Notes from New Views

I just sent my feedback to Teal Triggs. As I'm trying to get done all I want to do before packing up for Clifftop (officially: The Appalachian String Band Music Festival, http://www.wvculture.org/stringband/), I'll enter here some of my comments. I'll continue to add and revise as what transpired at the conference begins to sink in and integrate.

Questions:
1. Please describe and/or visualize, the methods and process by which your Conversation Cluster facilitated your conversation and to develop its findings (If a visualization, please feel free to send this as a separate pdf file).

We began with a lot of questions. I regret I didn’t document this process ---- the questions ---- the way we began to fill out our newsprint posters.

I suggested we might just be asking questions, but even as we agreed we began to make some definitive statements, e.g.: interdisciplinarity is inherent in practice but it is in pedagogy that we feel there can be enhanced intentionality and a richer theoretical and methodological framework.

We asked more questions. We engaged a lot. No one person “had the answer”. We split up into three groups and worked in smaller teams to address questions we found most compelling.

We circulated among the groups.

From my perspective, there was not a single facilitator. Each member took an active roll leading an idea. A very democratic, fluid process.

2. What did you learn from your participation in NV2?
That hierarchy can choke discussion.
To listen better, and to continue to place this as a priority
To trust my instincts
To love the process of group truth-finding
To engage
To work harder to sustain conversation. With the standard format for most conferences, to our solitary presentation, we often arrive (if not slightly nervous or excited) focused on our presentation, our theories, or projects, or presentation. Once we present, there is that sense that “our work is done”. With this format, our work just begins. Or so I felt. I feel a responsibility to continue the discussion and further explore issue raised by my cluster.

3.What challenged you?
I was challenged to listen with an open mind to some participants air frustrations that were what I would have called irrelevant. It challenged me to see how these concerns WERE relevant. I tend to maintain an optimistic view and was challenged to embrace those with pessimistic views or frustrations.

I was challenged by the view that “Graphic Design is in Crisis”. I developed a conviction that graphic design is undergoing an evolution and it is those who operated under previously–accepted assumptions and systems who are in crisis themselves.

4. What did you take away from this event? What was the key benefit or contribution that participating in the conversations provided? How did this add to your engagement with this field of design?

I took away the reminder that graphic design – as controversial a term as it is – is about making things. But just what those things are is up to us. It is the ambiguity of the term graphic that appeals to me and repels others. And this is what creates an exciting tension between discussion, theory and creating.

I am further reminded of how “truth” is built by discussion, and testing, and debate and by the acceptance of debate with out dialectic, or resolution. I think more now about embracing differences and not needing to have consensus or a single. Truth then is a dynamic weaving of truths.

I left with a very rewarding sense of having been part of a rich and intimate dialogue with designers, design educators, and students. The intimacy of the group allowed us to identify issues that are of concern to all of our colleagues and us.

I also believe strongly that this format is a radical new approach to viewing what interdisciplinarity means in design. This non-hierarchical format has paved the way for a huge shift in design conversation. Less about one person’s “wisdom and knowledge” and more about shared wisdom and knowledge. This sort of format seems to be leading in the evolution (not the careening toward crisis) of the profession.