De___SIGN, Revealing the Condition of the

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ISBN: 9788838694059
Prooceedings of the Cumulus Conference, Milano 2015
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3-7 June 2015, Milano, Italy
Editors
Luisa Collina, Laura Galluzzo, Anna Meroni
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Education Italy
Politecnico di Milano
Design Department
School of Design
Poli.Design
Fondazione Politecnico
For further information on Cumulus Association:
Cumulus Secretariat
Aalto University
School of Arts, Design and Architecture
PO Box 31000, FI-00076 Aalto
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E: cumulus@taik.fi
W: http://www.cumulusassociation.org
ISBN 9788838694059
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Conference Colophon
President of Cumulus International Association of Universities and Colleges of Art, Design and
Media.
Conference Chair
Luisa Collina / Design Department, Politecnico di Milano.
Conference Manager
Laura Galluzzo / Design Department, Politecnico di Milano.
Scientific Committee Chairs
Ezio Manzini / DESIS Network
Anna Meroni / Design Department, Politecnico di Milano.
Tracks Chairs
Nurturing
Eleonora Lupo / Design Department, Politecnico di Milano.
Sarah Teasley / Royal College of Art
Paolo Volonté / Design Department, Politecnico di Milano.
Envisioning
Giulio Ceppi / Design Department, Politecnico di Milano.
Stefano Marzano / THNK, School of Creative Leadership.
Francesco Zurlo / Design Department, Politecnico di Milano.
Experimenting/Prototyping
Banny Banerjee / Stanford University
Paola Bertola / Design Department, Politecnico di Milano.
Stefano Maffei / Design Department, Politecnico di Milano.
Incubating/Scaling
Anna Meroni / Design Department, Politecnico di Milano.
Cabirio Cautela / Design Department, Politecnico di Milano.
Gjoko Muratovski / Auckland University of Technology.
Assessing
Lia Krucken / Universidade do Estado de Mina Gerais.
Pier Paolo Peruccio / Politecnico di Torino.
Paolo Tamborrini / Politecnico di Torino.
Disseminating/Communicating
Elena Caratti / Design Department, Politecnico di Milano.
Paolo Ciuccarelli / Design Department, Politecnico di Milano.
Mark Roxburgh / University of Newcastle.
Training/Educating
Luca Guerrini / Design Department, Politecnico di Milano.
Pablo Jarauta / IED, Istituto Europeo di design.
Lucia Rampino / Design Department, Politecnico di Milano.
International Affairs
Anne Schoonbrodt / Design Department, Politecnico di Milano.
Visual Communication
Andrea Manciaracina, Umberto Tolino / Design Department, Politecnico di Milano.
Pictures
Massimo Ferrari
Translations and English Editing
Rachel Anne Coad
Graphic and Interior Design
Tina Fazeli, Elisabetta Micucci Rebecca Squires / Design Department, Politecnico di Milano.
International Review Board
The conference adopted double blind peer review.
Yoko Akama, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology
Jose Allard, Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile
Zoy Anastassakis, Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro
Nik Baerten, Pantopicon
Giovanni Baule, Politecnico di Milano
Elisa Bertolotti, Politecnico di Milano
Alessandro Biamonti, Politecnico di Milano
Massimo Bianchini, Politecnico di Milano
Luigi Bistagnino, Politecnico di Torino
Sandy Black, University of the Arts London
Spyros Bofylatos, University of the Aegean
Gustavo Borba, Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos
Brigitte Borja de Mozota, Paris College of Art
Clare Brass, Royal College of Art
Caelli Brooker, University of Newcastle
Graeme Brooker, Middlesex University London
Sam Bucolo, University of Technology Sydney
Daniela Calabi, Politecnico di Milano
Barbara Camocini, Politecnico di Milano
Angus Campbell, University of Johannesburg
Daria Cantù, Politecnico di Milano
Michele Capuani, Politecnico di Milano
Michelle Catanzaro, University of Newcastle
Manuela Celi, Politecnico di Milano
Eunji Cho, Hunan University
Jaz Choi, Queensland University of Technology
Matteo Ciastellardi, Politecnico di Milano
Carla Cipolla, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro
Luisa Collina, Politecnico di Milano
Chiara Colombi, Politecnico di Milano
Sara Colombo, Politecnico di Milano
Marta Corubolo, Politecnico di Milano
Vincenzo Cristallo, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy
