publication makes the process even more interesting. There are so many things to consider and learn about: management, tone of voice, working with other writers, editing our own text, copyrights, physics, biology, astronomy. Equally, when making a publication out of personal interest, with no external guides or restrictions (other than not being able to afford more than 144 pages and having to get it ready for the exhibition in June) many things are based on our intuition. The book reflects the interests of Anni and myself, and is the sum of all the people involved.

AM: Are you interested in exhibiting the artworks connected to the scientific context where they derive from, or do you rather want to keep the connection more ambiguous, poetic? I was recently working for Extra-City, a Belgian museum arranging an exhibition dealing with Animism, an idea according to which animals, plants, rocks and so on have a soul.

The curators looked at the term from a contemporary point of view in order to question the dichotomies that modernism had associated with it. Glossaries with historical references presented next to the art works directed the visitor’s perception to a certain mindset but the curation still left space for different interpretations of the works. How did you find a balance between opening up the backgrounds of the works and leaving certain things open for people to interpret?

AP: The Science Poems exhibition aims to present artists’ and designers’ ideas about natural sciences. Some of them, like Miska Knapek, use scientific data very strictly in the actual production of the piece, whereas others have taken scientific ideas and made their own interpretation of them, like Anna Ahonen and Katariina Lamberg. I guess the main principle of the exhibition is that it’s acceptable and justifiable to interpret, explore and discuss science with artistic tools and intuition. Our chat with Tomi Kokkonen, a philosopher of science (the interview is also included in the book) made us feel a whole lot more comfortable about it. With him we discussed how art could be used to bring new aspects of science and its subject matters within the reach of different kinds of people; by offering alternative perspectives to it and its relation to everyday reality.

“Some of the artists and designers in the Science Poems exhibition use scientific data very strictly in the actual production of the piece, whereas others have taken scientific ideas and made their own interpretation of them.”

The book contains additional information on the exhibition and the pieces as well as ideas OK Do has about science at the moment. I don’t think we believe casting light on the background of a work of art or an exhibition would create barriers to interpretation. Therefore, we interviewed all the artists and asked them to tell us where they are coming from with their work. In that sense, we are very much designers as well – instead of keeping the backgrounds and messages a mystery we like to dig them out and show them to the rest of the world. And when dealing with visual language, there will always be space for interpretation no matter how much you talk about it.

Dexter Sinister's The First/Last Newspaper, 2009 | Étienne-Jules Marey: Buse volant avec l’appareil qui signale les mouvements décrits par l’extrémité de son aile, 1873

AM: Anni, you mentioned that you have been inspired by existing design and art that finds itself on the borderlines of design, art, and science. Could you give an example of this and how it changed your thinking, especially in relation to Science Poems?

AP: One moment of revelation for me was when I first discovered the thinking of Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby. To be honest, at the university, I had been pretty much educated to find solutions for other people’s problems. Dunne and Raby turn things around by saying that designers should find problems instead of solving them. This kind of design attitude connects with art that practices social criticism, and since scientific development affects our society, art and design, they all go hand in hand. Dunne and Raby have written a book called Design Noir: The Secret Life of Electronic Objects. It’s a good example of a project which explores all of these disciplines at once.

AM: It would definitely be a shame if the abilities of designers were used only for commercial needs. Asking questions through design is something that I learned when studying in the Netherlands. There is a lot to learn from Dutch designers’ abilities to tackle social issues!

 How did you come up with curating an exhibition instead of, for example, writing articles or conducting interviews around the topic of Science Poems? What kinds of insights do you think that an exhibition as a means of distributing content can bring about?

JS: We think organising events like exhibitions or talks establishes a nice dialogue with writing about things. We like to learn by doing, documenting, and building something new on top of it. Sometimes, we also like to come out of our medium and meet people offline (haha), and exhibitions are great places to do that. The works of art on display stimulate discussion.

“We like to learn by doing, documenting, and building something new on top of it.”

While the digital world rearranges itself for each person and their current task, a physical exhibition is presented to everyone in the same way, through someone else’s lense, under a predefined topic. Of course, the interpretations may vary and people pick up things according to their own interests, but the starting point is the same – and it includes an element of surprise. The experience is also tied to a certain time and place, which makes it unique. Exhibitions can bring about interesting reactions and encounters.

Design Noir: The Secret Life of Electronic Objects by Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby, Birkhäuser 2001 | Logo of the natural history museum of Paris

AM: How did you end up locating the exhibition in Paris?

AP: Paris was chosen because this year it has become one of our favourite places on earth. There are many reasons for that: Jenna was there for an artist residency, I fell for a French guy, we saw inspiring movies like those of Jean-Luc Godard and were also inspired by the aesthetics of science in France. I think our fascination is based on the poetic nature of French aesthetics and how it reflects classical ideas and history in which all new knowledge finds its roots. The graphic design of the Science Poems book has also drawn inspiration from that, as Åh, the designers of this book, also share our fascination.

