I have now finished my work for my first term as a third year art student. This term has been challenging as a I have started a completely new topic. I feel however that through play and experimentation I have been able to explore these ideas and develop them through my theoretical research.
To come to a concluding thought for this term, I want to reference Victor Papanek’s Design for the real world. This is a text which I have previously read in my design studies, however it is very relevant to my lasting ideas on my recent body of work.
Two extracts from Papanek which are particularly relevant are;
"The reason we enjoy things in nature is that we see an economy of means, simplicity, elegance and an essential tightness in them. But they are not design. Though they have pattern, order, and beauty, they lack conscious intention. If we call them design, we artificially ascribe our own values to an accidental side issue."
"Intent is also missing from the random order system of a pile of coins. If, however, we move the coins around and arrange them according to size and shape, we add the element of intent and produce some sort of symmetrical alignment. This symmetrical order system is a favourite
of small children, unusually primitive peoples, and some of the insane, because it is so easy to understand. Further shifting of the coins will produce an infinite number of asymmetrical arrangements which require a higher level of sophistication and greater participation on the part of the viewer to be understood and appreciated. While the aesthetic values of the symmetrical and asymmetrical designs differ, both can give ready satisfaction since the underlying intent is clear. Only marginal patterns (those lying in the threshold area between symmetry and
asymmetry) fail to make the designer's intent clear. The ambiguity of these 'threshold cases’ produces a feeling of unease in the viewer. But apart from these threshold cases there are an infinite number of possible satisfactory arrangements of the coins. Importantly, none of these is the one right answer, though some may seem better than others. Shoving coins around on a board is a design act in miniature because design as a problem-solving activity can never, by definition, yield the one right answer: it will always produce an infinite number of answers, some 'righter' and some 'wronger'. “
This text represents an insight to the connection we have with nature and can also give reference to why we find the natural wold innately beautiful. I therefore intend to continue to explore this and extend it through my practice by increasing my investment in the human interaction element of my works and to recreating my own methods of addition and pattern making which create references to the natural world and the spiritual act of ritual.