Robert Crocke, University of South Australia
Heather Daam, Institute without Boundaries Toronto
Chiara Del Gaudio, Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos
Alessandro Deserti, Politecnico di Milano
Loredana Di Lucchio, Sapienza Università di Roma
Jonathan Edelman, Stanford University
Davide Fassi, Politecnico di Milano
David Fern, Middlesex University London
Silvia Ferraris, Politecnico di Milano
Venere Ferraro, Politecnico di Milano
Alain Findeli, University of Nimes
Elena Formia, Università di Bologna
Marcus Foth, Queensland University of Technology
Silvia Franceschini, Politecnico di Milano
Teresa Franqueira, Universidade de Aveiro
Carlo Franzato, Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos
Karine Freire, Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos
Marisa Galbiati, Politecnico di Milano
Laura Galluzzo, Politecnico di Milano
Giulia Gerosa, Politecnico di Milano
Miaosen Gong, Jiangnan University
Carma Gorman, University of Texas at Austin
Francesco Guida, Politecnico di Milano
Ashley Hall, Royal College of Art
Michael Hann, University of Leeds
Denny Ho,The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Stefan Holmlid, Linkoping University
Lorenzo Imbesi, Sapienza Università di Roma
Ayelet Karmon, Shenkar - Engineering. Design. Art
Martin Kohler, HafenCity University Hamburg
Cindy Kohtala, Aalto University
Ilpo Koskinen,The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Peter Kroes,TU Delft
Peter Gall Krogh, Aarhus University
Carla Langella, Seconda Università degli Studi di Napoli
Yanki Lee, Hong Kong Design Institute
Elisa Lega, University of Brighton
Wessie Ling, Northumbria University
Cyntia Malagutti, Centro Universitário Senac
Naude Malan, University of Johannesburg
Ilaria Mariani, Politecnico di Milano
Tuuli Mattelmaki, Aalto University
Alvise Mattozzi, Università di Bolzano
Mike McAuley, University of Newcastle
Lisa McEwan, Auckland University of Technology
Stuart Medley, Edith Cowan University Western Australia
Massimo Menichinelli, Openp2pdesign
Cynthia Mohr, University of North Texas
Nicola Morelli, Aalborg University
Afonso Morone, Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II
Francesca Murialdo, Politecnico di Milano
Andreas Novy, WU Vienna University of Economics and Business
Marina Parente, Politecnico di Milano
Raffaella Perrone, ELISAVA Escola Superior de Disseny
Margherita Pillan, Politecnico di Milano
Francesca Piredda, Politecnico di Milano
Marco Pironti, Università di Torino
Paola Pisano, Università di Torino
Giovanni Profeta, Scuola Universitaria Professionale, Svizzera Italiana
Agnese Rebaglio, Politecnico di Milano
Livia Rezende, Royal College of Art
Dina Riccò, Politecnico di Milano
Francesca Rizzo, Università di Bologna
Rui Roda, University of Aveiro
Liat Rogel, Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti
Valentina Rognoli, Politecnico di Milano
Margherita Russo, Università degli studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia
Dario Russo, Università di Palermo
Fatina Saikaly, Cocreando
Giuseppe Salvia, Nottingham Univesity
Daniela Sangiorgi, Lancaster University
Daniela Selloni, Politecnico di Milano
Anna Seravalli, Malmo University
Giulia Simeone, Politecnico di Milano
Michele Simoni, Università Parthenope
Eduardo Staszowski, Parsons The New School for Design
Cristiano Storni, University of Limerick
Shehnaz Suterwalla, Royal College of Art
Kate Sweetapple, University of Technology Sydney
Virginia Tassinari, MAD Faculty Genk
Carlos Teixeira, Parsons The New School for Design
Adam Thorpe, Central Saint Martin
Paola Trapani, Unitec Institute of Technology Auckland
Raffaella Trocchianesi, Politecnico di Milano
Federica Vacca, Politecnico di Milano
Fabrizio Valpreda, Politecnico di Torino
Francesca Valsecchi,Tongji University
Beatrice Villari, Politecnico di Milano
Katarina Wetter Edman, University of Gothenburg
Robert Young, Northumbria University
Salvatore Zingale, Politecnico di Milano
1052 - The Virtuous Circle - Cumulus conference June 3-7, 2015, Milan
In particular, these phenomena are often restricted to conservative and traditional visions when it comes to representations of gender. We explore how the
media dimension of design proliferates imagery and text, which contribute to
the cultural limiting of gender and identity.
