Deep Freeze

In the Anti Design Festival Manifesto (2010), Neville Brody proposes that design has been in a state of Deep Freeze for the past 25 years. If this correct, what are the likely causes?

September 2010 witnessed an all too easily forgotten eight-day extravaganza of installations, workshops, performances and lectures in various spaces around Shoreditch E2. The Anti Design Festival – note the strategic use of the noun ‘anti’, not the adjective – was launched amid a blizzard of critical commentary by the wannabe enfant terrible of British design – Neville Brody. Running alongside the established London Design Festival, this chaotic celebration of failure was a proclamation that design had arrived at the eve of a new dawn.

In the accompanying manifesto, Brody insisted that design had become too comfortable with commerce, that money has usurped creativity. He postulated that we had endured a 25 year ‘cultural deep-freeze’ [17]. There is far too much navel gazing. The design for designers market produces artifacts destined for design museums, with minimal cultural application. “Nothing is new anymore, just new versions of the old”. [2]

The fact that a cultural chill has been upon us for ‘25 years’ is significant. Rewind those 25 years and Brody was the young designer du jour who was breaking all the rules with his exquisite, groundbreaking work for The Face. [15]

The 1980’s heralded the triumph of neoliberalism in the west. The prevailing economic policy insists that services are best provided by the private sector rather than the state. This political doctrine has seen a coercion of the arts to become financially self-sufficient, to operate more like businesses.

The Government decided that art and culture were no longer about the public interest, but instead existed to make money, and that they should pay for themselves. The direct result of this is that only projects and ideas that stood a good chance of turning a profit or putting bums on seats would get produced. [14]

The cultural fall-out has seen a safety-first appetite for revivalism and the procedural narrowing of the creative spectrum. As a consequence, culture appears to have lost its momentum.

From deep individualised complexity to mass generic simplicity. Less is less, and in our trance-like state the options we are presented with are hypnotically familiar, no matter where we are in the world. [14]

Until the mid 80’s, design was essentially virtuous; its role was to efficiently communicate the benefits of a product, service or organisation. The new political landscape encouraged highly competitive markets to employ a range of nascent marketing techniques. Graphic design was seen as a device that could best deliver the consumer imperative of ‘style’. Design was compelled to adopt a deceptive dimension in order to fulfill this service function.

The creative sphere has lost sight of its purpose; the enticements
of money and success have produced a culture of conformity, of second-guessing the market. [15]

Culture has become “mass culture”, eagerly consumed by an increasingly style conscious audience. In many ways Brody and his contemporaries were responsible for the popularization of design. The 1980’s and 90’s have been declared the age of design.  

Design has been hijacked by corporate and institutional forces in order to add spin and gloss to all aspects of communication [14]

Starbucks is more indicative of our era of design than the iMac. The company employs dozens of designers to ensure their stores ‘design language’ remain fresh and distinctive. [12]

25 years of stagnation may be a reference to the creative explosion that occurred at the end of the 1970’s. Punk was the anti-establishment, youth movement that became an empowering cultural phenomenon. Nothing since has had the same wide-ranging impact. The underground is now exposed. Subversion and dissent have become assimilated into the mainstream.

By the 90’s, design had infiltrated every aspect of underground and anti-establishment style. What was once deemed revolutionary was by now standard commercial culture. The radical fringes of design have been assimilated into the mainstream in order to market trainers and soft drinks.

The radicalisation of British design that started with Saville and Brody came to a crescendo with groups like Why Not Associates, Fuel, Cartlidge Levene and Tomato, and represented a wave of graphic expression that can compare favorably with Holland, Switzerland, Japan, Germany and the USA [4]

The digital revolution ushered in a new wave of designers. New technologies encouraged design that was both highly complex and visually inventive. Designers Republic and Attik were prominent in the early 2000s. In recent years, Jonathan Barnbrook has combined politics and commerce in work that is part-protest, part-art.

In a world obsessed with appearance, design and advertising have become the ubiquitous texture of popular culture. Everyone is design-literate, just as everyone is inherently suspicious of its motives.

The gulf between image and reality is an accepted part of political discussion as much as the phenomenon of ‘spin’. Spin is accepted as the normal way to conduct public affairs. Design has become too efficient to be believable. [13]

I suggest that the following factors have had a profound influence on culture during the past 25 years:

Political landscape

25 years ago Britain was enduring Thatcherism at it’s union bashing, yuppie loving, bank de-regulating, ‘lodsa money’ zenith. Tory policies spelt the end of traditional left wing political opposition to neoliberalisation. Creativity is often at its most potent when it has something to rail against. The removal of any seemingly viable alternative to late capitalism has led to a pervading culture of cynicism. By taking an ironic distance form the worst excesses of post Fordism, we are free to consume with impunity.

