AD603 Critical Theory

Colonizer’s allegation that they brought development to the colony is totally a deceit. Do people have thirst for exoticism? Or do the colonizers eager to help people develop their business? They call them savior but they plundered profits and resources from colony, moreover, leaving heartbroken memory for the innocent people and scar for the society. Where are the human rights to talk about? Since people in colony are exploited by colonist, I suspect how can they consume art as people who live in an uncontrolled region? How can be equally that a colonist judges the art in the colonial culture with their view?

Hong Kong, officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, used to be a dependent territory of the UK in 1842, and remained so until the transfer of its sovereignty to the People’s Republic of China in 1997. If someone wants to see how western culture interpreted into Asia through colonialism, then Hong Kong is a mirror, a good case study to be conducted. We can strongly feel the impression of economy development in this region: modern architecture, modern mass transportation system, Western-style clothes, and at the same time, traditional culture imprint on each corner of this society. And what about the art? Is today’s art in Hong Kong culture the result of an evolution of traditional aesthetics? I didn’t see too much tradition aesthetics from it, what substitutes it is mass production of art (movie, music) driven by commercial purpose. Hong Kong is called cultural hub where eastern and western cultures meet, however, it’s hard to find out what is Hong Kong art. I don’t know if people in Hong Kong have ethnocentrism, or are they proud of living in a “hybrid” way?

Colonialism never stopped but exists in a modern way. The aim of colonialism is to plunder the fortune and it never give up finding new opportunities.

History is the process of the reason. It is hard to say or to give a conclusion why Red is a popular color to Chinese people. It is not because some people, it is not because a period, it is not because an incident, it is because the history, a history more than 5,000 years. Some western people judge Chinese culture a superficial one, they think in a way that they feel right. However, they just learn the surface of Chinese culture, or because the eurocentrism results from industrial revolution. But that doesn’t mean Chinese culture or China is superficial. Jack Cafferty, the commentator from CNN said the Chinese were “goons and thugs” and that their products were “junk” on April 9, 2008. If this represents what people in western world thinking about China, or it implies their wish that asking their audience to think about China in this way, then they are in big problem. I don’t 100% understand all what Minh-Ha says, but, any critique about another culture’s art should be built on the understanding of its objects and its culture.

Apparently, these readings talk about the phenomenon of national conflict that how Americans pursue a cultural identity which is different from the diversity of the real world. As an international student, I experience this unique culture, seeing how white people survive in the country together with other races and people with different colors of skins. History produced this country: emigration form Europe replaced aboriginal, Europe colonist sold black people and other races as slaves to this country… When one wants to distinguish his/herself in this community at this time, it would be more difficult than taking a tumor from a cancer patient.

Conflicts or contradiction exists among differences everywhere in our society. In ancient China, people used yinyang to explain how differences transfer and develop in the unification. Two different or opposite objects oppose and unify in a system which reveal the way they work. When an American tries to identify him/herself as a pure American, the easiest way is to show the difference from other races if it can prove he or she is different. It is so hard for me to understand a “straight, white, male” is an American. But one thing we can read from this phenomenon is that is a protector culture. This protector culture may come from the contradiction of the diversity which I can strongly feel. This country is made of different races and different sex orientation, but at the same time they exclude each other. It is so often to hear somebody says “I hate you” and it is unbelievable that saying such words are so easy. School shoots happened frequently and the murders are just juveniles.

Conflicts or contradiction exists among differences in our mind. In industrial design education, critiques are used for finding out the problems in design stages so that when whole design process finished we can have a better result. It also helps students discover other opportunities and make their design more profound. I can see clearly at the beginning in my class, students didn’t want to offend others so most of the time they just appreciated others’ works. Later, when they realized the suggestion from others can inspire them, the contents of critiques becomes meaningful.  

Conflicts or contradiction is the problem we always deal with in the design process. As different people have different understanding of what is design, people need time to understand a common intention. Even in a design team, people won’t always have the common values or use the same way to judge a design. However, goals were always set so that designers can work for the same direction.