The connection between design and its media image produces a culture, which
heavily influences the construction of identity and contributes to the development of certain concepts of lifestyle. However, this media dimension reduces these
representations of lifestyle and identity as design theorist Hlide Bouchez (2013)
claims, these lifestyles and identities are often reduced to “homogeneous, non-critical, spectacular form”
Because gender is a culturally, socially and politically constructed phenomenon,
we can question its construction within the context of design, as a primary
producer of cultural milieu and more specific to our study, to design media, as
a vehicle that unites the cultural, social and political constructions of gender
through representation. As sociologist Don Slater (1998) articulates
“not only my identity but the social relations themselves are reproduced through
culturally specific consumption [design] and by changing or rejecting the consumption codes of my culture, I negotiate both identity and aspects of the culture”.
In order to to confirm this relationship through culture it is necessary to distinguish between biological sex and the cultural term ‘gender’. Seminal queer
theorist, Paul B. Preciado (2013) sites that
“in 1955, the North american pedo-psychiatrist John Money coined the term ‘gender’, differentiating it from the traditional term ‘sex’, to define an individuals
inclusion in a culturally recognised group of ‘masculine’ or ‘feminine’ behaviour
and physical expression”
Following on from this, the concept of gender has become a central pillar of
feminist thought because it emphasises the fact that categories like woman,
man, femininity, and masculinity do not come from biology or nature.Therefore,
gender, as a concept and a cultural term, is socially, culturally or politically manufactured. In this sense, it can be modified or changed, it isn’t frozen or permanent.
As a precursor to the rise of queer theory, Butler (1990) argued
“… gender reality is created through sustained social performances (which)
means that the very notion of an essential sex and a true abiding masculinity
or femininity are also constituted as part of a strategy that conceals gender’s
performative character and the performative possibilities for proliferating gender
configurations outside restricting frames …”
Disseminating & Communicating - 1053
It is often assumed that gender and biological sex are mutually exclusive as
Butler states
“Strategies of exclusion and hierarchy are also shown to persist in the formulation
of the sex/gender distinction and its recourse to ‘sex’ as the pre-discursive as well
as the priority of sexuality to culture”.
This assumption creates a culture based on the binary rhetoric.This is the assumption that we witness heavily in design media. We clearly see this represented in
the pages of Frame magazine, where both the visual and textual language refer
to the primacy of binary gender as if it were the workings of biological sex.
If we break this down, the idea of gender can be seen as a construction in the
mind and a presentation on the site of body. In Delusions of Gender, Cordelia
Fine (2010) reveals how the idea of gender is not hardwired in the brain. Fine is
a neuroscientist and within this context, she deconstructs common perceptions
of gender difference though extensive scientific experimentation. She argues
that the extent to which social and cultural factors influence our perceptions
of gender are almost inexhaustible. Her neurological investigations map how
“the circuits of the brain are quite literally a product of [the] physical, social, and
cultural environment, as well as... behaviour and thoughts”.
This highlights how the social phenomenon of gender becomes part of our
cerebral biology. What Fine identifies is a limitless series of learned responses
to gender. Marking these attitudes as inherently implicit, we see how easily they
can distort our social perception
The fact that gender is not a fixed or static notion is a key idea which
challenges the way gender is currently framed in design media.We can question
the construction of gender within the context of design media, because this
vehicle is directly linked to the production and reproduction of culture.A culture
which produces and reproduces fixed notions of gender through imagery and
language. For example, within the visual deconstruction of Frame magazine
it was near impossible to find reference (via language, image etc) to gender
positions counter to the established notions of male and female.
Butler outlines the potential or a release of gender from sex and into the
realm of culture. This release prefaces our rethinking of how the media can
become aware of it’s accountability as a cultural agent.
“if gender is not tied to sex, either casually or expressively, then gender is a kind
of action that can potentially proliferate beyond the binary limits imposed by the
apparent binary of sex. Instead, gender would be a kind of cultural/corporeal
action”.
However, to investigate this idea within in the murky boarders of design, and
within the pages of Frame magazine, design must be positioned similarly to how
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key architectural theorist Beatriz Colomina (1996) positions architecture in Sexuality and Space; that is, we should see beyond design as object and understand
it fully within a system of representation.