Privatization strategies have shaped the dominant political paradigm since Thatcher adopted it as official political philosophy. Favoring free markets over government regulation, associating liberty with personal choice of the consumer. [1]

As government set about stripping the state from everyday life, free markets became the incorporeal fabric holding the social system together. Design and advertising became essential business tools. Generating value on the stock exchange is an exercise in branding and PR, marketing future potential. This celebration of success culture inevitably led to market crashes, the ‘dot com’ bubble burst and latter day global financial contagion.

Later, ‘young British artists’ responded to sleaze and general right wingery by self-organisation and tendencies to push the limits of taste. Co-opted, re-branded as part of Cool Britannia [11]

A series of ‘velvet revolutions’ removed communist governments throughout Central and Eastern Europe during the 1980’s. With the symbolic dismantling of the Berlin Wall, western capitalist society could declare victory over socialism in the east. The end of the cold war lifted the imminent threat of nuclear Armageddon. This bland political landscape offers few of the ideological conflicts that have inspired previous generations of politicised artists. Ironically, the bewildering levels of bureaucracy inherent in late-capitalism are reminiscent of Stalinist state control.

Since 1989 and the end of communism, capitalism was hailed as the swaggering master of the universe. Political philosophers declared history has ended. Ideological struggle has run its course. [13]

The collapse of communism spelled the meaningful ‘end of politics’. Popular culture regards politics as corrupt and ‘boring’. Any attempt to debate the need for social change is regarded as vaguely archaic. Political protest is reduced a series of hysterical demands which have no realistic chance of success.

 

Cultural dynamics

By the last half of the 20^th century modernism, the last truly revolutionary creative movement had been rendered obsolete by capitalism’s alter ego postmodernism.

Modernism proposed an alternative, oppositional and Utopian culture whose class base was problematic, and whose ‘revolution’ failed. When modernism (like the contemporary socialisms) finally did come to power, it had already outlived itself, what resulted from this postmodern victory was called postmodernism. [8]

Postmodernism is the consumption of sheer commodification. Consumption is the only means of obtaining the resources of life, whether material or cultural. Culture, the ideas, customs and art circulated within a social system, has become just another product.

The lack of any alternatives to this cultural malaise is best illustrated by Jameson and Zizek, who stated, “It is easier to imagine the end of the world than it is to imagine the end of Capitalism”. [5]

Capitalisms rapacious pursuit of profit is at odds with any notion of sustainability. The engines of post-Fordism are fueled by a ceaseless diet of pastiche and revivalism.  In late capitalism, stylistic innovation is no longer practicable. The ceaseless rehashing of obsolete products and styles is another signal that we are experiencing the ‘end of history’.

The cynicism apparent in contemporary youth culture is symptomatic of a belief that change is impossible. Instead of revolutionary demands for change as their French counterparts of May 1968, today’s students only take to the streets in order to try to prevent change.

Youth movements have continued to influence design – most notably the late 1980s and early 1990s acid house. However, every attempt to establish an alternative lifestyle is quickly commodified and sold back to its instigators. ‘Alternative’ and ‘independent’ are no longer gestures of rebellion but are merely styles of popular culture.

“There is no such thing as underground because corporate culture has infiltrated youth culture & utterly co-opted it. Youth has the comfort of material opportunity – but as they hunt for something to believe in, corporate ‘cool hunters’ are lurking in the shadows taking notes” – Rachel Newsome Dazed & Confused [13]

Hip-hop with its uncompromising attitude and obsession with authenticity or ‘real’ has been easily absorbed into the capitalist mainstream. ‘Reality’ originally meant institutionalized racism, harassment by the police and social deprivation but soon became a hedonistic celebration of the trappings of capitalism (bling).

Technology & media

The 1^st generation of desktop computers started to arrive in the workplace in the mid 80’s. The proliferation of these devices helped to break the cartel of the creative industries, harnessing the power of the pixel to fuel the dark arts of consumerism. These devices provide a complete set of production tools for the user.

“Offset printing changed what we could achieve on a press, Photoshop reinvented imaging, Fontographer made everybody a type designer, and the PostScript page description language made all of us production experts.” - Erik Spiekermann [16]

The microcomputer was an icon for neoliberalism and the power of free markets. Gorbachev said it was the west’s success in high technology that inspired the Soviet Union to rethink their economic model in the 80’s [3]

Demand for graphic design has increased along with its do-it-yourself capability. The audience has become the author. However, pre-set parameters encoded into software mean that by definition everything digital is designed to look the same.

