Recently, I read an article at Design Observer on the subject of relational design. It is a thoughtful beautifully scripted essay by Andrew Blauvelt. Any student of design writing should seek it out as an excellent example of structure and argument. The essay breaks down the last 100 years or so, demarcating 3 historical ‘phases’ in Design: from a preoccupation with form at the beginning of the 20th Century, to cultural semantics in design starting in the 60s, and finally the third stage – an investigation of the performative nature of design. The essay concludes by framing the ‘relational’ as a defining element to design today. By and large, I agree with the essay’s conclusion and have written on the subject myself – if not as cogently.
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The theorist George Landow, writing on Hypertext, urges us to forget the usual conceptual elements which hold language together and, instead, use new substitutes ‘such as multilinearity, nodes, links, or networks.’ Elements of syntax - and, when, so, or - are now converted to a range of physical manoeuvres: mouse up, mouse over, mouse down etc. A click now links us to our mediated world.’ In this new world, the internet is often described as a virtual landscape without a horizon but, with the average lifespan of a website measured in months rather than years, in practice it has surprisingly many broken links/dead-ends. Although the web links us to snapshots of ‘history’ in unlimited supply, it has no memory - just a post saying ‘this page is no longer on this server…’
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Dans la première partie de cet article nous avons montré comment l’évolution culturelle des mentalités n’a permis d’accueillir les idées avant-gardistes d’Aby Warburg, que 70 ans après leur conception. S’il se retrouvait vivant aujourd’hui, après un bond à travers le temps, l’espace et la technologie, à quoi ressemblerait son projet ? read the rest of this article
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