Slater continues this understanding by discussing how the objects of design
cannot be simply functional because they exist within a web of cultural meaning.
“advertising and marketing attach extraneous meanings to basically functional
objects (the perfume does not just smell nice, it signifies or promises sexuality,
femininity …). The cultural meanings of things appear not only superfluous but
mystifying and exploitative”.
Therefore we cannot simply read design through the objects themselves, we
must recognise an encounter with the meanings they project through the vehicle of publicity.Alternatively, we connect these meanings to the creation of identity and our relationship with the body.
According to Colomina, “the body has to be understood as a political construct,
a product of such systems of representation rather than the means by which we
encounter them”.
Thus, design is reread in sexual terms and human sexuality is seen as a direct
link to how people communicate in society. Berger (1990) understands this as a
core mechanism used by publicity.
“… uses sexuality to sell any product or service. But this sexuality is never free in
itself; it is a symbol of something presumed to be larger than it: the good life in
which you can buy whatever you want”.
What this also means is that the sexuality that is sold is prescribed.As we can see
in the following image, Narrow visions of acceptable lifestyles are consistently
reproduced.
This collection of images, presented and re-arranged, reflect the ‘life-styling’,
gender profiling and determine how sexuality is represented in Frame magazine.
Here we site the research of lecturer Paul Frosh on the ‘generic image’ of stock
photography to explain the link between these images and clear stereotypes. In
reference to the generic image, Frosh describes these as
“glossy, formulaic, multipurpose representations of consumer well being and
corporate achievement (smiling, white, middle-class families at the beach, wellgroomed businessman shaking hands) arranged in catalogues according to general categories, simultaneously reflecting and rein-scribing cultural stereotypes”
These stereotypical images support something of a universal narrative. In other words; design is positioned as a system of cultural production that holds
power to dictate idealised, universal lifestyles under the guise of consumerism
Disseminating & Communicating - 1055
FIGURE 1 - FRAME Magazine visual deconstruction: Montage The Universal Narrative
and the seeking of a ‘better life’. Within this universal narrative, the politics of
difference are omitted from the scheme.This universal narrative is one of white
heteronormativity.
As Warner (1993) states directly “So much of heterosexual privilege lies in heterosexual culture’s exclusive ability to interpret itself as society”
Design theorist Bruce King Shey (2005) describes the universalism of design as a
“self-referential, self-preserving, self-justifying narrative: better design, better products, better life”
for the universal citizen. By producing itself as the norm, the mechanism of
design media thinks of itself as representative,
“but produces a culture for a self-referential community of bodies”.
Similarly, Berger links this more specifically to the media by saying
“Publicity is the culture of the consumer society. It propagates through images that
societies belief in itself”
This is concluded by Slater
“Consumer culture comprises systems of signs or codes which determine the meanings of all goods for all people (generally through advertising) and indeed ‘constitute the people themselves through the subjectivities produced”.
1056 - The Virtuous Circle - Cumulus conference June 3-7, 2015, Milan
The trouble here is that cultural norms are so prolific and the messages are so
subtle that underlying stigmas are barely recognisable. We are quite saturated
by an encounter with cultural representations of human objectivity. So much so
that human subjectivity quickly turns to objectivity when the complexity and
intricacy of the human condition is reduced to image. We become this image
and our relationship to this system is mimetic. As Finkelstein (1991) outlines in
reference to the industrialised, high technology societies of our times that
“… the human body, as if no different from other manufactured objects, can be
used as a commodity… like the purchased object, the body can be made a sign …”
Therefore, we witness a reliable, yet falsely constructed reality projected in
design media. This is dominated by representations of the comfortable, good,
better life. That life is communicated as predominantly white, middle-class, heterosexual and male dominated; this is considered a universal narrative. This
projection implies that communication design operates within hidden (almost
unconscious) structures which adversely influence the diffusion of knowledge,
so much so, that it appears natural.
These relationships are at the core of a semiotic structure that imbues objects
with meaning. This is a language that we can use to interpret and interrogate
the meanings associated with objects (If we are aware of it). On the contrary,
it is a language that can be used by the market to manipulate the meanings
behind objects. This language is also culturally specific and we use it to divide
up and classify the world according to culture. In this investigation we recognise
semiotics as a structure, but it is not to become the focus of the deconstruction.
