The Cowl - v.80 - n.14 - Jan 28, 2016

The Cowl - student newspaper of Providence College. Vol 80 - No. 14 - January 28, 2016. 24 pages

Speaking about things: oral history as context

‘Speaking About Things: Oral History as Context’ draws on life history interviews conducted under the auspices of two oral history projects: the Life Story Collection at The British Library National Sound Archive [2003-4] [LSC], and the Voices in the Visual Arts [VIVA] project based at Camberwell College of Arts, University of the Arts London [2005-]. Oral histories, while focusing on the singularity of individual testimony, are here understood as creating ‘a vital document to the construction of consciousness, emphasising both the variety of experience in any social group, and also how each individual draws on a common culture: a defiance of the rigid categorisation of private and public just as of memory and reality’ (Samuel & Thompson, 1990: 2). The paper, therefore, addresses the value of life stories (sections within the overall life history) to demonstrate the ways in which interviews with designers offer a ‘thick description’ of the networks in which designers are situated as subjects. How designers talk, rather than write, about their work, and designed objects, in oral history interviews reveals their visual and embodied memories in everyday practice in which designed objects are not autonomous productions but are recollected as arising in a web of recollected images and references which all contribute to the meaning of ‘design’ and the identity of a designer

Postmodernism: Style and Subversion 1970-1990

‘Postmodernism’ was the final instalment of a 12-year series of V&A exhibitions exploring 20th-century design. It examined a diverse collection of creative practices in art, architecture, design, fashion, graphics, film, performance and pop music/video, which the curators, Pavitt and Adamson (V&A/RCA), identified under the common theme of ‘postmodernism’. The exhibition assessed the rise and decline of postmodern strategies in art and style cultures of the period, exploring their radical impact as well as their inextricable links with the economics and effects of late-capitalist culture. The exhibition comprised over 250 objects, including large-scale reconstructions and archive film/video footage, drawn from across Europe, Japan and the USA. It was the first exhibition to bring together this range of material and to foreground the significance of pop music and performance in the development of postmodernism. Pavitt originated and co-curated the exhibition with Adamson. They shared intellectual ownership of the project and equal responsibility for writing and editing the accompanying 320-page book (including a 40,000-word jointly written introduction), but divided research responsibilities according to geography and subject. The research was conducted over four years, with Pavitt leading on European and British material. This involved interviewing artists, designers and architects active in the period and working with collections and archives across Europe. The research led to the acquisition of c.80 objects for the V&A’s permanent collections, making it one of the most significant public collections of late-20th-century design in the world. The exhibition was critically reviewed worldwide. For the Independent, ‘bright ideas abound at the V&A’s lucid show’ (2011). It attracted 115,000 visitors at the V&A (15% over the Museum’s target) and travelled in 2012 to MART Rovereto, Italy (50,000 visitors) and Landesmuseum Zürich, Switzerland (70,000 visitors). Pavitt was invited to speak about the exhibition in the UK, USA, Poland, Portugal, Ireland and Italy (2010-12)

Music, movies and meaning: communication in film-markers' search for pre-existing music, and the implications for music information retrieval

While the use of music to accompany moving images is widespread, the information behaviour, communicative practice and decision making by creative professionals within this area of the music industry is an under-researched area. This investigation discusses the use of music in films and advertising focusing on communication and meaning of the music and introduces a reflexive communication model. The model is discussed in relation to interviews with a sample of music professionals who search for and use music for their work. Key factors in this process include stakeholders, briefs, product knowledge and relevance. Searching by both content and context is important, although the final decision when matching music to picture is partly intuitive and determined by a range of stakeholders

My boy builds coffins. Future memories of your loved ones

The research is focus on the concept of storytelling associated with product design, trying to investigate new ways of designing and a possible future scenario related to the concept of death. MY BOY BUILDS COFFINS is a gravestone made using a combination of cremation’s ashes and resin. It is composed by a series of holes in which the user can stitch a text, in order to remember the loved one. The stitching need of a particular yarn produced in Switzerland using some parts of human body. Project also provides another version which uses LED lights instead of the yarn. The LEDs - thanks to an inductive coupling - will light when It will be posed in the hole. The gravestone can be placed where you want, as if it would create a little altar staff at home. In this way, there is a real connection between the user and the dearly departed

Intellectual Property or Intangible Chattel?

Currently this virtual property is governed under a system where initial rights are allocated to traditional intellectualproperty rights holders, and subsequent rights are governed by license agreements called End User License Agreements(EULAs). The traditional intellectual property rights holders have been systematically eliminating any emerging virtualproperty rights which game players may be entitled to by the use of EULAs, causing an imbalance in resources and rights.Perhaps items and characters created in virtual worlds by players should be treated as intangible chattel whileallowing the underlying designs and code of the game designers to retain their intellectual property rights. Justas a person feels that when they have purchased a book, they own the book but not the copyright in the book; sotoo should a player own the characters and items (as intangible chattel) in the game’s virtual world withoutacquiring the underlying copyright in that virtual world

Lion and The Unicorn

Exhibition 2-10 May 2011 to mark 60 years of RCA participation in post war UK design. Sponsored by Royal Commission for the Great Exhibition of 1851, Sandersins and Napier heritage Trust, RCA Gulbenkian Gallery Kensington Gore, Catalogue of exhibition boards by Claire Pajaczkowska and Henrietta Goodden and curatorial essay 1851-1951-2011 by Claure Pajaczkowska and Barry Curti

Ballast Quarterly Review, v15n2, Winter 1999-2000

A journal devoted to wit, the contents of which are intended to be insightful, amusing, or thought provoking.https://scholarworks.uni.edu/ballast/1056/thumbnail.jp

The Work of Fred Troller: An Evaluative Study of a Graphic Designer

This thesis will provide a process to help graphic design scholars and historians conduct an evaluation of a designer whose work has been rarely documented within a specific design style. Through implementation of this model of research and evaluation, graphic design scholars will not only be able to identify that designer\u27s philosophy and personal style, they will also recognize the value of studying within a specific style of graphic design. This evaluation process includes placing the work of the rarely documented designer beside the work of pioneers in this stylistic idiom in order to highlight similarities of thought, process, form and implementation. The opportunity to do this recently arose with the donation of Swiss designer Fred Troller\u27s personal collection for inclusion in the Graphic Design Archive at Rochester Institute of Technology. Fred Troller\u27s work has remained largely undocumented. His work enables this thesis to determine a model by which the work of any rarely documented designer can be placed within an historical context. Rat holds sufficient comparable work within the Graphic Design Archive so that Troller\u27s work can be substantiated as an integral component of Swiss design, which was known for its strict use of mathematical grids, objectivity, and asymmetrical sans serif typography (flush left, ragged right). The evaluation process this thesis provides will enable the design scholar or historian to better understand an established design idiom. As a consequence, this knowledge can be appropriately applied to a design solution, rather than merely mimicking certain visual elements. For the purpose of this thesis, a Swiss \u27tool kit\u27 is a metaphor for the design characteristics that must be learned before the designer can explore the characteristics to capture the style of a certain movement. Within this figurative tool kit, a lexicon of Swiss design characteristics can be found. After gaining a better understanding of each syntactical term in the tool kit, the characteristics may be used to enrich the possibilities for solving current graphic design problems