Conflicts or contradiction made us always have to make decisions to accept of reject one opposite to purse unification. Although we can evaluate pros and cons, we still have to give up something to exchange for the balance. The simple example is in industrial design, to create a better user experience, the input may go beyond the managers’ expected. To cleave the user and scarify the benefit of the clients or to bring profits to clients and make the users’ lives less easy is a question almost everyone has to face.

A new kind of society emerged after the World War II which shaped people’s life style and the way they consume. Meanwhile, the emergence of postmodernism is closely related to the emergence of this new moment. If the modernist aesthetic is in some way organically linked to the conception of a unique self and private identity, a unique personality and individuality, which can be expected to generate its own unique vision of the world and to forge its own unique, unmistakable style, then a lot of works finished at that time can be considered as crude pastiche. It means, when stylistic innovation is no longer possible, all that is left is to imitate dead styles, to speak through the masks and with the voices of the styles in the imaginary museum. Then how to define uniqueness? It is a relative and dialectical concept that can be used for comparisons. Does it mean with the same or similar contents of the works, if we have a stylistic innovation which can bring unique characteristics to this work, then it won’t be considered as pastiche?

Cartoon book, movie, cartoon movie, game…which are pastiche?

However, the works generated in the postmodern period can not be divorced from the new consumer society. People believes peace and lives are precious and devoted great passion in their lives after the World War II, together with the development of the world economy, the global consumption grows faster than before which stimulated every kinds of design and arts come into the market. Some are being considered as high art with uniqueness; others don’t have such uniqueness but still can satisfy users by providing other functions and less intriguing stylistic innovation.

China is always censured to plagiarize successful design on the market. However, such condemnation is irresponsible. When Motorola first launched its slim cell phone V3 on the market, Samsung, LG, Nokia and almost every cell phone manufactures chase and compete to make their cell phone slimmer. They are not accused for their dead styles because capitalism is always right when they pursue profit while what consumers need are no longer cell phones but a mask to display as their own character. Ironically, Motorola is still selling its V3 and the face lift versions which make the consumer lose their interests. The result is Motorola gradually loses the market and maybe this is the punishment for its careless treatment for the consumers.

When someone created the high art or high culture, they also created the possibilities of pastiche. There is always a gap between such high art and the real world that the masses can not touch. To satisfy most of the consumer to consume such things, pastiche looks fair although they don’t invent something new. How consumer fall over their selves for the pastiche proves its rationality of existence.

Different form Freud’s id, ego and super-ego, Lacan put the concept of “subject” into his structured psychology. As all the initiative reasons of the language, Lacan believes subject also provide the motive viewpoints from unconscious and psychological realm. In the field of phenomenology, subject is understood as Intentionality. Lacan pointed out three steps on the development of psychology, imaginary order, symbolic order and the real. According to his theory, a fetus lives in matrix peacefully which is an ideal place. After it is born, a suffering came out due to the loose of safety and the material support. Such pain stimulates the imaginary of self and later is developed to be a illusion of individual. Because the imaginary order has no material base, it is impossible to balance the motivation of id and desire of ego and an infant’s image is just the ideal-I.

The phenomena of the world are created by language and speech which Lacan believes, and it has more functions than communication for they create a network of meaning. The real is quite disputed for it is the material based ambit where self can not speak out and illustrate. It sounds ridiculous that there’s something exists but we can not illustrate, then why Lacan call it the real?

The mirror stage is another profound concept that provided by Lacan which enabled an individual to become aware of him/herself as an autonomous thinking, feeling being in the first place and to maintain this level of self-consciousness. In this stage, one must first distinguish themselves from others and from their social environment. The first idea comes to my mind is why an infant cry? Based on this theory, an infant feels an extremely hurt when it finds it is separated from its mother to be another individual unit. However, they start to consider itself as a gestalt and feel happy. The pain produced in the mirror stage is the base of all the suffering of one’s whole life and anyone can not get rid of it. However, it is also the impetus for the development of gestalt. Lacan believes this moment of alienation and fascination with one’s own image creates ego.