Through a process of naturalisation we see how a simple element as it relates
to others, connotes certain meanings. For example, when objects are connected
to people, perhaps associating a particular thing with a particular type of person
can produce particular meanings. Slater discusses how
“Sign systems, at whatever level, are distinctly cultural in the sense that they are
ways in which particular societies divide up and organise the world and they are
arbitrary with respect to the real world: there is no more reason for smelly liquids
to signify femininity than for bat dug or the evening star to do so. However, signification appears capable of making femininity appear to be the natural property
of perfume …”
DE_______________SIGN
To SIGN
To design is [among other things] to … deceive?
DE_SIGN_er: one who schemes This is the origin of the word
We sign
We sign
We signify
We identify
Disseminating & Communicating - 1057
But … we are already designed, refined,
WE BECOME A SIGN Man. woman. boy. Girl1
To break apart the word design is a very important starting point.Taking the DE
from _ the SIGN opens up a space for questioning. Because this question interrogates how ‘design’ has presented a distorted system of gender representation.
As such, it seeks a new vocabulary for how it can be constructed differently. To
De_sign becomes something of an action; to search for ‘the (de) sign’ or to strip
away ‘the signs’ imbedded in any manner of things
Vilèm Flusser wrote About the Word Design in 1993. As both a noun and a
verb,
“The word is derived from the Latin signum, meaning sign…Thus etymologically,
design means de-sign”.
the word was seen to imply scheming and a level of deception.
“the word design makes us aware that all culture is trickery, that we are tricksters tricked, and that any involvement with culture is the same as thing as
self-deception”.
This take on the word design becomes particularly interesting when we look it
in terms of the construction of gender, identity and the body.
Cultural artefacts indicate and inform social relationships by existing within
the system of representation. If representation indicates a system of signs, the
origin of the word DE_SIGN becomes important for it’s implications. SIGNS are
imbedded in the cultural artefacts produced within the framework of design.
The signs indicate and inform social relations as well as reinforcing social order.
This process of DE_SIGNing will be used to understand gender as a construct
which is influenced in part by media communication structures.
A RE_reading of design from this perspective is vital in order to decipher how
the gender, identity and the body is currently represented by one of the biggest
producers of culture. Our goal is therefore to destabilise established cultural
constructions by considering them from a predominantly feminist, queer, trans*
perspective. Within this framework, design media is considered a sociopolitical
and cultural structure that can simultaneously inform and inhibit subversive
positions of identification.
We see that a cycle of consumption keeps fixed understandings of gender in
place.The signs and symbols of man and woman in their established relationships
are known and reproducible for mainstream consumption. Berger confirms that
Opening passage from Performance Dialogue, introduction to Frame Magazine Visual
Analysis. December 2013
1
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“Publicity is, in essence, nostalgic. It has to sell the past to the future. It cannot itself
supply the standards of its own claims. And so all its references... are bound to be
retrospective and traditional”.
Design media employs this structure to sell such a lifestyle to the widest possible
audience. So, if all consumption is related to culture and culture constitutes the
needs that make up consumption, then, as individuals we assume an identity
based on the things and the meaning of the things we consume. We reflect and
demonstrate this identity within a complex system of codes. Codes that relate to
the things we consume for ourselves.This identity and meaning is shared using
the cultural resources of language. We continually reproduce our own identity
and our shared identity within culture, until it constitutes a certain lifestyle. We
analyse this process in the following visual deconstruction of Frame Magazine.
THE MEDIATED BODY: FRAME MAGAZINE
To further understand this communication system and make these ideas tangible,
a visual deconstruction pulls apart a popular mainstream design publication.
One years worth of FRAME magazine was physically dissected and reveals how
specific gender ideals and the mediated body are positioned to culturally FRAME
gender.
Frame Magazine was chosen for this analysis for the following reasons; It's
content diversity, wide readership and popularity as a professional publication,
multidisciplinary approach, and ability to influence. The following publications of FRAME have been analysed:
FRAME #95 Nov/Dec 2013
FRAME #94 Sep/Oct 2013
FRAME #93 Jul/Aug 2013
FRAME #92 May/Jun 2013
FRAME #91 Mar/Apr 2013
FRAME #90 Jan/Feb 2013
FRAME #89 Nov/Dec 2012
To begin the deconstruction, we perform a visual surgery with a scalpel and
paper. The bodies represented in the publication are physically cut away from
their contexts and the objects they are pictured with. These are the bodies featured in advertisements for design objects as well as the bodies of designers
pictured with their work. This process of visual endurance, slows down the
speed with which we consume these images and reveals the condition of the
mediated body.
