Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Neither Pipe Nor Graphic Design Nor Website
Tyler Sticka is a young, accomplished and highly energetic interactive designer, illustrator and web designer. He gave a presentation called "This is Not a Graphic Design" that was almost overbrimming at DevGroup NW, a user group for the web, graphic, and interactive community that Brad Smith has organized and maintained for over a decade now.
In a little over an hour, Sticka gave an expansive view of why web design is not art nor graphic design. But, fret not, realizing that gives the web practitioner new opportunities and power. He worked through the possibilities that one has by paying attention to web safe fonts, formats, conventions, and accessibilty, having parenthetic discussion on each at a rapid pace.
But most significant for me was that he used this as an opportunity, not just to talk about basic web trends, but some really big ideas, as could be evidenced by his allusion to using Rene Margritte's painting The Treachery of Images with its famous "This is not a Pipe" captioning. In the digital world, that proclamation even engages more discussion. Or as Sticka pointed out during his presentation. This is a digital scan of an image in an acrobat document of a painting of a pipe that is not a pipe. More than a word or mind game, this description for me is another reminder of our world of digital artiface.
Additionally, Sticka talked about the nature of Apollonian vs. Dionysian art, the model inspired by Nietzsche as a way to contrast the controlled and formal vs, the dynamic changing. He also talked about how photography took the role in art as the representational and gave opportunity for all of the great movements and discussion in art: impressionism, cubism, futurism, surrealism, expressionism, and pop art.
It was great to see this young dynamo go for it, giving his world view of art and design and web with rapid fire delivery. I am grateful for his reference to social design interactive designer Joshua Porter whose site I checked out after the lecture. Porter's Five Principles to Live By will likely be shared with my students on numerous occasions in the future. This is obviously someone who dines at the same table as Sticka.
And I kind of think Sticka and I also are likely to head back for seconds or thirds at the buffet. Check out this excerpt from his News and Archives section at his website where he discusses Sergio Aargones and departs into some additional musings:
"What do cartooning and animation in visual entertainment, modernism in art and design and rock and roll in music all have in common? All three respect a conversational view of art and communication."..."Conversational artworks are those possessing enough elements to interest, inform and/or enlighten the viewer, but with enough mystique that the audience might impart their own experiences and insight."
One more note about the evening in the Cascade campus of Portland Community College's new lovely auditorium. At about 7:15 it was announced we would be interrupted for an active shooter lock down drill. My first! The lights went down and a three or four descending note alarm softly repeated itself for several minutes while a slide of a woman in full shrieking mode fretting over browser standards (from Sticka's presentation) still stayed on the screen. One of the students who accompanied me described the alarm tone as being somewhat soft and soothing but annoying. It seemed interminable. After it was over Sticka resumed his speech by remarking shooters have a longer attention span than he did.
posted by well-executed buffet at 11:05 PM
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