Freud believes ego is self and Lacan thinks ego is the effect of images or an imaginary function while its function is refusing to accept the truth of fragmentation and alienation. For Lacan, the unconscious is “structured like a language”. As an antitheist, I prefer to accept the fact all of these are the law of nature. To me, what Lacan did was to create another self-subject, to help people to understand his/herself. Subject starts to exist when gestalt comes out and what is mirrored and we can see is the truth we think but we can not tell. It shows the difference and diversity between individual and the “real world” created by us. If the “real world” in the mirror can not meet what we expect, then we will feel suffering from this alienation because we are separated from what we hope.

Hate others or suffer from yourself? The mirror can tell. This picture comes from the cartoon movie Snow White and Seven Dwarfs.

Till now there exists a huge argument towards Freud’s theories. Some suspect what he talked about is not science thus can not be widely accepted while other believes he can not justify himself in certain areas. Two groups of concepts frequently mentioned are: ID, Ego, Super-Ego and Conscious, Unconscious, Preconscious as well as the complicated relationships involved in them.

 I think ID means the original aspects of the human personality which includes desire, impulse and energy to survive. ID can lead us find the happiness and avoid pains thus is not restrict by social moral and regulation. Its aim is to pursue happiness and convenience, survival and reproduction. It is unconscious and can not be aware of.

 Ego is unconscious and can help us realize our thinking, perceiving judgment and memory. Its function is help ID and satisfy while at the same time provide protection. If ID pursues happiness, then Ego provides method to achieve this aim.

 Super-Ego is the ideal part of the human personality and come into being in the process of one’s growing up. It pursues perfection and is unconscious and not realistic as ID.

 Obviously there are several dynamic features and structural roles working in human personality. We always say those come from our mind and Freud divides the mind into two parts: the preconscious which contains all the ideas and memories capable of becoming conscious and the unconscious made up of desires, impulses or wishes of a mostly sexual and sometimes destructive nature. As a designer, I have ideas, memories, desires, impulses, wishes and with the help of the pleasure principle and the reality principle, I will have inspiration and this process is preconscious and unconscious. It is interesting that the real word has an impact on our mind and we design something for this world through a preconscious and unconscious process. Then the objects we designed become a part of the real world and have impacts on people’s mind. This circle becomes endless that we are influenced by the results of the preconscious and unconscious system in our mind. This may also explain how people create the illusion of this world and the spectacle of society.

 Then the existence of unconscious is necessary as I explained above. Talking about Ego and ID, they are both unconscious, Ego is influenced by perception while ID is influenced by instinct. The two characters are understood by the commercial society who takes its advantage in the society of consumption. We pursue our happiness and pick up the goods we want by instinct. However, the way we pursue our happiness relies on the perception. Anxiety is the proper human signal of weakness in the ego because the ID pursuing the happiness. Then Ego produces the repression to defense against this defect. Look at the customers in the department stores, ‘I want to buy something’ and ‘I am going to buy something’ are two different kinds of things. Without the Ego, we can not imagine the world full of people’s ID.

 This picture shows the spectacle of shopping at the weekend in the city of Cheng Du, China in the year 1999. What standing there, are not the shells of people, instead, are their ID and Ego.

What is the understanding of ‘Spectacle’ before I read Guy Debord’s Society of the spectacle? If I translate its meaning from Chinese, then it means vision. It is what we see from this world with and without any man—made decoration. Guy Debord tried to release what is concealed behind the spectacle, to tell us the world we live is an illusion created by abundant commodities while the society is capital’s portrait. My feeling after the reading is quite close as watching the MATRIX. He explained a lot of relationship among commodities and its value, people, consciousness of desire, technology, economy and society. He use spectacle to describe these disorder phenomena

I feel a little bit guilty after reading. Thinking about any industrial designers doing their best to design products and goods, we really did a lot of contribution to this commodity world by designing a beautiful illusion. We are educated to stress the true users’ needs through design, and industrial design students are also encouraged to focus on specific problems like environmental problems or to design for specific users like disabilities or children. The aims for doing these are to benefit the users, environment and society. And so course, as an applied discipline, we never forget to bring values to our users and clients. The difference from Guy Debord’s saying is, the concepts mentioned in his book, say, use value and exchange value are abstract descriptions while what we are doing has material contents.