To employ our method of DE_signing to decipher the inherent meanings,
we link basic objects with higher aspirations of cultural meaning for example,
in the deconstruction of FRAME we note specific examples of how objects
have been linked to traditional and nostalgic cultural associations. Many of these
associations were found to be problematic.
Disseminating & Communicating - 1059
FIGURE 2 - FRAME Magazine visual deconstruction: Moooi montage Monster Chair
To describe one alarming cultural association, we see how the Monster Chair
by Marcel Wanders is photographed by Erwin Olaf to indicate an exoticism and
an eroticised relationship between a chair and a body. In an advertisement for
Moooi, we see the depiction of a woman in a box with a chair. The chair is a
black leather chair and features a grimacing, assumed to be primitively abstracted
face embroidered into the leather. The female body featured with the chair is
nude, dark skinned and mimics the facial abstraction of the chair. Their body is
wrapped around the chair, not sitting on the chair. The relationship indicates
this body as an object. We can read this relationship as strongly colonialist. This
woefully redundant cultural ideal is used to imbue the chair with certain exotic
qualities. It is a stereotypical image of an anonymous subject which harks back
to when British colonial powers transformed one young African woman into an
icon for racial inferiority and female sexuality. This illustrates a racist mind set
common in 19th Century Europe and an image that has become a lasting symbol
of Western colonial appropriations of Africa.
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FIGURE 3 - FRAME Magazine visual deconstruction: Moooi montage
Coupled with this, is imagery of the conventionalised body.A black and white
chess table designed by Sofia Lagerkvist and Anna Lindgren (2009) is featured
with two male presenting bodies, one black one white, one dominates the other
by their position on top of the table, while the other is wrapped around the base.
The description of the object reads:
"The decoration on the side table can be used for playing games. A table for past
time, rivalry and cleverness."
Does this relationship signify competitive notions of black and white? This is not
the strongest example, but it can still subtly indicates certain social
relationships.
In addition to this imagery, we also witness the nostalgia of the female gaze
again in the Moooi, Inside the Box series, photographed by Erwin Olaf. As well
as demonstrations of power relationships in the advertisements for Modular
Lighting.
Disseminating & Communicating - 1061
FIGURE 4 FRAME Magazine visual deconstruction: Moooi montage + Montage & La Grande
FIGURE 5 - FRAME Magazine visual deconstruction: Modular Lighting montage + Montage & Pan Pursuing
Syrinx, Hendrick Van Balen
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FIGURE 6 - FRAME Magazine visual deconstruction: Montage The Designers
Advertisements are notorious for these outmoded representations. However, if
we understand them in the context of a publication that also presents designers,
then a strange image emerges. In the visualisation of women and men in their
role as designers we note a disproportionate representation by the magazine,
that of 80% male presenting bodies, to 20% female presenting bodies. To view
this in light of the advertising, a conservative reinforcement of social dynamics
is visible.
Here it should be noted that it is not the intention to divide designers into
'female designer' and 'male designer' but for the purposes of the analysis, this
separation indicated a reinforcing of social orders. The separations were made
quite clear by the publication in their use of headlines like 'Man with a purpose',
'Mr Chair', 'Renaissance Man', 'Master meets Machine', 'Design Diva', 'Metal
Matriarch', 'Grand dame of curation'.
Additionally, the posturing of the designers when posing for photographs
was easily grouped into several standard positions which also indicated certain
established behaviours related to the construction of gender. If we understand
gender to be a repeated stylisation of the body, these arrangements make such
an idea explicit
Disseminating & Communicating - 1063
The conclusion that can be drawn from this reading is that we are heavily
manipulated and seduced by cultural representations.Within these representations
gender is a dominant social ordering principle.As such, approaches to gender can
become regulatory, exclusive, fixed, manufactured, taught and learned.This raises
questions of autonomy and the body, of conventionalised bodies, pathologised
bodies and fear of bodies.The deconstruction indicates that design media frames
objects to sell, by using traditional and nostalgic relationships. Outdated power
relationships between the fixed idea of man and woman are still used prolifically
to create ideologies around objects. The female and male form is objectified in
this media (more frequently, the female form). As such, publicity uses sexuality
to sell products or services this sexuality is both prescriptive and conservative,
it is clearly FRAMED publicity that indicates and reinforces social relationships.