Spread from an old French science book | Deyrolle magazine, 46 rue du Bac, Paris

AM: I noticed that most of the works in the exhibition are created by designers. Was it a conscious choice from you? And is this perhaps related to your interdiscplinary thinking – that it is not necessary to separate art and design that strongly from each other?

AP: It’s all about friends! We chose the exhibitors by intuition and the decisions took place very naturally, based on the pool of talented people we are so lucky to have around us. We are designers by training and have actually met many of the people more or less through our university. Having said that, we also believe in messing about with categories, roles and definitions – we think that renaissance spirit is good for both individual people and the whole world. Many people have multiple talents and interests and it’s interesting to take these to unusual contexts and see what happens.

Art vs. design is a topic that we’re generally very much into, perhaps because we are keen on doing art in a designer way and vice versa. We’ve had some good discussions about the topic with, for example, Paola Antonelli (article to be published soon). Right now, our aim is to explore this issue by doing and experimenting, and the Science Poems exhibition is one the first steps. The main thing for us, whether it’s about a commissioned or an independent project, is to mix analytical investigation with intuitivity and self-expression with social and critical activity.

JS: We like to think of art instructing design through presenting wild ideas that might seem utopian to begin with but, at their best, can lead into cultural production of new forms of practice. Dunne and Raby call it critical design. The interesting thing about art is that it enables displaying experimental artefacts to audiences without the need to put effort into production or marketing. Art materialises fantasies that keep on developing over time within the artworld – and outside it in various different hands and minds – never striving for definitive products so common to the design field. Like Duchamp said, “art is a game among all men of all eras”, and we take part in it with some Science Poems.

Happy New Year!

1. Going beyond design

We started OK Do to have a home for uncompromised and personal thinking, writing and doing. Designers by background, we are interested in applying our skills and methods to action that eludes traditional categories and disciplinary boundaries. We started as a ‘design think tank’ yet now we are tempted to move beyond the realm of design – to one that combines design, art and science as freely as possible. To experiment with this idea, we are now working on our Science Poems project which aims to bring the trinity together.

2. What’s on the menu, Mesdames?

Sometimes people find it difficult to understand what it is that we actually do. In short, we want to do creative projects both independently as well as through assignments. Challenging some dominant ideas about efficiency we don’t have a set menu for our offerings. At the moment, we aim to approach each project individually and with an experimental take, avoiding short-circuit thinking and doing. We also agree with Tuula Pöyhönen’s opinion that a client-assignee relationships shouldn’t be based on compromises but a common wavelength to begin with. In our view, best collaborations are based on trust and a shared interest in thought-provoking processes and results. If you like what we do, let’s collaborate!

3. Problem solving vs. problem finding

One of the eye-openers we had this year was the meeting with designers and Royal College of Art professors Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby which will be documented here early 2010. Their view to design is, in their own words, critical. This means, for example, that instead of problem solving, they focus on problem finding and asking questions that challenge the societal status quo. After buying this idea, it’s hard to go back to the old ways of a designer. We are currently in the middle of searching the OK Do way to be creatively critical and critically creative. Hello problems two thousand and ten, here we come!

Making of OK Do.

1. Get an idea

The idea of a design think tank sprang from our need to create a home for uncompromised thoughts, writing and doing. We wanted to create our own platform for collaboration and projects. The idea of OK Do was first discussed during a loud gig. We could hardly hear each other, but a couple of messy sentences were enough to deliver a common understanding. The idea of OK Do is great at least in a sense that it’s something that we believe in and really wanted to do.

Cake by mom.

After nine months of incubation, OK Do opened on September 11, 2009. The launch was a house party, hosted at a friend Tuula Pöyhönen’s place. The party was held in a home because we think it must be one of the most interesting and inspiring venues in the world. Moreover, the first OK Do party started a research project Home-Work-Home which looks at the idea of two merging spheres: home and work. Based on meetings with creative people, the project explores how the mixing of home and office affects creative processes, results and, ultimately, life.

Although we sympathise with Momus who finds internet his home, the meaning of corporeal home and its influence on creative ideas cannot be trivialised. Author Harriet Beecher Stowe has said that “home is a place not only of strong affections, but of entire unreserve; it is life’s undress rehearsal, its backroom, its dressing room.” It has the potential to be a place where the rough and rampant ideas can flow freely and undisturbed – in other words, safely.

In the OK Do party, a home functioned as a club for Renaissance Man and Jaakko Eino Kalevi as well as a studio and a gallery for Jesse Auersalo and Daniel Palillo who performed live painting to the music. It was also a restaurant that served cakes by mom and Karelian pies by friends, not to forget it’s role as a cosy exchange arena for Onni goods and OK Do thoughts. The party crystallised the significance of good people to a practice like OK Do. Thank you all!

Live painting kicks off.

OK Do live painting by Jesse Auersalo and Daniel Palillo. Music by Renaissance Man and Jaakko Eino Kalevi.