Are we really the tools of creating this spectacle? Observation and other design research methods are taught to help understand users’ need and a lot of designers even don’t realize that they are helping make an illusion full of any kind of things they designed. Commodity has to have its use value and that’s the reason for its existence. The use value is the natural attribute of the commodity and also the material content of the social fortune. It’s designers’ responsibility to design for users and the society. However, when we think about whether our world really needs these commodities we produced, we will be likely to say we made t00 much. It might because the way we exchange of products, it might because the Industrial Revolution’s manufactural division and mass production for a global market, it might because the greed of capitalism and monopolization, and it might because we ourselves are labor commodities.

Perhaps no one can tell exactly how surplus comes out and give an efficient solution to it, but when we look over what we did, we will have sufficient reasons to critique ourselves. Within the field of industrial design, a lot of designers created something unnecessary which can not stress the real problems and users’ needs. With the development and popularization of design education in different countries, our life qualities improved. But do we really need that much design and commodities? May be the fate of the designer is controlled by a hand that can not be seen, but one thing is certain: designers are utilized to accelerate making more surplus. The word Design is also abused by commerce which makes the word more and more meaningless. Philippe Starck said:  Design is dead. The problem can not be solved by simply designing a sustainable or durable product to reduce the numbers of commodities.

By copying (Ctrl+C) and pasting (Ctrl+V) the word Art, I successfully reproduced it with the amount I wanted. If the word Art itself is the word of Art, then I created a perfect reproduction with the help of technology which allows me use a keyboard and mouse finish the whole process. Did I miss something in the process of reproduction? According to what Benjamin said, one thing is lacking: the here and now of the work of art-its unique existence in a particular place. His unique existence means nothing else, any kind of repetition will break this unique existence thus loss its meaning. However, what if the reproduction process is the work of Art? By copying and pasting the word Art, I created another piece of work-Art Art Art Art Art Art Art Art

This might be interesting if the technological reproduction itself is the work of Art. But they are true: lithography, photography, film are not only the amazing invention, they are also art. They are art themselves and they can reproduce art works, although being considered not unique. More or less, Benjamin didn’t like technological reproduction and considered it as part of improper way of using technological resources.

Is technological reproduction wrong or why it is in conflict with Art? Benjamin didn’t hold a dialectical opinion as far as I’m concerned. First of all, he didn’t like new things. Like Adorno, a lot of people in those years were fogeyish and afraid of new technology. They pretended to be jacobinical while their ideas were still restricted by the traditional ones. Thus, they unadvisable reject the positive influence that technology brought us because they were afraid of being replaced by the fresh things. The new will definitely substitute old, even when talking about Art. I agree the reproduction can not attain the original and will lose its uniqueness by just technologically reproducing the art works. Even the latest clone technology can not create the exactly same animals but they still have their own meaning. So does art. People from different areas around the world can enjoy a film at the same time or we have to wait until others finish watching it and then go to the exclusive cinema in this world to enjoy it.

Secondly, a narrow definition of Art suggested a stagnant vision. Everything is in its process of developing, some going better, others going worse. Benjamin could expect the capitalism in the future, but he can not expect scanner, printer and MMS. To him, regime is more interesting than art. However, the artists never stopped pursuing new ways to express their emotion and attitude. They are also enjoying the new media benefit from technology and consider it as a signal of advance. Artists living in the modern world are more willing to spread their works and please their audiences. Technological reproducibility contributes to the industry of the Art and makes it flourish.

Finally, people at that time seldom knew that technology can make artworks that art were personal behavior while technology could just related to machines or other techniques. However, technology can also create artworks with more meaningful contents.

This image illustrates evolving dynamical patterns formed during the spreading of a surface-active substance (surfactant) over a thin liquid film on a silicon wafer.

As an outsider of art, I still inertly pursue the benefit that critique theory can bring to design, more concretely, industrial design. I believe the aesthetic topic includes the aesthetics in art and aesthetics in design although the latter is not mentioned in the two reading chapters, partly because design was not significant as its role today or people at that time didn’t realize to distinguish the art and design. The word Art jumps frequently into my eyes while at the same time another scene shows up in my mind with the design is its main actor. Inspired by Adorno’s blurry Art and Aesthetic theory, I created a structure for an understanding of the aesthetics and ornaments aspects in industrial design and aslo tried to analyze them.