It is not solely about objects. In this sense, gender remains bifurcated through
such representation.
Following the conclusions and presentation of this visual analysis, Frame
magazine was contacted directly and the editors invited to respond to the
findings of the analysis. This exchange took the form of a design debate. The
forum saw a discussion about the content of the analysis by Frame Editor Enya
Moore and an audience of young designers. The debate revealed vehement
responses to the topic by the audience members and some strong critiques
emerged. Broader issues were highlighted as a result.
When asked to comment on the visual deconstruction Moore responded by saying
“The way Frame was dissected – placing visuals and headlines plainly on one page
– really struck me, especially when I looked at the wording of the titles. Together,
words and visuals immediately influence readers’ opinions of the person in question and give people a certain conception of what the article is about prior to
reading it. I would definitely reconsider how the words I use might lead the reader”.
At this stage, the editors seemed most struck by the repeated body language of
the designers and the wording of the headlines. They declined to discuss the
effect of the advertising imagery for the obvious reason that the advertisers are
essentially clients of the magazine. It was suggested as a critique, that the magazine has the power to set the conditions for advertising imagery and can assert
what is appropriate or not when it comes to imagery.
When asked to comment on the ratio of male to female binaries, Moore explained
“they were not overly shocked by the ratio because that imbalance exists, regardless of how we portray it. Upon surveying their readers they found that 29 per
cent of respondents believed the future will bring a greater gender balance to the
profession, while 65 per cent consider gender irrelevant”.
It was extremely challenging to direct the discussion beyond traditional binary
understandings of gender.
1064 - The Virtuous Circle - Cumulus conference June 3-7, 2015, Milan
The moderator asked:“Is this a dichotomy – always reverting to male and female
and the ignoring the rest – easy to avoid”? To which the response was:“Absolutely.
Once you find words outside this binary position, you can start looking at an
identity beyond it”.
This indicates that current cultural understandings of gender are still connected
to a conservative history.
To conclude the debate, a member of the audience stated that, “Frame’s role should
not be to encourage a greater balance between men and women, but to take the
next step and look past gender”
As part of a communication cycle, this debate was important. It revealed an
effective method for holding various stakeholders culturally responsible for the
tools and artefacts it produces. This method used the language and structure
of the media against itself to reveal a different condition, one that was perhaps
hidden. The re-arrangement or re-framing of this visual information presented
clear counter interpretations and was able to visualise underlying structures in
an obvious way.
Effectively, a shared space of questioning was entered into as the analysis
became participatory and interactive.
This shared space and collaboration continued when Frame magazine
decided to include the findings of the analysis and highlights from the debate in
an article for the Frame 100 issue 2014.As this article explores a critique of their
publication, it is testament to the openness of the magazine to be reflective. In
this way, the publication gave recognition to cultural critique, which inevitably
developed their approach to cultural production. They were surprised to see
their publication presented in that way and made concerted efforts to address
that reading/interpretation in a transparent way.
We conclude that design media presents a distorted system of gender
representation in which fixed and prescriptive notions of the male and female
remain and positions beyond that are barely visible. To approach an expanded
idea of gender within design media calls for a certain consciousness and attitude.
If we are to make gender irrelevant in this context we must work to question
why it has (even by default) been given so much relevance in the structure of
publicity. It is what we see culturally that determines and reflects the position
of gender in our society. An accountability that becomes part of a publicity
ethos can update how we are visualised. A final statement by Slater concludes a
potential to shift the way we determine meaning.
“Humans are still entirely constituted within semiotic processes but these are now
understood less as solid and reified structures than as boundless, endlessly fluid
and indeterminate flows, networks and libidinal economies”.
Gender, as a cultural construct, is captured in a similar way, as Butler comments
Disseminating & Communicating - 1065
“…gender itself becomes a free-floating artifice, with the consequence that man
and masculine might just as easily signify a female body as a male one and woman and feminine a male body as a female one”
A communication cycle, which actively responds to transforming cultural phenomena, is already functioning. When this cycle is further challenged to look
beyond itself, things get interesting. Design media is presented with both an
opportunity and a cultural responsibility to envision greater possibilities for our
lived identities.
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1066 - The Virtuous Circle - Cumulus conference June 3-7, 2015, Milan
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