The ‘information superhighway’ appeared in 1993 and quickly became the self-referencing forum where ideological debates over meaning, pleasure, knowledge & power are played out. The web has liberated mass media. Prior to the Internet, a narrow elite of cultural gatekeepers guarded access to the audience. The price of emancipation is a digital blizzard of mediocrity.

 “Instead of a dictatorship of experts, we’ll have a dictatorship of idiots,” “Many bloggers flaunt their lack of training and formal qualifications as evidence of their calling, their passion,” [6]

The Internet is producing the cult of the amateur, a dumbing down of culture, in which innocence is replacing expertise as the determinant of value. [10]

The World Wide Web has become the connective tissue of society. It is the perfect vehicle for today’s introspective digital narcissism – isolated in the connected world. Andrew Keen sees this as ‘hypervisibility’ – being everywhere and nowhere simultaneously. [9]

The Internet represents perhaps the final step in the process of our rejection of the very notion of culture having any value at all [6]

Conclusion

There are more qualified designers, producing more design, than at any time in history. The power of the tools these designers are using contribute to an increasingly complex and sophisticated visual dialogue. It is difficult to believe therefore, that it is possible for there to have been any quantifiable drop off in the quality of work produced during the past 25 years.

What is apparent is the socio-economic landscape has diminished the cultural impact of graphic design. The all-pervading nature of late capitalism ensures that any radical diversion is tempered by a combination of cynicism and commodification.

Popular culture is not consumption; it is culture – the process of generating & circulating meanings & pleasures within a social system. [7]

Like many of his contemporaries, Brody has succeeded in constantly re-inventing himself, ensuring the ‘brand of Brody’ remains relevant fresh & spiky. In fact, one could easily come to the conclusion that the whole ADF exercise is one of pure self-aggrandisement.

Where the ADF manifesto is more pertinent, is the assertion that we stand on the brink of a new era. The political and cultural sterility of the past 25 years may represent the final twitches of a doomed economic ideology. Whatever ethos finally replaces late capitalism, it will need to harness imagination and creativity in order to negotiate the impending threats to mankind.

Bibliography:

[1] Barber, B.R. (2007) Consumed. 2^nd ed. New York: Norton

[2] Brody, N . (2011) Untitled. (Lecture 18 February 2011 as part of the Faculty of Design Lecture Programme at the London College of Communication, curated by Sarah Temple and Joshua Trees) Available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LmPKwfHABk&list=PL21AE901DF8436463&index=7&feature=plpp_video

[3] Calabrese, A, Sparks, C. (2004) Toward a political economy of culture. Marylnd: Rowman & Littlefield

[4] Dennis, T. (2010) Iconic eras of UK design. Available online at http://www.computerarts.co.uk/in_depth/features/iconic_eras_of_uk_design

[5] Fisher, M. (2009) Capitalist realism. London: Zero Books

[6] Flintoff, JP (June 3, 2007 ) Thinking is so over, interview with net entrepreneur Andrew Keen. The Sunday Times

[7] Fiske, J. (1989) Understanding popular culture. 2^nd ed. London: Routledge

[8] Jameson, F. (1991) Postmodernism, or the cultural logic of late capitalism. London: Verso

[9] Keen, A (2012 ) Digital Vertigo. Available online at http://www.ajkeen.com

[10] Keen, A and Bell, E (2007) Andrew Keen v Emily Bell available online at http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/aug/10/andrewkeenvemilybell

[11] Merron, A (2010) Speakers Corner. Available online at http://www.ameliasmagazine.com/art/anti-design-festival-as-seen-by-participant-dave-charlesworth/2010/10/12/

[12] Postrel, V. (2003) The substance of style. London: Harper Collins

13] Poynor, R. (2001) Obey the giant. 2^nd ed. Basel: Birkhauser

[14] Relph-Knight, L. (2010) Guide to the Anti Design Festival Design Week. 14/09/10 pp15

[15] Sharratt, C. (2010) An anti-design for life. Available online at http://www.creativetimes.co.uk/articles/an-anti-design-for-life

[16] Webster, G. (2010) A decade of graphic design. Available online at http://www.computerarts.co.uk/in_depth/features/a_decade_of_graphic_design

[17] Anti Design Manifesto (online) Available at http://antidesignfestival.wordpress.com