Art works have life because they speak in ways nature and static that man cannot, and then works of industrial design can speak because they have behavior to talk to the user and bring them experience. Ornaments in the visual arts originally tended to be cult symbols and they also play a similar role in industrial design, but more functionally, for the psychological needs of the users. Design seldom secludes itself from the world because they want to talk. Art is art because it has freedom. Artists can enjoy this freedom while industrial designers can also. By bringing the users and clients more convenience and value, we create the freedom in a more direct and in-ego way. In Adorno’s mind, to meet the criterion of the success of art, it needs to have the integration of materials and details into their immanent law of form, and also should keep its fractures left by the process integration. Since art is more about a personal process while design serves for the public, the criterion of the success of design involves more factors with most of which are not judged by spiritual essence.

Adorno definitely argue the mass-produced culture. On the introduction page of Aesthetic Theory, he is described to distrust of all rational resolutions and to oppose “totalization” which means he didn’t want to see a world with akin appearance. Dialectical speaking, the factories producing standardized commodity and cultural goods could not be avoided due to the industrial revolution. Thus, these mass production goods manipulate the society and lead it to passivity also becomes unavoidable. This was also a time that design starting to replace art to serve for more people especially poor people through the mass-produced goods. History is the process of reason. It would be unreasonable if Adorno and Horkheimer saw this mass-produced culture as a danger to their more difficult high arts. And the real true need that the public pursed, rather than a high art, was an affordable enjoyment that they can attain.

Finally, a question comes into my mind. German industrial design and products give me an impression that they are seious, rational, and some are exquisite. Since lots of philosophic theory were born in Germany, what critical theory or philosophic doctrine influenced them? The case study to the relevant topics might be a good way to understand how critique theories contribute to this major.

Since I am curious about how critical theory works in the design and related field, I quickly read through the three reading materials and trying to find the answer. In David Held’s Introduction to Critical Theory, a negative definition was given to critical theory in its induction because critical theory was considered more than what it is, due to the fact that critical theorists frequently criticized the works of others. The critical theorists rejected Kant’s transcendental method and many aspects of Hegel’s philosophy; they rejected a philosophy of identity; they rejected dialectical materialism; they rejected the positivist understanding of science and a correspondence theory of truth… If they rejected everything they meet then what are they? Or are they trying to shape themselves by rejecting others and providing advanced theories and mean while methods? Answers are given in the rest chapters of that book as well as Max Horkheimer’s ‘Postscript” in Critical Theory. Critical theory still keeps relation to political economy, aesthetics, psychoanalysis and the philosophy of history.

Critical social theory were built on Marxian political economy which is introduced in Rius’s Marx for beginners while in Max Horkheimer’s “postscript” in Critical Theory,  critical theory continues to respect and has positive influences on other special sciences. Its goal is clearly stated which is man’s emancipation from slavery and its dialectical function is to measure every historical stage. Since dialectical thought is considered to be the most advance state of knowledge, critical theory can make the final judge. Back to David Held’s introduction to critical theory, its background and its character can be easily found out.

I skipped Rius’s Marx for beginners because Chinese students have plenty of opportunities to get touch with it. Meanwhile, I’m trying to think about how to conduct a critic within my major and what theory should I use. If a dialectical theory exists and may works in my major then what I would be? I may not get the exact answer at this time, but a system composed of dialectical thought (society, history, value, market…) may have already been there. Not only the knowledge and design criteria of the industrial design itself, a wider view from philosophical aspect will also be provided. And it can definitely help us compare to the past and look at the future. All of these will contribute to the development of the subject, not a negative, but a more positive way. Since Marxian political economy is the foundation of this critical theory, I tried to find any direct relationship between it and any practical critic I am going to conduct.  More indirectly, these theories can help me understand how this world is operated. Although people still question the Marx’s theory, it is still the most advanced theory system in this world. Finally, we will no longer be an absolute ego when we reject others’ works. As a part of the development of the history, we are just the interpreter of it.